I am wanting to go further and do some proper, structured learning with my Sony A6000. My ideal focus in on learning fundamental camera skills, as opposed to "a bit of everything", so would prefer courses to not touch on things like post-processing, which I am already learning from my wife and reasonably satisfactorily via books and Youtube videos. I can also in theory learn camera skills learn from my wife (who is a pretty serious enthusiast) but given that we are time poor, when we go out, I'd prefer to be building on our relationship and letting her enjoy shooting, rather than holding my hand. She's cautioned to watch seriously for "Pro-DSLR/DSLR only type snobs" (she shoots using DSLR herself), who sometimes like to make mirrorless users' lives difficult. And I've already experienced this once when making initial inquiries with one photographer whose course originally looked interesting.
The kind of learning I would like to do is one-day workshops in Auckland (not interested at this stage in going to tours). So far, I have identified a few possibilities:
Three Little Wishes - These guys seem the best to me so far. The run almost weekly beginners and intermediate workshops and when both are purchased together, the price ($300) is very reasonable. I like the fact that they have very transparent profiles as to who the tutors are, in addition to having two tutors in each class. More importantly, since they have such regular classes, if a weekend is rained out, I don't have to wait months on end to go to another one. And they are transparently not gear snobs. They also have a separate landscape photography course that would be of interest to me.
Bring Your Own Laptop - Their three-course combo could be worth it for me just for the landscape and street photography courses alone... if everything goes well. The other advantage is the one free resit of courses. But the real downer is the very spread out dates of the beginner's course. Auckland being Auckland, all it takes is a couple of rainy weekends and I am "stuck" indoors doing just classroom work for the beginner's course and then finding that I am trying to do the advanced stuff without formalised introductory "shooting" training. Also the complete lack of tutors' profiles is a bit alarming. Their Lightroom training looks interesting though - I might just go to that.
Phocus Photography Workshops - Again, the date ranges look very restrictive and there appears to be a bit of post-processing stuff mixed into the courses.
Any other tips and/or comments on the above providers? I'd appreciate any comments/suggestions :)