Classes
Winter & Spring Photography Classes
Our live, interactive, and instructor-led photography classes take place online in small groups generally limited to 6 to 8 students. We give each other feedback in real time, with students participating live from around the world.
We offer classes that specialize in storytelling, long-term projects, documentary and street photography, environmental portraits, making photobooks/zines, composition, still life, multimedia, and technical courses in Lightroom, InDesign, Premiere Pro and more.
Evening Class
Create Your Own Zine or Photobook with InDesign
Adobe’s InDesign is the most flexible and powerful application to design and layout a photobook or zine. This 6-session class is for students who are new to InDesign and also those who’d like a refresher to work on a project. We’ll discuss developing a visual concept to fit your specific story, and cover step-by-step instructions on workflow, how to best plan and setup a project, how to use the most important InDesign tools, and how to prepare, import, and resize photos.
We’ll discuss working with text, fonts, and typography, and you’ll learn to speak the language of printers and designers. You’ll also get recommendations for where to print your particular project. We’ll look at a variety of zines and photobooks for design inspiration and discuss different design ideas. Students will work on their projects throughout the course, so that by the end (depending on the scope of the project), you could have a layout ready to print. This class is limited to only 6 students to give individual attention to each person’s project. We’ll meet as a group for 5 sessions every other week, followed by a private 1-on-1 session to work together on your specific book or zine.
Edward Ratliff is a multi-disciplinary artist and educator. In the visual realm, he’s a graphic designer who works in print and digital media with clients ranging from individual artists to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His film, video, and installation work has been exhibited internationally.
As a composer and multi-instrumentalist, he’s led bands in clubs, theaters, and festivals across New York City and in Europe and Asia, and has received numerous commissions and grants for dance and theater scores. His music has been heard in shows on Netflix, HBO, Nickelodeon, Hulu, PBS, and more — everything from a biography of Dostoyevsky to Real Sex Xtra. He “is best known for making richly cinematic music that captures New York City’s momentum and diversity” (The Wall Street Journal) and has been called “a wonderfully spunky and imperturbable trumpet player” (The New York Times).
strudelmediadesign.com
Mini-Workshop
Motherhood and Photography
In this one-hour workshop we explore the unique intersection of motherhood and photography by uncovering its history and probing our own personal practice. People have often looked to photography to witness the messy multitude of life, but how specifically has the camera been used as a tool in the ongoing gaze of our own motherhood? This workshop will center on lecture and discussion, featuring photographers, writers, and other visual artists who use motherhood as a subject, motif, or vehicle for transformation.
Kat Shannon is a multidisciplinary artist, curator, and educator working in photography, text, and video, currently based between São Paulo, Brazil, and Orlando, Florida. Her work examines notions of intimacy, human connection, gender, community, and culture. She holds degrees in photography from Savannah College of Art and Design (BFA) as well as Bard College (MFA).
Kat has held teaching positions at Yeshiva University, Brookdale College, Stetson University, Middlesex College, and ICP, and previously worked for three years as the head curator at an art consultancy in New York. In 2017 Kat co-founded the collaborative artist collective Memory Foam through which she curates exhibitions, publishes and collects artists' books and zines, and produces an artist interview series called “Artists Eat Ice Cream.”
Kat teaches Ways of Seeing, Photography as Pilgrimage, and other personal vision classes for StrudelmediaLive.
Evening Class
An Exploration of Community Through Portraiture
It can be difficult to photograph people you don’t know, to overcome the fear and uncertainty that comes with approaching and photographing strangers. But closeness and understanding — of people, and of a place — is the basis for making portraits that are intimate and revealing. In this course, we’ll examine the tools you need to navigate and overcome those fears.
We’ll delve into questions and concerns that arise from the desire to photograph people we don’t know — people we’d like to know better, beyond just making a likeness of them. Along with regular assignments, supportive critique, and discussion, we’ll take a deeper look into the work of Judith Joy Ross, Walker Evans, Christine Osinski, Joel Sternfeld, Alec Soth, and others — all of whom have worked in the tradition that we are navigating and adding to.
Olga Ginzburg is a Belarusian-American photographer based in New York City. With an interest in open-ended narrative and its potential for subtle and layered meaning, her work explores notions of place, identity, home, community, and biculturalism. Olga graduated from the City College of New York, and her work has twice been included in the Triennial of Staten Island Photography at the Alice Austen House Museum (2019 and 2023). Since 2019, Olga’s work has appeared regularly in The New York Times and other leading news outlets and has been featured on ABC’s Eyewitness News 7 in New York City.
Olga teaches street portraits for StrudelmediaLive.
ONLINE COURSE
Diving Deep: A Monthly Mentoring Group
This intimate mentoring group meets once per month and is for photographers and media artists who are looking for long-term support and continuity while working on a project. We’ll look at different approaches to storytelling and what to consider when working on a long-term project — from story structure, composition, editing, research, to different documentary and conceptual approaches. Each student receives individual feedback, and we’ll also discuss how to best present each student’s final project: on the web, in book form, an exhibition, or as a multimedia piece. A guest speaker (to be announced) will present their work and share their experience. This class is limited to 6 students only and each session runs for 3 hours with a 10 minute break. Includes a private 1-on-1 session.
Anja Hitzenberger is a photographer, filmmaker, consultant, and educator. She is the founder of StrudelmediaLive, an educational platform that offers live online photography classes and more to people around the world. Anja studied in the Creative Practice full-time program at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York City, and has been on the faculty there since 2009. She is dedicated to working with people from different cultures across the globe.
