Masters & workshops 2013
Alternate Worlds: Photography and the Constructed Image
By Esther Teichmann
This intensive workshop is an opportunity for students to explore the relationship between fiction and the photographic, examining how staging images and working with them as objects allows us to create alternate worlds.
We will create images both inside the studio and on location, thinking about the construction of narrative fragments. The workshop will also explore the photograph as material and sculptural object, working on the image with collage and painting, and thinking about how new meanings are generated by juxtaposing images with one another. Centered around the relationship photography (in its expanded field) has to ideas of narrative and the staged, we will consider montage, collage, editing, layering and fragmentation as means to create new narratives and bodies of work.
The workshop will combine technical sessions, critiques, writing about our ideas and developing a language around our subject matter, as well as researching the context for our practices through the work of other artists, in order to develop a body of work to exhibit at the end of the workshop and develop beyond our time together.
Requirements for the students: Students should bring the camera equipment they have and want to explore, and materials to work into the images with (inks, paintbrushes), as well as existing bodies of work, sketches, ideas they would like to develop and their favorite photography book.
© Esther Teichmann, Mythologies, 2012
Esther Teichmann - German–American artist (b. 1980), received a Masters of Fine Art from the Royal College of Art in 2005. Based primarily in London, she is senior lecturer at the London College of Communication/University of the Arts London. Esther completed a PhD by project at the RCA in 2011 and is currently a guest professor and visiting artist in San Francisco at the California College of the Arts. Teichmann’s body of work uses still and moving image, collage and painting to create alternate worlds, which blur autobiography and fiction. Her work has been exhibited and published internationally, with group shows in Houston, London, Los Angeles, Berlin, Mannheim and Modena and solo exhibitions in the UK, Australia, Germany and Switzerland. Esther curated a series of events, Affect & the Photographic, for The Photographers' Gallery, London in February 2011, and she recently published a limited edition artist's book, Drinking Air. Teichmann is currently writing and curating a series of monthly features for Foam’s blog.
The Vicinity of Narrative: People and Spaces
By Todd Hido
Todd Hido’s work spans multiple genres including night scenes, landscapes and portraiture. He works in rich, syntactical layers that he expertly sequences into simple, powerful narratives about relationships, home, and family that somehow ring true with universal memories. In this workshop he will invite the students into his world as he makes photographs along side them. He will teach how to use low and available light sources to capture dramatic portraits. The students will work with models and/or local subjects, both indoors & outdoors, and spend some time shooting places so we can explore the narrative power that is activated when you sequence a person with a place.
Even though this is primarily a “shooting” workshop, in addition to photographing, Todd will review students’ work and share his working process from A to Z for making books, covering the intricacies of how he created his brand new book, Excerpts from Silver Meadows that utilizes these methods.
Requirements for the students: Students should bring a camera of their choice and a tripod for making low light or night photographs. Also bring a selection of your work for review either in printed form or on a laptop, as well as small copies of older printed work that you can use to sketch up with new images you will be making so you can quickly test out your story ideas in a rough “in process” printed form.
© Todd Hido, Excerpts from Silver Meadows, 2012
Todd Hido (born 1968) American contemporary artist and photographer, based in San Francisco. Much of his work involves urban and suburban housing across the U.S., of which the artist produces large, highly detailed and luminous color photographs. His photographs are in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of Art, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, as well as in many other public and private collections. His work has been widely exhibited and featured in numerous publications as Artforum, the New York Times Magazine, Eyemazing, Metropolis, The Face, I.D., W, and Vanity Fair. Todd is the recipient of a Eureka Fellowship and Gerbode Award and has published several important monographs like House Hunting (2001), Outskirts (2002), Roaming (2004), Between the Two (2007). His latest book titled “Excerpts from Silver Meadows” will be released in spring 2013. Todd Hido is teaching photography as an adjunct professor at the California College of Art.
Storytelling: the Art and Politics of Photojournalism
By Yan Morvan
No matter what frame or camera you use, most important is the way you tell your story to other people. Images are everywhere – throughout the world, people communicate with photos more than with the words, for the good or the bad of it. In this sea of pictures, images on their own are worth nothing. To give meaning to your work, start by creating a detailed storyline based on the real facts that you have collected. That’s the spirit of journalism, the art of storytelling and transmitting the “reality” of the world.
