Masters & workshops 2009
Fictional stories: The language of facts in photography
By Peeter Linnap
The current workshop proceeds from photography’s central status as a medium producing mostly factual information. The major task of the project is to show how easy it is to compose completely fictional stories using the „evidence”: truly found natural or man made objects. In this project, photographer will take a position of an ethnographer, a journalist or a reasearcher to make us believe that, e.g., some extra-terrestial objects are kept in Latvian military bases, some unknown animals have once inhabitated the locuses, etc. Photographs, found objects and texts together will be used to complete these tasks.
Requirements/technique: DSLR cameras are preferable; you are welcome to take laptops with image processing software (Preview, Adobe Photoshop with Raw image converter to TIFF). If might be useful to also bring a flash light and some extra lens (e.g., macrolens).
Peeter Linnap (1960) is a professor and a head of photography department at Tartu Art College. He has been active as an international artist, curator, and a theorist. Peeter’s Ph.D. thesis “Photology” was completed at Tartu Uni Semiotics department in 2006 and produced as a monograph. He was one of the establishers of both Estonian university level photography departments in Tallinn and Tartu. A member of AICA, FIPRESCI, Semitoic Society, Art Historians Association, Artist Union etc.
Studies in documentary and conceptual photography: Reconstructing history in Everyday life
By Eiko Grimberg
Everyday life is a classic topic in the history of photography. In this course we will search for its traces in the streets of Ludza. Using documentary and conceptual strategies, we will observe and collect images of everyday life and analyse how historical changes may have influenced Ludza and its neighbourhood and work to develop them into an incisive photographic presentation.
Requirements/technique: Digital or analogue, black and white or color is unimportant. The students must have their own cameras and know how to use them.
Eiko Grimberg was born in 1971 in Karlsruhe, Germany, lives and works in Berlin and Leipzig. He received his MFA from the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig in 2003 and now is assistant professor there. Working in video and photography, his work shifts and detaches images and stories from their role as signifiers of cohesive histories. His exhibitions have been presented in the galleries of Leipzig, Zurich, Berlin and New York.
Black and white photography: The light in the urban landscape
By Mehmet Kismet
The workshop will focus on ways of capturing the light and tones (from black to white) in B&W photography. Streets are the scene of moving- or still-lives. Besides catching the “decisive moment”, the photographer expresses him/herself by reflecting the elements of life in his or her individual way. This may lead us to use some abstractions of the street elements, imagined or brought in front of our vision by real life itself. Working with such elements and learning to view them with a critical photographer’s eye will be the focus of the study in the workshop.
Apart of shooting sessions in or around the town of Ludza, the workshop will include evaluations of the participants’ works and discussions on many complementary theoretical and philosophical topics of photography.
Requirements/technique: Analogue camera, good knowledge of the technical camera aspects. Darkroom experience is neccessary. Those participants who already have a portfolio are encouraged to take them along.
Mehmet Kismet was born in 1952 in Turkey and has been actively involved in national photography schene from very joung age. The documentary works produced by “FOG Group” (1983-1990) that he formed with some photographer friends made an important qualitative and conceptual impact on Turkish photography. In 2003, he created the “Centre for Photography in Istanbul”, now among the world’s famous Leica Galleries. Besides the social-themed projects and documentaries of Istanbul’s urban life, Kismet’s photographic subjects have been spread out on a larger territory, comprising different elements of a certain “photographic emotion”, as he puts it.
Mehmet Kismet is a member of the council of the first photography museum in Turkey. His photographs found their place within the permanent collection of the Istanbul Modern Art Museum as well as private collections in Istanbul, Paris, Frankfurt and New York. He taught photography courses at Istanbul Yilidiz University, as well as at the Centre for Photography in Istanbul.
Kismet’s exibition DISTILLATION at Istanbul centre of photography, 2008
Free topic: The magic in the familiar
By Iveta Vaivode, Alexander Gronsky
Photography is so much more than taking technically perfect images, It’s about showing your way of seeing things. Are you just having fun, or maybe you think that you can change people’s thoughts on something? While photography struggles to claim objectivity, it is a perfect tool to create your own reality. We believe that the most important thing is not the story you want to tell, but how you tell it. During the workshop we will be looking at the projects that are fictional and set up. We will discuss the notions of sublime and beautiful. Above all, this workshop is designed to help young photographers to get closer to their own photographic language. Students will be free to choose the genre they want to work with - fashion, still life, portraiture or landscape, as long as it helps to open their personal vision. The workshop will include group critiques as well as one-to-one tutorials, lectures and small assignments.
Technical requirements: there are no technical restrictions to participation. Please bring your portfolios or the work you find inspiring. We want to see were you are coming from and what truly interests you.
Iveta Vaivode was born in 1979, in Riga, Latvia. Having begun her photographic career as a fashion photographer, Iveta has recently turned her sight towards more personal, landscape-based projects. Starting from 2007 she is a lecturer at the professional photography school in Riga. In 2008 she received a BA in photography from Bournemouth Arts Institute (UK). Her photographs have been exhibited in Latvia, Lithuania, UK, France, China and Belgium. Iveta is the recipient of the following awards: 2007AOP Student Photographer of the Year, 2007 Latvia Photography Award (Design Photography of the Year), 2008 PDN Photo Annual and 2008 Nikon Discovery Award.
www.ivetavaivode.com
Alexander Gronsky was born in 1980 in Tallinn, Estonia and is currently living in Moscow. He works for advertising agencies, corporations and humanitarian organizations. His work appeared in Time, Newsweek, Wallpaper, Geo, Economist, Stern, Der Spiegel and other prominent international editions. He was a winner of several Press Photo Russia national contests (2000-2003), and the nominee for the “Kandisky Prize” - the biggest national Russian award in contemporary art in 2008. Alexander is one of the teaching masters at the online workshops programme www.objectivereality.org. His recent personal works deal with existence in urban environment - exploration of Moscow boroughs.
http://alexandergronsky.com/
Environmental portrait: People in their spaces
By Vanessa Winship
An environmental portrait is executed in the subject’s usual setting, such as their home or workplace, to illuminate their life and surroundings. By portraying a person in their natural ambiance, it is thought that photographer is able to better reflect their character, catching the essence of their personality, rather than merely a likeness of their physical features. It is also thought that the subject will be more at ease, and therefore more conducive to expressing themselves, as opposed to a rather intimidating and artificial experience of being in a studio. The openness and hospitality of people of Ludza and the surrounding villages will provide an adorable material for this photography genre.
The workshop is about ideas rather than technique, - our focus will be on realising a concept and editing a body of work. We will use students’ portfolios and/or work that they admire as a starting point for discussion. The workshop will consist of lectures, discussions, and the assignment.
Requirements: Students have to be beyond beginners’ level. Please bring your portfolios.
Vanessa Winship was born in 1960 in the United Kingdom. After studying cinema and photography at Westminster University, Vanessa started teaching photography, and then worked for the National Science Museum of London. She then became a freelance photographer, working on long term projects such as Albanian Landscape, Children in Competition, Black Sea. In 1998 she was awarded the first prize in Arts category of the World Press Photo competition. In 2003 she received an honorable mention in the Oscar Barnack competition for her Albanian Landscape project and in 2008 - the first World Press Photo prize in Portraits category. In 2008, she was named Photographer of the Year at the SONY World Photography Awards for her series Sweet Nothings. During the last four years she has been based in Istanbul, working on a series of photographs about the lives of people in the countries bordering the Black Sea. Since 2005, Vanessa is represented by the VU’ Agency, Paris.