Her work has been exhibited in solo and group shows, film festivals, and on theater stages throughout Europe, the United States, South America, and Asia. Her photography has been published internationally and is a part of both private and institutional collections, including the International Center of Photography. She has received numerous artistic grants and has been awarded residencies in Rome, Paris, Warsaw, Beijing, and Tainan (Taiwan). A focus of her activities has been working with live performance, including producing a multimedia piece that toured in New York City, Austria, and Korea.
Anja has been teaching live online photography classes since 2015, as well as in-person workshops at organizations in New York, Europe, China, and Taiwan, including C/O Berlin, Three Shadows (Beijing), and FJUM (Forum for Journalism and Media – Vienna). Originally from Salzburg, Austria, she divides her time between New York and Vienna.
Mini-Workshop
Handmade Photo‑Zine Workshop
Zines are small books that are made quickly and cheaply (usually), and are often given away or sold for an affordable price. This 3-hour Mini-workshop is perfect for artists interested in exploring how making zines by hand can fit into their photography practice. We’ll go over how to make two different zine structures, as well as methods for creating layouts for them using either InDesign or Photoshop or analog options. Students can come ready with a sequence of 8 to 10 images or other content they would like to try out, and have a mockup in progress by the end of the class!
Elizabeth Castaldo is an artist, printmaker, and bookbinder based in Peekskill, NY and New York City. She has completed residencies at the Center for Book Arts (New York City) and Printmaker’s Open Forum (Oxford, PA). Castaldo received her MFA from Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) Atlanta where she was a Dean’s Fellow in Printmaking, and her BFA from the School of Visual Arts. In November 2020, her solo exhibition, Proximate Magic, was presented at Saint Joseph’s College in Patchogue, NY. Her work was included in the traveling exhibition, Freed Formats: The Book Reconsidered and she organized the exchange portfolio Earth/Mother for the SGCI 2020 conference “Puertografico.” She teaches printmaking and book arts at Parsons School of Design, Nassau Community College, and the Center for Book Arts. Her work is held in many private and institutional collections including SCAD, Yale University, The University of Alberta, and Carnegie Melon University.
Elizabeth teaches hand-made books for StrudelmediaLive.
ONLINE COURSE
Handcrafting Light for Portraiture, Interiors, and Still Life
This class looks closely at lighting for photography and how best to manipulate and handcraft it. Through demonstrations and weekly assignments, students will learn how to use ambient and artificial light to illuminate subjects. Understanding how light behaves will allow us to manipulate it through reflection, diffusion, and blocking as we use common household items as well as readily available professional equipment. Portraiture, self-portraiture, environmental portraiture, interiors, and still life photography will be considered in this course. We will look for inspiration at a variety of artists who are successful at sculpting light in their works. Supported by in-class critique, this is a good opportunity to work on a project that involves the handcrafting of light, or simply experiment with different techniques each week.
Néstor Pérez-Molière was born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and currently resides in the Bronx, New York. His art entails a process of self-discovery; a series of confessionals revealing private conflicts; hoping towards catharsis. Through this cathartic process he hopes to connect with the viewer’s struggles and depathologize negative feelings so that they can be seen as a source for political action rather than its antithesis. Néstor exposes mental health issues like depression, dysmorphia, food addictions, and loneliness: describing their mechanisms, scrutinizing their origins, and illuminating the impossibility of fixing them. His practice mainly takes place in the realm of photography but has also incorporated performance, drawing, video, installation, and intaglio techniques into his works.
He received an MFA from Hunter College and holds a BSc in Botany. He was part of EmergeNYC 2023, Artist in the Marketplace 2017, and Creative Capital’s Taller 2019 mentorship programs, and was included in The Bronx Museum of the Arts Fourth Biennial. He has exhibited at the Museo de las Américas, the Clemente Soto Vélez, Bronx Art Space, Longwood Gallery, and the Liga de Estudiantes de Artes de San Juan, Puerto Rico. In 2023 he was a resident at Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Governors Island Arts Center and Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts residencies. Interested in becoming an educator, he teaches, and has taught, digital and darkroom photography, as well as media literacy at the International Center of Photography, Parsons School of Design, Art Academy of Cincinnati, Fairleigh Dickinson University, The Point CDC, and StrudelmediaLive.
Néstor teaches lighting for still life, Lightroom, and more for StrudelmediaLive.
ONLINE COURSE
Rediscovering Your Forgotten Frames to Create New Work
Many of us have an overwhelming number of images in our archive — unused photos from earlier or unfinished projects, or just random pictures taken long ago. Explore the potential in your archive, whether you’re working on a project or wanting to start something new. Through weekly assignments, rediscover and repurpose those images by weaving them together with newly created ones to develop and find new stories and emotions in these forgotten frames. We’ll examine the work of artists, photographers, and writers — including Gerhard Richter, JH Engström, and Carmen Winant — who have dwelled in the past to create in the present. By the end of the course, you’ll have gained new tools to navigate and activate your archive and create meaningful connections with your current personal practice.
Helena Goñi is an artist driven by analog processes in photography and is a photobook enthusiast. Helena is from Bilbao, Spain, and is currently based in Brooklyn, where she moved in 2021 thanks to a Fulbright Scholarship to attend the International Center of Photography.
She holds an MFA in Photography from Central Saint Martins (London) and a BA in Fine Arts from the University of the Basque Country. She has been an artist-in-residence at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, BilbaoArte Foundation, Cité des Arts (Paris), and Koganecho AIR (Japan). Her work has been exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, the International Center of Photography, 3331 Arts Chiyoda (Tokyo), PhotoMuseum Zarautz (Spain), Aldama Fabre Gallery and others. She is also the founder of Caleidoscopio, a photography educational platform for youth in the Basque Country.
