Reimagination Workshops
Hands-on artistic photography and imagery training, focusing on envisioning and realization
Introduction As part of the broader community of artists, I enjoy sharing knowledge that will help others discover and express the beauty that good photographic art comprises. In response to requests to demonstrate the techniques I use to capture and process my images, and based on over two decades of instructional and mentoring experience, I am developing several workshops for a wider audience.
​
The workshops listed below are suitable for two audiences:
-
Photographers who are interested in moving beyond technical photography and developing their artistic sensibilities
-
Artists seeking to apply their talents to the world of photography and employ the camera and fine art photographic prints as yet another tool and medium at their disposal.
​
Why Workshops? A vast array of excellent technical content is available on the internet, but viewing instructional materials is not enough: You need to apply that knowledge through practical, hands-on experience, with feedback and encouragement. Workshops offer a venue for acquiring this experience and come with the additional benefit of interacting with participants and benefiting from their contributions.
​
Some workshops will be open to a mix of people drawn from two self-described groups: Those who consider themselves to be capable photographers but seek to progress artistically, and those who feel artistically fluent but constrained by the camera. I also plan to offer separate sessions tailored to the unique characteristics of each of these groups.
​
What Will I Learn? The emphasis is on developing and infusing artistry into your photography using the techniques of composition, color, contrast, and shading (tone) to realize the imagery envisioned by your imagination. I assume you are already comfortable with using a camera, downloading its images, and performing basic editing. More advanced workshops on using the software listed in my Toolbox will be added at a later date as they require a classroom environment with suitable technology.
​
Availability At this time, the one-day workshops listed below are still under development. Dates and venues will be published well in advance of a particular workshop becoming available.
Descriptions and Schedules
Plein Air Artistic Photography
Location: TBD
Still life photography often involves moving objects around in a controlled indoor environment to achieve a specific composition and effect. In this workshop, the tables are turned and you will be in an uncontrolled outdoor environment where you are the one moving around to achieve the same result using the fixed subjects at hand.
This is not intended as a landscape photography workshop but rather as a means of challenging yourself to move beyond simply documenting your environment and to progress into looking at the world around you from an artistic perspective.
Dates: TBD
Level: Novice and Intermediate
Requirements: Any digital camera (including cell phones with a good image sensor) and the ability to perform basic editing (cropping, and adjusting brightness, contrast, and saturation)
Finding Image Gold in the Dross
Location: TBD
How often have you captured an image and found it lacking after you first view it on your monitor? Why is it that what you saw is not what you now see? What can be learned about the way our eyes and minds process a scene that will explain why the camera sometimes seem to lose so much of its richness and depth? What can be done to take a better picture in the first place and what can you do during image editing to restore what was diminished?
​
This workshop will cover the topics from my blog series of the same name.
Dates: TBD
Level: Intermediate
Requirements: You must have at least one high resolution digital image file that has potential but seems to resist your attempts to leverage it. High resolution images will be collated from participants before the workshop to ensure enough material is available for study.
Moving from Color to Grayscale
Location: TBD
Color imagery dominates our world, but you may be missing out on creating stunning imagery unless you consider using grayscale (popularly known as black and white) in your photography.
This workshop explains how our eyes see color and grayscale images, and reviews examples from my photography and that of the participants to explore how particular types of images have benefited or might be improved by reimagining them in grayscale.
Dates: TBD
Level: Intermediate
Requirements: None, but before the workshop you may submit two full color high resolution digital image files that you believe are candidates for rendering in grayscale