Image is an emotion too, and you can play with it, using it for your own purpose. Find a good angle and eventually apply your own point of view. Art is always political, be aware of that, and express your ideas clearly and concisely. The aesthetics must be connected with the spirit of your work, and of your thoughts.
During the workshop, the students will have to realize a photo essay on a subject of their own choice.
Requirements for the students: None. Bring a camera and a lens you are used to working with.
© Yan Morvan (Rockers, 1975)
Yan Morvan (b. 1954) A pioneer of French photojournalism, Morvan turned to photography at the age of 20, first kicking it with the Hell’s Angels in Paris, then documenting the life of prostitutes in Bangkok. From 1974, he has worked as a staff photographer and freelancer for French editions like Fotolib (Liberation), Paris Match, Le Figaro Magazine. In the 1980s, as a staff member of Sipa Press and correspondent for Newsweek, he covered the world’s major war conflicts - Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Northern Ireland, Philippines, Rwanda, Kosovo and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Freelance photographer since 1988, he works with major international publications and has received international acclaim for his war and conflict reports.
He has published numerous books - “Bikers&co”, “Liban”, “Gang”, “Mondosex”. His last book "Gangstory" a result of 20 years of work on the delinquent gangs of Parisian suburbs came out in November 2012 and was sold out in a whim. Yan has taught photojournalism on numerous occasions, including the Arles National School of Photography, and authored a book on the genre, “Photojournalisme” (1994).
Follow Your Conviction. Working with the Media
By Yuri Kozyrev & Andrei Polikanov
You’re wrong if you think that publications want to run dull, cliché pictures and photo stories. Wrong if you’re convinced that they are unable to endorse your individual view. Even in these hard times when the printed media has partially lost its position as the "golden client" and chief consumer of photojournalism, it keeps on looking for great photography, untold stories and charismatic photographers willing to provide them. This workshop will give practical knowledge about all the aspects of the photojournalistic industry. The students are expected to produce the photo stories in the camp, Kuldīga or the surroundings, defining the theme according to their interests and convictions.
Requirements for the students: Every participant has to bring a portfolio of up to 30 images (stories & singles; digital/print; width - 1200 pixels; file name, captions and credit line - very desirable). Cameras (film or digital), laptops, hard drives.
© Yuri Kozirev, Chechnya, 1999, Oil refinery storage destroyed during the first Chechen war
Yuri Kozyrev
As a photojournalist for the past 25 years, Yuri Kozyrev (Russia, 1963) has witnessed many world-changing events. He has covered every major conflict in the former Soviet Union, including two Chechen wars. Immediately after September 11 2001, he was on the scene in Afghanistan, where he documented the fall of the Taliban. He lived in Baghdad, Iraq between 2003 and 2009, photographing different sides of the conflict as a contract photographer for Time Magazine. Since the beginning of 2011, Yuri has been documenting the uprisings and their aftermaths in Bahrain, Yemen, Tunisia and especially Egypt and Libya.
Yuri Kozyrev has received numerous honors for his photography, including seven World Press Photo Awards, the 2004 Overseas Press Club Oliver Rebbot Award, the 2006 ICP Infinity award for photojournalism, the 2008 Frontline Club Award for his extensive coverage of the Iraq war, and both Trophee and Public Prize at the Prix Bayeux-Calvados for his work "Dispatch from Libya" in 2011. The same year, he won the Visa d'or News for his extensive body of work on Arab revolutions "On Revolution Road", which has been exhibited in ten different countries in 2011 and 2012. Yuri is a founding member of NOOR agency.
www.noorimages.com/photographer/kozyrev/
Andrei Polikanov was born in 1961 in Moscow, Russia. He graduated from the Military Institute of Foreign Languages in 1987, later serving as a commissioned officer on several missions in Angola. In the early 1990s he worked as a fixer and stringer with some prominent international photojournalists producing stories on events in former USSR territories (including wars and conflicts in Nagorno-Karabakh, Chechnya, Transnistria, Abkhazia, Tajikistan) for major international publications including Time, the New York Times Magazine, Stern, Spiegel and Paris Match. From 1997 - 2007 he worked as a photo editor for the TIME Magazine Moscow bureau, and since 2007 is the Director of Photography at the Russian Reporter Magazine, Expert Media Group.