Mini-Workshop
Editing Your Pictures in iPhone’s Photos App
Take your iPhone photography to a professional level by learning all about the editing tools available in the Photos app. We’ll cover all the basics, from adjusting exposure to noise reduction, to available filters, to the new AI-generated editing tools, as well as how to share these works of art with others. This Mini-workshop is appropriate for artists, journalists, and others who need to maximize the quality of their iPhone photography.
Néstor Pérez-Molière was born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and currently resides in the Bronx, New York. His art entails a process of self-discovery; a series of confessionals revealing private conflicts; hoping towards catharsis. Through this cathartic process he hopes to connect with the viewer’s struggles and depathologize negative feelings so that they can be seen as a source for political action rather than its antithesis. Néstor exposes mental health issues like depression, dysmorphia, food addictions, and loneliness: describing their mechanisms, scrutinizing their origins, and illuminating the impossibility of fixing them. His practice mainly takes place in the realm of photography but has also incorporated performance, drawing, video, installation, and intaglio techniques into his works.
He received an MFA from Hunter College and holds a BSc in Botany. He was part of EmergeNYC 2023, Artist in the Marketplace 2017, and Creative Capital’s Taller 2019 mentorship programs, and was included in The Bronx Museum of the Arts Fourth Biennial. He has exhibited at the Museo de las Américas, the Clemente Soto Vélez, Bronx Art Space, Longwood Gallery, and the Liga de Estudiantes de Artes de San Juan, Puerto Rico. In 2023 he was a resident at Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Governors Island Arts Center and Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts residencies. Interested in becoming an educator, he teaches, and has taught, digital and darkroom photography, as well as media literacy at the International Center of Photography, Parsons School of Design, Art Academy of Cincinnati, Fairleigh Dickinson University, The Point CDC, and StrudelmediaLive.
Néstor teaches lighting for still life, Lightroom, and more for StrudelmediaLive.
Evening Class
Shake Up Your Photography!
This class will have you saying, “I never would have made photographs like these, and I love it!” Kai McBride has designed an all new series of prompts that will get you thinking in a fresh way about how you photograph. Whether you are still trying to find your photographic voice or are years into a large body of work, these assignments will challenge your approach to image-making and are guaranteed to knock you out of a creative rut and shake up your photography. Through group critique, we’ll analyze each student’s responses and we’ll seek inspiration by examining the work of a range of photographers. By the end of this class, you’ll be energized and inspired to expand your photographic vision. All fresh prompts, so this class is suitable for those who have taken one of Kai’s Shake-up classes before.
Kai McBride is a photographer, musician, teacher, and avid cyclist who recently uprooted from Brooklyn to sunny Santa Fe, New Mexico. He spent the last ten years teaching photography and managing the photo facilities at Columbia University, his alma mater, where he received an MFA in 2008.
Born on the island of Kauai in 1972, by his 18th birthday Kai had lived in California, Oregon, Mississippi, Wisconsin, Texas, Oahu, North Carolina, and Massachusetts. He sharpened his powers of observation while adjusting to life between suburban ranch-style homes, cabins with no running water, and a 20-foot teepee in the field of a commune.
His photographs have been exhibited in museum and gallery exhibitions, and are held in public and private collections. His first monograph, About Face: Picturing Tampa, was published by SPQR Editions in Fall 2016.
Kai teaches black and white photography, photobooks, and more for StrudelmediaLive.
ONLINE COURSE
Shake Up Your Photography!
This class will have you saying, “I never would have made photographs like these, and I love it!” Kai McBride has designed an all new series of prompts that will get you thinking in a fresh way about how you photograph. Whether you are still trying to find your photographic voice or are years into a large body of work, these assignments will challenge your approach to image-making and are guaranteed to knock you out of a creative rut and shake up your photography. Through group critique, we’ll analyze each student’s responses and we’ll seek inspiration by examining the work of a range of photographers. By the end of this class, you’ll be energized and inspired to expand your photographic vision. All fresh prompts, so this class is suitable for those who have taken one of Kai’s Shake-up classes before.
Kai McBride is a photographer, musician, teacher, and avid cyclist who recently uprooted from Brooklyn to sunny Santa Fe, New Mexico. He spent the last ten years teaching photography and managing the photo facilities at Columbia University, his alma mater, where he received an MFA in 2008.
Born on the island of Kauai in 1972, by his 18th birthday Kai had lived in California, Oregon, Mississippi, Wisconsin, Texas, Oahu, North Carolina, and Massachusetts. He sharpened his powers of observation while adjusting to life between suburban ranch-style homes, cabins with no running water, and a 20-foot teepee in the field of a commune.
His photographs have been exhibited in museum and gallery exhibitions, and are held in public and private collections. His first monograph, About Face: Picturing Tampa, was published by SPQR Editions in Fall 2016.
Kai teaches black and white photography, photobooks, and more for StrudelmediaLive.
ONLINE COURSE
Developing the Continuity between Your Life and Photography
Imagine a thread that represents the continuity between our lives and the images we create — what can we understand about ourselves through the photos we make? Let’s explore together how the way we live can express itself in our photographic practice. Our beliefs and values affect what we do and how we do it, and by looking closely at our artistic practice we can gain a better understanding about ourselves and our work.
Assignments, exercises, and analysis will be based on
observation and self-reflection, with the goal being that the images and texts you create
will help you develop a more clear and concise visual language. Through
conversation during class, you’ll understand and give meaning to the work you create and practice the tools
and methods to communicate your ideas through images. We’ll also examine the work of a variety of artists, including Cristina Kahlo, Hu Bo, Jon Henry, and Francisco Toledo, as well as art by the Pre-Raphaelite Sisters.
