[Closed] Photo Course Recommendations? and someone to avoid

I was given a photo course for Christmas, and I arranged to go with Mark Pain from  http://sportsphotographyschool.co.uk/ for his DH Mountain Biking Course at Aston Hill.

Mini Rant about that below, but first the question... can anyone recommend me a photo course ideally focused on mountain biking?

So, onto my mini rant....

I booked onto and paid Mark for the course, and all seemed well.

However the race was cancelled due to the snow (beast from the east) not Marks fault, these things happen.

They published a new date for the race, Mark asked if I would be free then, and I was, however it took weeks for him to confirm he would be re-sceduling the course for this date, and not cancelling or offering something else.

Pretty poor communication from Mark, I had to keep chasing for updates but not the end of the world.

Come the date of the rescheduled race, and I drive the 100 miles to Aston hill, get there nice and early and wait at the allotted meeting place place...

When Mark is half an hour or so late I contact him asking where he is...

It transpires he is ill and isn't coming. he emailed me to tell me.

Later on he checks, and finds he emailed the wrong email address... so he says he will re-arrange for another date.

I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, and assume all he has told me is true, however weeks go by with nothing from Mark, and after all this, I decide I've lost patience with him.

I email asking him to refund me the course, very quickly he responds and he apologies, agrees, but asks me if I would like to come to a rugby photo course instead. I say sorry but I'm not interested in that, please refund me.

At this point, its disappointing but, again not the end of the world. Happy for that to be the end of it and to chalk it up to a bad experience.

However after a further week he hasn't sent the refund. So, I throw my toys out the pram, and  I raise a PayPal dispute (fortunately I paid by PP, not gift). OK I've only given him a week, but still....

Two further weeks go by, as he has the chance to respond to the PayPal dispute. He doesn't respond.

So I escalate the case, he gets 10 days to respond to that, and doesn't. Finally I have been refunded by PayPal.

So, I perhaps this was a one-off maybe lots of people have had great experiences with Mark Pain.

Maybe he's a brilliant teacher, but I would say steer clear of him given my experience.

/minirant