Classes

Jump-start your creativity this summer by exploring the immense possibilities of taking new and different pictures. Get out of your comfort zone and produce images that will surprise you! Each week we’ll experiment with a different tool or idea — composition, type of camera, different lighting styles, images inspired by words, and more — there are so many elements that can inspire us to exercise our visual creativity. We’ll look at the work of different artists for inspiration, and how you can use these new tools we’re discovering and experimenting with on a possible long-term project. You’ll be challenged each week with a new exploratory assignment and have fun doing it!

Explore the creative joys (and anxieties) of shooting film — whether you’ve never shot on analog before but are curious to try, or have a beloved old camera sitting in a closet collecting dust. Inspired by some 35mm film he shot on a recent trip, Kai McBride will share fresh impressions and give advice on current resources for interesting cameras, film, processing, scanning, and ways to integrate a film camera into your digital photography life. Following this workshop you will be itching to load a roll of film into a camera and make some exposures.

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? How does the way we live 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 understand more about ourselves and our work.

Assignments, exercises, and analysis during class are based on observation and self-reflection, and the images and texts you create will help you develop a more clear and concise visual language. Through conversation and analysis of images and symbols, students will understand and give meaning to the work they make and practice the tools and methods to communicate their ideas through images. Along the way, we’ll examine the work of a variety of artists, including Karina Juarez, Mariela Sancari, Jon Henry, Hu Bo, Frida Kahlo, Chang Yuchen, Nina Berman, and others.

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.

Time is the thread which runs through every photograph we encounter, but what happens when we allow for the nature of time to become the very subject of our photographic work itself? Using Susan Sontag’s description of photography’s unique ability “to testify to time’s relentless melt” as a starting place, in this mini-workshop we will look at artists who explore the concept of time and stretch our understanding of its dimensions.

In landscape photography we encounter our relationship to the earth, our concepts of nature, and our own position to it. As photographers, as our awareness of our changing ecology grows, so, too, does our way of encountering and portraying our surroundings. In this course, students will develop an individual project that documents their immediate environs with an eye toward uncovering the many aspects of our changing landscapes — whether that’s a vast natural area or dense urban space, or one’s own backyard or neighborhood. You’ll develop instruments of exploration and discovery and look for your own, personal ways to take pictures of our ever-changing landscape. 

For inspiration, we’ll look at the work of the “new topographics” photographers — including Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, and Bernd and Hilla Becher — and their groundbreaking 1970s exhibition “Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape,” as well as work by Edward Burtynsky, Sally Mann, and photographers from the 19th and early 20th centuries. This class will meet every other week to allow time for students to work on their projects.

This is a new class, so it’s everyone — whether they’ve taken Stefan’s earlier landscape classes or not.

When you want to go beyond seeing your images on a digital display or two-dimensional print, consider adding mixed media, where every choice you make in materials, techniques, composition, and color plays a role in the originality and authenticity of your work. Using a variety of creative methods with simple tools — cutting, glueing, embroidery, photo transfer on fabric, letter embroidery, and more — you’ll define and develop your own visual language using mixed media as a tool. This class is open to photographers who have experience with mixed media or are beginners, and is all about experimenting with materials, challenging yourself with new techniques and compositions, and using the power of a good story to create an intimate, unique, and personal mixed media style. You’ll develop your skills through weekly assignments and we’ll analyze together the work of various artists to learn from their choices. A personal style is all about accepting what your hands and mind create.

Are you already using your own writing to accompany your photography — or maybe want to start writing but don’t know how to begin? This generative creative writing course — in which you’ll both write during class and have optional writing invitations after class — is designed for photographers. Through the use of play and associative techniques, we’ll draft poems, fiction, and fragments from life; explore seven modes of imagery; and learn ways to free the imagination. Each session will include lecture, discussion, writing exercises, and sharing time. Assignment topics include the artistic process, tools and techniques of photography; speculation by way of writing beyond what cameras can capture; recollection and Proust’s concept of “creative wrong memory”; temporal and spatial description; and the self-portrait, whether realist or abstract, with or without the human figure. By the end of class, you’ll have numerous pages of imaginative writing that can work as standalone pieces or be incorporated into you own photography.