Polikanov is a member of various national and international photo contest juries (World Press Photo, Visa d’Or in Perpignan and Interfoto Russia, among others), a member of the Joop Swart Masterclass selection committee, and a judge for World Press Photo’s educational program for the Middle East and North Africa. Since 2005, he has taught numerous workshops on photojournalism in Russia and worldwide - including mentoring at the Open Society Institute Documentary Photography Project, consulting the International Center for Journalists, and teaching at the Danish School of Media & Journalism as well as at ISSP in 2010.
The Photobook: Going Beyond the Form
By Teun van der Heijden
A photobook is a perfection of the photographic story - most photographers see it as the ideal form of presenting their work. While today the possibilities of publishing photographs in digital form are plenty, more photobooks are printed than ever before. What is the role of the paper photobook in the digital era where photography is a widely used visual language? This workshop will open a dialogue with the students about this as well as study the practical aspects of creating a photobook.
A close collaboration between a graphic designer and a photographer is essential for the creation of a good photobook. As a graphic designer I see my role as being the storyteller next to the photographer - making the book is so much more than the form alone. I dare the photographer to turn the book into something unique, putting up a fight if necessary. During the workshop I will offer my students this intense partnership.
The main part of the workshop will take the students step by step through the actual book making process: editing, concept development, layout, size, form, typography, paper choice and binding - all the elements of book design will be reviewed. The goal is to end up with a paper publication in whatever form. This can be the beginning of a future book or a one-off artistic cry out.
Requirements for the students: students should come with long-term projects that have book potential (one or two, if you cannot decide). They need to bring all their pictures, including the ones they have doubts about, as well as (multiple) notebooks to use for making first paper dummies.
© Teun van der Heijden
Teun van der Heijden
Born in 1962, lives in Amsterdam. After studying at St. Joost Academy of Art and Design in Breda, started working in advertising. After several years became a freelance designer for the Dutch magazine Vrij Nederland and set up design agency Heijdens Karwei together with his wife Sandra van der Doelen. Having started as a regular design agency covering multiple disciplines for clients such as Amnesty International and World Press Photo, in 2002 they decided to change track and focus exclusively on photography projects - books and exhibitions. Some of Teun’s well known books are: ‘Diamond Matters’ by Kadir van Lohuizen, ‘Rape of a Nation’ by Marcus Bleasdale, ‘Black Passport’ by Stanley Greene, ‘Interrogations’ by Donald Weber and many of the World Press Photo books and publications.
A New Approach to Autobiography
By Elina Brotherus
NB! This workshop takes place in frame of Contemporary Self Portraits project , participation reserved for the students of project partner organizations. The participants have already been selected through an internal call.
Self-portraiture is a tricky and charged subject matter as everyone who has practiced it knows. In this workshop we will discuss its various aspects and in the actual work try to go beyond the ordinary self-depiction. Working alone alternates with working together in the group. Sharing our time and our images is an important part of the experience.
Prior task for the students: The students must keep a diary starting on the day of their selection until the day of their arrival at the workshop. The diary must be in English (or translated into English). Do not write more than one page per day. Please note that your diaries will not be published as such, but they can be discussed in the group and some elements may be integrated into the work you will produce during the workshop.
© Elina Brotherus, 12 years after, 2011 - 2012
Elina Brotherus, born 1972 in Helsinki, Finland, works in photography and video. Her early work dealt with personal yet universal experiences, the presence and absence of love. In her series The New Painting (2000-2005), Elina Brotherus probed the relation of photography to art history and found inspiration in the iconography of classical painting. In Model Studies (2002-2008) and Artist and her model (2005-2011), she continued to explore the human figure within a landscape, and the gaze of an artist on his/her model. In her current work she returns to the autobiographical approach, although more distanced than in her youth.
Elina Brotherus lives and works in Finland and in France. She has an MA degree in Photography from the University of Art and Design Helsinki (2000) and a MSc in Chemistry from the University of Helsinki (1997). She has had numerous solo and group shows since 1997, and has published four monographs, including, most recently, Artist and her model by Le Caillou bleu, Brussels, 2012.