Students will develop a more clear understanding of their own photographic practice and learn tools to clearly craft a personal language to communicate their own unique ideas through their images — and in the process, understand more about themselves. This class is limited to 6 students only.
Born in Mexico City and now living in Brooklyn, Carlos works in bookmaking, portraiture, unique chromogenic prints, poetry, and street photography. Carlos earned a BA in psychology at the Universidad Autónoma de México, before transitioning to photography and studying at different institutions in Berlin, New York City, Oaxaca, and Mexico City, where he worked as a printer and production assistant for Cristina Kahlo for over 7 years. He completed his Creative Practices certificate at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York City in 2021. His work has been exhibited at venues including Centro Fotográfico Manuel Alvarez Bravo and Centro de las Artes de San Agustín in Oaxaca, Mexico; Imago Fotokunst (Berlin); and ICP (New York City).
Carlos teaches “Developing the Continuity between Your Life and Photography” for StrudelmediaLive.
Mini-Workshop
Beyond Automatic Mode: Creative Camera Controls
Your digital camera has different modes for shooting to choose from and in this hour-long workshop you’ll learn how to configure your cameras to get the creative results you want. We’ll develop a simple workflow to quickly choose the right settings for the given situation and learn how to avoid common pitfalls. You know that aperture, shutter speed, and ISO affect the look of your photographs — think motion blur, depth of field, and low-light sensitivity — but do you find yourself too often defaulting to fully automatic? Autofocus is fast and accurate, but sometimes focusing on the “wrong” thing is more interesting. Should you be “zone focusing” — whatever that is? This Mini-workshop is appropriate for anyone who would like to get the most out of their digital camera.
Kai McBride is a photographer, musician, teacher, and avid cyclist who recently uprooted from Brooklyn to sunny Santa Fe, New Mexico. He spent the last ten years teaching photography and managing the photo facilities at Columbia University, his alma mater, where he received an MFA in 2008.
Born on the island of Kauai in 1972, by his 18th birthday Kai had lived in California, Oregon, Mississippi, Wisconsin, Texas, Oahu, North Carolina, and Massachusetts. He sharpened his powers of observation while adjusting to life between suburban ranch-style homes, cabins with no running water, and a 20-foot teepee in the field of a commune.
His photographs have been exhibited in museum and gallery exhibitions, and are held in public and private collections. His first monograph, About Face: Picturing Tampa, was published by SPQR Editions in Fall 2016.
Kai teaches black and white photography, photobooks, and more for StrudelmediaLive.
ONLINE COURSE
Creating Environmental Portraits That Tell Powerful Stories
Ideally, a portrait should reveal the essence of who a person is — and one of the most effective approaches to making this happen is to photograph your subject in their own environment. In this class you’ll learn how to tell stories about people by photographing them in their own environments — their neighborhood or home, indoors or outdoors — and how to incorporate space to reveal intimate details.
Delve into environmental portraiture and learn ways to make your subjects feel comfortable, so that your images both illuminate their personalities and engage the viewer on a deeper level. We’ll examine the history of the environmental portrait and discuss the importance of collaborating with your subjects. Work by a selection of contemporary photographers, including those who combine environmental portraits with a documentary-style project, will be presented.
Anja Hitzenberger is a photographer, filmmaker, consultant, and educator. She is the founder of StrudelmediaLive, an educational platform that offers live online photography classes and more to people around the world. Anja studied in the Creative Practice full-time program at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York City, and has been on the faculty there since 2009. She is dedicated to working with people from different cultures across the globe.
Her work has been exhibited in solo and group shows, film festivals, and on theater stages throughout Europe, the United States, South America, and Asia. Her photography has been published internationally and is a part of both private and institutional collections, including the International Center of Photography. She has received numerous artistic grants and has been awarded residencies in Rome, Paris, Warsaw, Beijing, and Tainan (Taiwan). A focus of her activities has been working with live performance, including producing a multimedia piece that toured in New York City, Austria, and Korea.
Anja has been teaching live online photography classes since 2015, as well as in-person workshops at organizations in New York, Europe, China, and Taiwan, including C/O Berlin, Three Shadows (Beijing), and FJUM (Forum for Journalism and Media – Vienna). Originally from Salzburg, Austria, she divides her time between New York and Vienna.
ONLINE COURSE
Create Your Own Zine or Photobook with InDesign
Adobe’s InDesign is the most flexible and powerful application to layout and design a photobook or zine. This 6-session class is for students who are new to InDesign and also those who’d like a refresher to work on a project. We’ll discuss developing a visual concept to fit your specific story, and cover step-by-step instructions on workflow, how to best plan and setup a project, how to use the most important InDesign tools, and how to prepare, import, and resize photos.
We’ll discuss working with text, fonts, and typography, and you’ll learn to speak the language of printers and designers. You’ll also get recommendations for where to print your particular project. We’ll look at a variety of zines and photobooks for design inspiration and discuss different design ideas. Students will work on their projects throughout the course, so that by the end (depending on the scope of the project), you could have a layout ready to print. This class is limited to only 6 students to give individual attention to each person’s project. We’ll meet as a group for 5 sessions every week, followed by a private 1-on-1 session to work together on your specific book or zine.
Edward Ratliff is a multi-disciplinary artist and educator. In the visual realm, he’s a graphic designer who works in print and digital media with clients ranging from individual artists to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His film, video, and installation work has been exhibited internationally.