Street photography is one of the most popular genres for photographers, yet it’s difficult to create an image that hits all the right notes — engaging and dynamic composition, strong subject matter, and a unique point of view. This hybrid in-person/online class is ideal for students who want to meet and photograph with others while learning how to capture those compelling moments: urban street scenes, street portraits, and the poetry of everyday life. We’ll meet in person in three different New York City locations for picture-taking, interspersed with two online group critique sessions. You’ll challenge yourself to find new ways to take pictures in an area you may be familiar with, and to find what’s interesting about locations new to you. Throughout, we’ll explore the work of photographers with an emphasis on street portraits (Vivian Maier, Meryl Meisler, Baldwin Lee, and Helen Levitt among others) and discuss the use of exposure, shutter speed, F-stop composition, available light, and explore the different ways we can apply these techniques to our practice.

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 discuss different approaches to the best way of telling the story, to fit each student’s individual project. During these monthly critiques we’ll also cover story structure, research, composition, editing, and documentary and conceptual approaches. This group is also a way to simply talk about anything related to photography to get inspired: we’ll look at other photographers’ work, discuss technical issues, and talk about how to best present the 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.

In this course, you’ll examine the role of walking as a personal practice and a means for generating photographic artwork. With the idea of remaining close to home, this class aims to investigate our relationship to our neighborhoods and community. How can walking be a process of care and connection? How does photography allow for an opportunity to traverse landscapes, both real and imagined? Alongside various creative exercises, prompts, lectures, and critiques, you’ll engage with numerous readings on walking as a historical and cultural practice — including Rebecca Solnit’s Wanderlust, Matthew Beaumont’s The Walker, and Jane Jacobs’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Partly theoretical, partly poetic, this class is above all an opportunity to connect with your camera and photographic methods in new ways.

In this mini-workshop you will learn effective techniques to address the many challenges when processing your RAW captures to black and white. To achieve the right balance of contrast, texture, and detail without the color information to differentiate the elements in the scene, careful adjustments are needed to create a beautiful image that does not appear too flat or too harsh. Black and white enthusiast Kai McBride will process several photographs during the workshop and show how to take advantage of the software tools and how to develop a consistent workflow to give the best results.

If you want to take your pictures to the next level, establishing a good post-production workflow is essential. In this comprehensive Adobe Lightroom Classic course — for both beginners and people with some experience who want to go deeper — you’ll gain a strong foundation in all the main tools you need to help your images reach their full potential. We’ll explore all of the modules, from importing and organizing your digital archive in the Library module, to sharing your images through physical prints, the web, books, or slideshows. A main focus will be the Develop module — highlighting all the tools at your disposal, from basic image correction, to detail masking techniques, to establishing a color workflow. Class sessions will include assignment critique and open lab time, and you’ll gain important real-world experience by watching Nestor make live adjustments to student photographs during class. By the end of this course, students will be skilled in using Lightroom Classic to make their photographs really shine.

The experience of viewing photographs in a deliberately designed exhibition space is fundamentally different than seeing the images on a digital display or the printed page. In the history of photography, there are certain significant photo exhibitions that you encounter again and again. What made these exhibitions in particular stand out and retain their relevance today?

This course is for people who want to develop a deeper understand of how the presentation of images in a physical space can — or has, historically — created new narratives and perspectives. We will look at historical group photography exhibitions and consider questions such as: what types of images were exhibited? how were the photographs displayed? who were the photographers? who were the organizers? why are these exhibitions still remembered today? 

