Finding Focus One-To-One
Not sure where to begin? Start here.
A one-hour conversation about your photography — where you are, what you're trying to do, and what would help most. I'll ask you to bring images you've made, talk about what drew you to photography, and tell me what frustrates you about it. From that, we'll work out together which path makes most sense for you.
The Finding Focus session costs £50 and is fully redeemable against any Foundations group or one-to-one course booking. It's not a sales pitch — it's a genuine assessment, and if the honest answer is that something else would serve you better than working with me, I'll tell you so.
£50 — fully redeemable against your Foundations Group or One-To-One Course
See all available dates on the Training Calendar
About The Sessions
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I work with photographers at all levels — complete beginners building foundations, experienced amateurs wanting to move beyond competence, and working practitioners looking to develop a more intentional and personal practice.
Sessions are practical and hands-on. We work from where you are, not from a fixed syllabus. Depending on what you need, we might cover the technical fundamentals of exposure, light and composition; how to work with and direct people in front of a camera; developing and articulating your own photographic vision; or the editorial and post-production decisions that shape a finished image.
What I won't do is tell you what to photograph, or prescribe a single correct approach. My job is to equip you with the tools to answer those questions for yourself — and to help you trust your own answers.
All sessions are in-person, based in and around Cambridge.
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Photography culture can be unnecessarily intimidating. The obsession with equipment specifications, mega-pixel competition, and the unspoken hierarchies of gear and genre put many people off before they've even begun — and disproportionately so for people who've been told, implicitly or explicitly, that technical subjects aren't for them.
The same culture would have you believe that you need the latest camera body, the sharpest lenses, and a significant financial investment before you can begin to make worthwhile images. You don't. What you need is a camera that gives you creative control — the ability to make conscious decisions about exposure, light, and composition. Beyond that, the rest is you.
That's not the culture here. The skills of photography are learnable by anyone with curiosity and commitment. What I'm interested in is helping you develop confidence — in your technical ability, in your creative instincts, and in your own distinctive way of seeing the world.
If you're unsure whether what you already own is enough to get started, the answer is probably yes. See our equipment guide.
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Attention → Intention → Creation → Reflection
This is the AICR Method — the framework that runs through every session and through every serious photographer's practice, whether they name it or not.
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You'll get the most from working with me if you're genuinely curious about photography as a practice — not just as a means of capturing moments, but as a way of making meaning. You don't need to be experienced. You don't need expensive equipment. You don't need to have spent time in photography clubs or online forums. You just need to be willing to think as well as shoot.
If that sounds like you, a Finding Focus Session is the best place to start.
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Subject to sufficient interest, future sessions will include smartphone photography — making the most of the camera you always have with you — and analogue film photography, including home developing. If either of these interests you, register your interest via the link below and you'll be the first to hear when dates are confirmed.
Meet Your Instructor
Xander Sandwell
I'm Xander Sandwell, a Cambridge-based photographer and educator. My practice spans portrait, editorial and fine art photography — work exhibited at the Photographers' Gallery London, the Annenberg Center California, and the Ruskin Gallery Cambridge, and featured in Digital Photography Magazine and the Guardian. I hold a BA and MA in Photography and am currently completing a PhD by practice at the University of Gloucestershire. That academic background informs everything I do as an educator — I think carefully and seriously about what photography is, what it does, and how it works, and I bring that thinking into every session I run.