As a composer and multi-instrumentalist, he’s led bands in clubs, theaters, and festivals across New York City and in Europe and Asia, and has received numerous commissions and grants for dance and theater scores. His music has been heard in shows on Netflix, HBO, Nickelodeon, Hulu, PBS, and more — everything from a biography of Dostoyevsky to Real Sex Xtra. He “is best known for making richly cinematic music that captures New York City’s momentum and diversity” (The Wall Street Journal) and has been called “a wonderfully spunky and imperturbable trumpet player” (The New York Times).
StrudelmediaLive Community Weekend in New York City
On the Waterfront: In‑Person Weekend Workshop NYC
Dates: Apr 25–27, 2025
Time: 10am–5pm (ET)
Sessions: 4 (Friday, April 25 (afternoon), Saturday/Sunday, April 26–27, 10am–5pm (ET), with a follow-up online critique session on Sunday, May 4, 12–3pm (ET))
Limited enrollment: 12 students
Fee: $650
Join us for a weekend-long photographic exploration of the waterfront of New York City — discover the unexpected in a small group! There will be something new to experience for everyone!
Fri, April 25: 2-4pm (ET)
A special curated gallery tour with the StrudelmediaLive community, followed by a social get-together.
Sat/Sun, April 26/27: 10am–5pm (ET)
Over two days, you’ll discover the fascinating and varied waterfronts of New York City, including DUMBO, Far Rockaway, and more. Join us as we explore NYC’s iconic watery realms — mostly by ferry!
Activities on both days will be held outdoors as much as possible.
Sun, May 4: 12–3pm (ET)
The following Sunday, we’ll meet online to discuss and critique your fresh NYC photographs.
Please note: Make sure to wear good shoes because we'll be walking a good amount.
Thank you both very much for a great course. I loved watching the movie clips and seeing students' interpretation through your talented guidance. See you again soon!
—Ilene (New York City)
We just returned from a week away and found my zine waiting for me! I love it! Many thanks to you both and especially Edward for your time, expertise and patience as I began to learn InDesign. I am grateful and appreciative!
—Lisa (New York)
Anja Hitzenberger
Anja Hitzenberger is a photographer, filmmaker, consultant, and educator. She is the founder of StrudelmediaLive, an educational platform that offers live online photography classes and more to people around the world. Anja studied in the Creative Practice full-time program at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York City, and has been on the faculty there since 2009. She is dedicated to working with people from different cultures across the globe.
Her work has been exhibited in solo and group shows, film festivals, and on theater stages throughout Europe, the United States, South America, and Asia. Her photography has been published internationally and is a part of both private and institutional collections, including the International Center of Photography. She has received numerous artistic grants and has been awarded residencies in Rome, Paris, Warsaw, Beijing, and Tainan (Taiwan). A focus of her activities has been working with live performance, including producing a multimedia piece that toured in New York City, Austria, and Korea.
Anja has been teaching live online photography classes since 2015, as well as in-person workshops at organizations in New York, Europe, China, and Taiwan, including C/O Berlin, Three Shadows (Beijing), and FJUM (Forum for Journalism and Media – Vienna). Originally from Salzburg, Austria, she divides her time between New York and Vienna.
Anja teaches visual storytelling, environmental portraits, critique groups, and how movies can inspire your photography for StrudelmediaLive.
Join us for a weekend-long photographic exploration of the waterfront of New York City — discover the unexpected in a small group! There will be something new to experience for everyone!
Fri, April 25: 2-4pm (ET)
A special curated gallery tour with the StrudelmediaLive community, followed by a social get-together.
Sat/Sun, April 26/27: 10am–5pm (ET)
Over two days, you’ll discover the fascinating and varied waterfronts of New York City, including DUMBO, Far Rockaway, and more. Join us as we explore NYC’s iconic watery realms — mostly by ferry!
Activities on both days will be held outdoors as much as possible.
Sun, May 4: 12–3pm (ET)
The following Sunday, we’ll meet online to discuss and critique your fresh NYC photographs.
Anja Hitzenberger is a photographer, filmmaker, consultant, and educator. She is the founder of StrudelmediaLive, an educational platform that offers live online photography classes and more to people around the world. Anja studied in the Creative Practice full-time program at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York City, and has been on the faculty there since 2009. She is dedicated to working with people from different cultures across the globe.
Her work has been exhibited in solo and group shows, film festivals, and on theater stages throughout Europe, the United States, South America, and Asia. Her photography has been published internationally and is a part of both private and institutional collections, including the International Center of Photography. She has received numerous artistic grants and has been awarded residencies in Rome, Paris, Warsaw, Beijing, and Tainan (Taiwan). A focus of her activities has been working with live performance, including producing a multimedia piece that toured in New York City, Austria, and Korea.
Anja has been teaching live online photography classes since 2015, as well as in-person workshops at organizations in New York, Europe, China, and Taiwan, including C/O Berlin, Three Shadows (Beijing), and FJUM (Forum for Journalism and Media – Vienna). Originally from Salzburg, Austria, she divides her time between New York and Vienna.
ONLINE COURSE
The Shape of Shapes
In 2020, American artist Amy Sillman curated an exhibition for the Museum of Modern Art in New York City that drew from their vast collection. That exhibition didn’t actually happen due to COVID, but a virtual catalog was made for the show which, Instead of a central concept, looked at different artworks and how they dealt with shape. Sillman wrote that “basically everything in the world is a shape. It’s so mundane and so ubiquitous: every edge, corner, blob, form, silhouette, or negative space is something you have to navigate to get through a room. If you think of shape as figure/ground, then every shape is a figure and the ground is the whole world.”