Participants will visit an exhibition on their own during the course, document it photographically, and make a presentation to the group. Through lecture, discussion, and mutual analytical exercises, we will learn how individual 20th-century photography shows — ranging from New York to Johannesburg to Tokyo — became landmark exhibitions and how they can inform our storytelling today.

Dive into the art of photo collage in this hands-on class and expand your storytelling and creativity! This course is both an overview of photo collage as well as an exercise- and project-based experience, and is for photographers who have either worked with collage before or not. We’ll begin with a in-depth survey of contemporary photographers (including Zuzana herself) and how they are working with different types of collage in their artistic practice. From there, we’ll move into the very sensual act of cutting and manipulating physical prints and more to create 2D and 3D collage and assemblages, and end with an introduction to digital collage basics with Photoshop. Assignments will focus on exercises with specific techniques as well as developing a project that you’ll work on to be presented in the final session. Students can work with their own or found photographs and images.

Artists and photographers often use a sketchbook to hold on to fleeting thoughts and preliminary results — whether to jot down ideas, organize work, or just print some pictures to document their development over time. In this mini-workshop, we’ll look at examples of how photographers and artists like Francesca Woodman, Gerhard Richter, Frank Ockenfels, and Chris Ashworth have used the sketchbook — and how you can expand your artistic practice using this powerful tool. While we’ll focus mostly on analog tools and practices, we’ll also look briefly at how you can use digital sketchbooks like Milanote and Miro to organize your research and collaborate with others.

Would you like to bring your photography to the next level by telling richer stories with your images? In this class we’ll explore techniques for developing a strong narrative and building sequenced stories, and how adding non-photography elements can enrich the overall message. We’ll look at work by other photographers — from documentary to more conceptual approaches — to analyze story structure and we’ll examine the methods and tools they use for creative storytelling, including adding text, drawings, archival and found photos, and more. Examples will be presented on how a story can be told in different ways on different platforms (web-based, books, mail art, and installation). Through weekly critique, exercises, and discussion, you’ll deepen your photography practice and develop your own visual voice.

Photobooks and zines are a great way to get your work out to people and off of digital screens, but getting started can be daunting. Through an overview of process, styles, methods, considerations, materials, and technical aspects, this one-hour mini-workshop aims to inspire you to create! We’ll touch on ideas about process, from first conception to holding a printed object in your hands; different styles of sequencing and editing your images; working with a designer or not; professional printing vs. handmade books; financial considerations; self-publishing or finding a publisher; determining the most appropriate format for your project; and different approaches to design. Lots of examples will be shown, and there will be time for a Q and A at the end.

To the American art critic Rosalind Krauss, Surrealism has played a pivotal role in the development of art in the past 100 years. And in her landmark work, The Optical Unconscious, she developed the idea that photography has played a central role in Surrealism — for her, photography is the most surreal of the arts.

In five chapters (“Formlessness,” “Base Materialism,” “Horizontality,” “Pulse,” and “Entropy”), we follow her ideas and look at how photographers have picked up on ideas of the Surrealists and developed them even further. We’ll look at, among others, work by Lucas Blalock, Duane Michals, Sarah Moon, Aaron Siskind — and in five assignments we’ll use their work and ideas as an inspiration and starting point for our own photography.

This is a new class, so it’s for everyone — whether you’ve taken Stefan’s earlier Surrealism classes or not.

Examining the work of filmmakers can be eye-opening for photographers — and this continuation of our popular class on the movies is for all photographers, whether you took Part 1 or not. Through a visual study of a wide range of movies, students will improve their compositional skills and deepen their work. We’ll view and analyze film clips from movies throughout history and from around the world — from France and Italy, to 60s American Noir, Hong Kong action, contemporary films, old black and white, and more. Our group discussion will cover different visual styles and approaches, directors, cinematographers, editing, and story-telling modes. Through weekly assignments students will learn to see cinematically in a way that can enrich their work, whether they are shooting stills or video.

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’ll 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.