A Day In Our Life® Photo Workshops Presents:

MARTHA'S VINEYARD WORKSHOP - JUNE 19-26, 2011

Spend a week in a small, intensive workshop environment, learning who you are as a photographer as you improve your photographic vision.

This workshop – designed for anyone interested in anything from street photography, to shooting weddings, or just making better images of their own family members - will introduce you to the rich traditions of documentary and street photography, and will challenge you with a series of exercises designed to gently push you out of your comfort zone. This is not a technical workshop – although you may well gain in technical knowledge. Rather, it is a workshop focused on seeing, visual story telling, and better understanding yourself as a photographer.

The workshop sessions will take place in a classic Martha's Vineyard cottage a short walk from the water and from Edgartown. There is room in the cottage for four students - two with spouses or significant others and two singles, and other students can easily find accommodations close by, but share meals at the cottage. review.

Enrollment will be limited to 10 students, and each student will have the opportunity to have a private portfolio review.

Here's what Dgrin's own Rutt - John Ruttenberg - has to say about my teaching:

"I took B.D.'s Documentary Photography class at Harvard. From the first class, I felt emotionally and technically challenged. I have been serious about photography all of my adult life, but working with B.D. gave me a fresh set of eyes and greatly deepened my understanding. B.D. always challenged me to get emotionally and physically closer to my subjects, to see what I was doing at shoot time, to think before shooting so as to maximize the results, to be able to choose results of my own that would be meaningful to others. As a result of taking his class, my photographic style has completely changed and my best images since are speak to myself and others in a way that just wasn't there in my work from before. I highly recommended working with B.D. to anyone who wants to challenge him/herself to grow as a photographer."

And there's this from Dgrin's Flyinggina, who took last summer's workshop:

"I am still digesting what I learned -- about my camera, about the work of other photographers (especially Eugene Richards and Eugene Smith), about my strengths and limitations as a photographer and a person and even about what is fundamentally important to me. That's a lot for one week!!...Will I become a documentary photographer/photojournalist? I doubt it. But I know now that I can take meaningful photographs under a wide variety of conditions and that I don't have to have lots of fancy equipment to make good pictures. Wherever my photography leads me, my work will have benefited from the week with B.D."

When: JUNE 19-26, 2010

Where: MARTHA'S VINEYARD, MA.

Here's a preliminary syllabus:

Preparation – You should have a DSLR camera, a laptop computer, and Photoshop or Lightroom installed. (As a basic guide to photography, I highly recommend “fundamentals of photography,” by Tom Ang).

SUNDAY – Sunday is arrival day. Come to the Vineyard, get settled in, wander around Edgartown, and meet your fellow students over a relaxed dinner.

MONDAY Monday morning will begin with a brief overview – very brief – of the history of documentary and street photography. We will look at work by many of the greats in the fields, and will spend time discussing the concepts of street and documentary work, and what you do – and do not – owe your subjects. Late Friday morning you will be sent off for a visualization exploration called Notebook. You can wander anywhere on the island you wish, "shooting" with a notebook, rather than with your camera. At the end of the day we'll meet back at the cottage to share "images," discuss your day, and share dinner.

TUESDAY This day will be devoted to two exercises, First, you will spend the morning in Edgartown doing street photography, shooting strangers, without asking permission. The afternoon will be devoted to an exercise I call "The Real Decisive Moment." The idea here is that the "decisive moment" is not the instant at which you release the shutter, but that instant in which you recognize the photographic possibility in a situation, and then begin to work it to capture the perfect image of that situation. You will return to the cottage in the late afternoon to work your images, which we will review in the evening.

WEDNESDAY Wednesday will be devoted to two things - an exercise called "Spaceship," which is designed to help you discover what is truly important to you as a photographer, and to lining up your project.

THURSDAY and FRIDAY These two days will be devoted to shooting a mini-documentary project of any subject of your choice, anywhere on the Vineyard.

SATURDAY This is the day to process and select your project images, and to put together a presentation for the class. We will work on this both collectively and individually. After the presentations, we'll have a last dinner.

SUNDAY Departure day.

The fee for the workshop is $500, with half due at the time of booking, and the remainder due the Monday prior to the workshop. A room at the cottage is $400 for the week, with the full amount due on signing up for the workshop, so that I can book the cottage.

For more information about me go to www.bdcolenphoto.com, and to discuss the workshops, contact me as soon as possible at bd@bdcolenphoto.com.