We’ll focus on how different photographers — Lee Friedlander, Jan Groover, Thomas Ruff, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and others — use and work with shape. We’ll also examine shapes under different aspects like “the shadow,” “machines for seeing,” “eccentric abstraction,” and more, drawing from theoretical concepts like Gestalt Theory and Josef Albers’s Interaction of Color. Weekly photography exercises, accompanied by detailed analysis of your pictures, will help you see these principles at work. For those familiar with Stefan’s Gestalt class, this course will be a slightly looser and more playful way to explore different aspects of how shapes shape photography.
Stefan Frank is a photographer and writer, working from Heidelberg, Germany. Way before he came to photography, he studied mathematics and philosophy at Ruhr Universität Bochum and worked as an IT specialist. He studied at Atelier Smedsby with JH Engström and Margot Wallard in Paris in 2017, before he eventually began studying photography at Ostkreuzschule, Berlin, with Peter Bialobrzeski. He graduated in 2023 with the work Irgendwo (“Anywhere”), a project dealing with politically motivated crime and the terror-spree of the far right in Germany. He has been teaching with StrudelmediaLive since 2020, giving courses on surrealism, poetics of space, gestalt theory for photographers, and more. His work has been exhibited in Heidelberg, Frankfurt, and Berlin.
Stefan teaches the poetics of space, nighttime photography, and much more (including presenting The Photobook Show) for StrudelmediaLive.
ONLINE COURSE
Delicious Photography
Do you have a passion for both the culinary arts and photography? Bring both together in a single practice and discover how food photography can activate the senses. In this course, students will learn all the ins and outs of food photography in order to make viewers salivate. Through weekly shooting assignments, students will experiment with different types of foods as well as different moments in the process of preparing these delicacies. We will look at the work of professional masters of food photography and discuss what makes it look scrumptious. This course will also dive in on a do-it-yourself approach to lighting to make your plated food shine and glisten.
Throughout the course, students will develop a final project in which they photograph their family or personal recipes to develop into their own cookbook. We will discuss a variety of photographic moments in the process of building a cookbook, from step-by-step photography, mise en place, plated food, and environmental shots.
Néstor Pérez-Molière was born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and currently resides in the Bronx, New York. His art entails a process of self-discovery; a series of confessionals revealing private conflicts; hoping towards catharsis. Through this cathartic process he hopes to connect with the viewer’s struggles and depathologize negative feelings so that they can be seen as a source for political action rather than its antithesis. Néstor exposes mental health issues like depression, dysmorphia, food addictions, and loneliness: describing their mechanisms, scrutinizing their origins, and illuminating the impossibility of fixing them. His practice mainly takes place in the realm of photography but has also incorporated performance, drawing, video, installation, and intaglio techniques into his works.
He received an MFA from Hunter College and holds a BSc in Botany. He was part of EmergeNYC 2023, Artist in the Marketplace 2017, and Creative Capital’s Taller 2019 mentorship programs, and was included in The Bronx Museum of the Arts Fourth Biennial. He has exhibited at the Museo de las Américas, the Clemente Soto Vélez, Bronx Art Space, Longwood Gallery, and the Liga de Estudiantes de Artes de San Juan, Puerto Rico. In 2023 he was a resident at Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Governors Island Arts Center and Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts residencies. Interested in becoming an educator, he teaches, and has taught, digital and darkroom photography, as well as media literacy at the International Center of Photography, Parsons School of Design, Art Academy of Cincinnati, Fairleigh Dickinson University, The Point CDC, and StrudelmediaLive.
Néstor teaches lighting for still life, Lightroom, and more for StrudelmediaLive.
Mini-Workshop
Using Fill Flash to Tame High Contrast and Harsh Lighting
Why would you want to use your flash on a bright and sunny day? The answer is fill flash, the powerful yet simple technique of having the flash fill in the shadows and tame harsh lighting conditions. In this workshop, learn the theory, the ratios, and easy techniques of fill flash. We’ll cover how to set up your camera and flash to create balanced lighting despite strong backlighting and high contrast, for example for outdoor portraits. Whether you are looking to use the built-in flash on your camera or carry around a remotely triggered off-camera flash, this Mini-workshop will answer your questions and get you started.
Kai McBride is a photographer, musician, teacher, and avid cyclist who recently uprooted from Brooklyn to sunny Santa Fe, New Mexico. He spent the last ten years teaching photography and managing the photo facilities at Columbia University, his alma mater, where he received an MFA in 2008.
Born on the island of Kauai in 1972, by his 18th birthday Kai had lived in California, Oregon, Mississippi, Wisconsin, Texas, Oahu, North Carolina, and Massachusetts. He sharpened his powers of observation while adjusting to life between suburban ranch-style homes, cabins with no running water, and a 20-foot teepee in the field of a commune.
His photographs have been exhibited in museum and gallery exhibitions, and are held in public and private collections. His first monograph, About Face: Picturing Tampa, was published by SPQR Editions in Fall 2016.
Kai teaches black and white photography, photobooks, and more for StrudelmediaLive.
ONLINE COURSE
Cyanotype: Techniques and Experimental Applications
Cyanotype printing and its magical qualities — developed almost 200 years ago — has come back into the spotlight in recent years. Known for its distinct blue tones, this process is one of the most diverse photographic techniques, accessible to both beginners and devoted enthusiasts. In this comprehensive course designed for photographers and artists eager to explore this process, we’ll dive into the world of cyanotypes with a focus on paper and fabric materials. You’ll learn the skills for working with chemicals, materials, exposure, choosing photographs, and composing prints — as well as post-production and intervention experiments that make each piece of work unique. We will provide a solid understanding of the foundations, and then introduce a collection of alternative possibilities for expanding on your work with techniques such as toning with plant extractions, collage, and painting. Each session brings an assignment for students to practice with, followed by feedback, culminating in a final project. By the end, you’ll have a broader perception of the possibilities of cyanotype and a portfolio showcasing your work.
Daura Campos is a visual artist and photographer based in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. In her practice, she investigates social issues through experimental photographic techniques, pushing against expectations of representation and exploring what is often left unseen. Her process allows analog film to exist as a reactive being beyond a medium of choice and aims to ignite discourse about our relationship with photography and society.
Daura has exhibited at the CICA Museum (South Korea), MK Gallery (England), Rotterdam Photo (Netherlands), Pinakothek der Moderne (Germany), Museum of Art of Pereira (Colombia), Gallery 44 (Canada), and Open Eye Gallery (England), among others. Her work has been recognized by the IPA – The International Photo Awards — with an Official Selection Prize (2024), Analog Sparks Awards with second place in the Technique category (2024), a high commendation from The JUST Art Award (2023), and others.
Daura teaches alternative processes for StrudelmediaLive.
Samanta Ortega is a laboratory scientist, photographer, and art educator based in São Paulo, Brazil. Integrating the past, present, and future of the history of photographic processes, she is dedicated to exploring and sharing research on plant-based photographic developers in an experimental approach to film manipulation and studies within photochemistry. By valuing analog photography that is based on the reuse of materials and simplification of processes, she addresses accessible alternatives in spaces with different infrastructures and audiences of a wide age range and levels of knowledge. She has taught at institutions including SESC (Brazil), Pinacoteca de São Bernardo do Campo, and at analog photography festivals and independent cultural spaces focused on film photography throughout Brazil.
Samanta teaches alternative processes for StrudelmediaLive.
ONLINE COURSE
Learn to Create Photo Collages and Composites with Photoshop
Making photo collages (combining parts of multiple images into one) and composites (think diptychs and triptychs) can be an exciting way to extend your creative practice, but some of this you can’t do with Lightroom. With Photoshop, we’ll explore tools you’ll need to combine multiple images into one — including layers, different ways to select and cut parts of images, masking for hiding and revealing, how to resize and transform, and some retouching tools to enhance your images. Weekly assignments will help you feel comfortable navigating Photoshop and using the tools you need for your creative workflow. This class will begin with an overview of the Photoshop interface and settings, and is designed for those who are new to Photoshop, as well as students who want a refresher in these processes.
Lavonne Hall is a native New Yorker and has been extremely active in the photography and film communities for more than 25 years. She is a fine art photographer, a live-streaming influencer, and a social butterfly. She teaches at the International Center of Photography and the School of Visual Arts, where she received her Masters in Digital Photography (and for whom she developed two iPad apps). She presents Lightroom demos for Adobe and Wacom, has worked with Pentax, Fuji Film, B&H, KelbyOne, and Adorama among others, and is the coordinator of the NY Photo Salon. One of her passions is getting people out and about to experience life through photography.
Lavonne teaches color theory for StrudelmediaLive.
Mini-Workshop
Still and Moving Images
Photography and cinema, though distinctive as mediums, are inextricably linked and intertwined. To thoughtfully engage in a practice with one is practically impossible without the influence of the other. As photographers, how can our practice of examining the still image influence our experience with the moving one? Does our construction of narrative, time, and attention shift when we engage with an image that’s frozen as opposed to one in motion? In this one-hour workshop, we’ll consider these questions and more as we dig into an abridged history of the still versus moving image and look at artists who probe the unique intersection of the two mediums in tandem or apart.
Kat Shannon is a multidisciplinary artist, curator, and educator working in photography, text, and video, currently based between São Paulo, Brazil, and Orlando, Florida. Her work examines notions of intimacy, human connection, gender, community, and culture. She holds degrees in photography from Savannah College of Art and Design (BFA) as well as Bard College (MFA).
Kat has held teaching positions at Yeshiva University, Brookdale College, Stetson University, Middlesex College, and ICP, and previously worked for three years as the head curator at an art consultancy in New York. In 2017 Kat co-founded the collaborative artist collective Memory Foam through which she curates exhibitions, publishes and collects artists' books and zines, and produces an artist interview series called “Artists Eat Ice Cream.”
Kat teaches Ways of Seeing, Photography as Pilgrimage, and other personal vision classes for StrudelmediaLive.
ONLINE COURSE
Storytelling with Photo Embroidery and Mixed Media
Most of our images exist on either a digital display or as a mostly two-dimensional print. In this class, you’ll take your photos into the third dimension by incorporating embroidery and mixed media, expanding the depth and richness of their meaning and storytelling. Using a variety of creative methods — cutting, glueing, embroidery, photo transfer on fabric, letter embroidery, and more — you can create an intimate and unique object that better tells your individual, personal story. By exploring the surface of a print with different techniques and materials, a new story will arise. Through discussion, we’ll examine the process of deciding when and how to hide, change, or emphasize the story of a picture. You’ll be introduced to different techniques using relatively simple tools like scissors, glue, needle and thread, a printer, some fabric — no embroidery skills are necessary.
Jolanda Drukker Murray is a contemporary sculptor and textile artist based in Utrecht (The Netherlands). She studied art history at Leiden University and attended a program at Artibus Art School Utrecht with a focus on ceramics and bronze. She began collecting fabrics and creating wall hangings which were exhibited in several shows. She also created a “Circle of Life in 10 Kimonos” for the Kröller-Müller Museum. Jolanda specializes in “documentary embroidery”: telling stories using embroidery as well as mixed media techniques on photos and pictures from magazines. Her latest textile installation Stonehenge is a combination of photo embroidery, embroidery. and stitch work. She is currently working on Dialogue between Photography and Embroidery, an artbook in which she is embroidering on photos by the Dutch photographer Milja Markies.
Jolanda teaches embroidery and mixed media techniques for StrudelmediaLive.Previous Classes
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“The Optical Unconscious”: Adventures in Surrealist Photography
A Better Tool for Black and White? Meet Silver Efex Pro
A Better Tool for Black and White? Meet Silver Efex Pro
A Comprehensive Lightroom Classic Course
A Photographer’s Guide to the Expressive Richness of Light
A Photographic Exploration of the Psychogeography of Your City
Adventures in Still Life
AI and Photography, Part 1: Beginnings
AI and Photography, Part 2: Practical Applications
AI and Photography, Part 3: Implications and What Lies Ahead
An Interior View
Architecture and Narrative: A Sense of Place
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Assignment Workflow from a Pro: Plan, Shoot, Deliver — Repeat!
Assignment: Monochrome! Analysis, Technique, and Exercises in B&W
Beyond Documentation: New Approaches to Exploring Family Stories
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Bi‑Weekly Feedback Group for Your Photo Project
Black and White Photography Refined
Bringing Depth to Your Longterm Project
Cameraless Photography: Creating Magic with Alternative Processes
Capturing the Beauty and Feeling of Interior Spaces
Collaboration as an Ethical Documentary Practice
Congratulations, You’ve Finished Your Photography Project! Now What?
Create Your Own Zine or Photobook with InDesign
Create Your Own Zine or Photobook with InDesign
Create Your Own Zine or Photobook with InDesign
Creating a Video Diary: Intro to Multimedia Storytelling
Creating Environmental Portraits That Tell Powerful Stories
Creating Multimedia Portraits: Building Memories
Creative Visual Storytelling: An Exploration
Curious About Analog and Shooting Film?
Delicious Photography
Developing the Continuity between Your Life and Photography
Diptychs, Triptychs, and Panoramics: The Dynamics of Multiples
Discovering the Poetry in Nighttime Photography
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Diving Deep: A Monthly Mentoring Group: Fall
Do‑It‑Yourself Lighting at Home
Documentary Photography: Reality as Subject
Documentary Storytelling: Explore New Tools and Ideas
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Dynamic Composition for Visual Storytellers
Editing and Sequencing for Your Website or Portfolio
Enrich Your Photographic Vision: Seeing Through the Eyes of Others
Experimenting in the Visual Laboratory: Let’s Play!
Explore Your Surroundings — Wherever You Are
Exploring Physical and Digital Photo Collage
Fall Photo Shake Up!
Feedback Group: Your Long‑term Project
Finding an Audience and Getting Your Work out into the World
Finding Photos Where You Find Yourself
Finding Your Voice as a Photographer
Flexing Your Camera Controls
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For Writers and Journalists: Improve Your Photography
Function of Memory: Photography in Context
Gestalt Theory for Photographers: Practical Application of the Principles of Visual Perception
Getting the Best Out of Your iPhone Camera
Handmade Accordion Bindings for Photobooks
How to Archive, Organize, and Care for Your Digital and Analog Photographs
How to Build a Still Life: A Series of Experiments
How to Light Environmental Portraits
Image and Text: Extending Your Message
In‑Person Weekend Workshop NYC: Explore Broadway, NYC’s Longest Street
In‑Person Weekend Workshop NYC: Queens along the 7 Train
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In‑Person Weekend Workshop: Photographing New York City Islands
InDesign for Photobooks and Zines
InDesign Project Group: Develop Your Photobook or Zine
InDesign: Beyond the Basics for Photobooks and Zines
Introduction to Handmade Books
Introduction to Multimedia Storytelling: Combining Stills, Audio, and Video
Learn to Make Short Films with Still Photographs Using Premiere Pro
Learn to Work with Color in Adobe Lightroom Classic’s Develop Module
Let Movies Inspire Your Photography, Part 2
Let Movies Inspire Your Photography, Part 2
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Let Movies Inspire Your Photography: Part I
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Let Movies Inspire Your Photography: Part I
Lighting Your Still‑Life Using Household Lamps
Looking Inward: Photographing Family
Make a Photobook with One Sheet of Paper
Make Your Own Handmade, Hardcover Photobook
Make Your Own Zine
Making Your Own Photobook or Zine: An Overview
Mastering Color in Your Images
Mastering Flash Photography
Mastering Lightroom Essentials
Mosaic and Entanglement: Photographic Histories in Europe from 1950–2000
Multimedia Love Letter
New Visions for New Landscapes
Our Ever‑Changing Landscapes
Parks and Pictures: Paths to New Ways of Seeing
Pen and Pictures: Creative Writing for Photographers
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Photo Exhibitions That Made History: What Can We Learn from Them?
Photo Workshop in German: Reportage ‑ Fotografie
Photo Workshop in German: So entstehen dynamische Bilder
Photobook Intensive: Structure and Meaning
Photographing Domestic Life: Pleasure and Chaos
Photographing People, Telling Powerful Stories
Photographing Strangers: Practical Tools and Ethical Questions
Photography and Storytelling: Explore New Tools and Ideas
Photography as a Pilgrimage
Photography Meets Writing: Finding New Ways to Speak about Your Work
Photography with Mixed Media: Developing a Personal Visual Style
