A Day In Our Life® Photo Workshops

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

These week-long workshops – designed for anyone interested in anything from street photography, to shooting weddings, or just taking making better images of their own family members - will introduce you to the rich traditions of documentary and street photography, and will then challenge you with a series of exercises designed to push you out of your comfort zone. You will spend the fourth day shooting a documentary story, and the final day we will all work together to shape those shoots into photo stories. This is not a technical workshop – although you may well gain in technical knowledge. Rather, it is a workshop focused on seeing, interacting with subjects, and understanding yourself as a photographer.

The workshop sessions will take place in my home just minutes from historic Fenway Park in Boston. I’ll provide coffee and pastries each morning, as well as lunch on the final day. Each student will have the opportunity for a private portfolio review.

Enrollment will be limited to eight students.

When: August 10-14; 17-21 (depending upon enrollment)

Where: Boston/Brookline, MA.

Here's a preliminary syllabus:

Preparation – You should have a DSLR camera, a laptop computer, and Photoshop or Lightroom installed. I would ask that prior to coming to the workshop you read “Doing Documentary Work,” by Robert Coles. (As a basic guide to photography, I highly recommend “fundamentals of photography,” by Tom Ang.

1. DAY ONE – Monday morning will begin with a brief overview – very brief – of the history of documentary photography. We will look at work by many of the greats in the field, and will spend time discussing the concept of documentary photography, and what you do – and do not – owe your subjects. Late Monday morning – or early in the afternoon – you will be paired off and sent out to do an exercise I call Mirror. You’ll return to spend the last two hours of the day culling your photos, and sharing them with those in the workshop.

2. DAY TWO – Tuesday – Tuesday morning we will meet around 8:00 for breakfast and a discussion of street photography. Afterwards, you will take to the streets of Boston and/or Brookline, and will return by 3 p.m. with 10 street photos that you believe will leave your fellow students ‘sockless.’ We’ll spend the remainder of the day working the images, and discussing them.

3. DAY THREE – Wednesday – After breakfast Wednesday you will be leaving earth on a spaceship, never to return. You will be alone; you’ll wear a paper suit; you’ll eat food from a tube; you’ll drink filtered urine; you will not be able to see anything except space. However, you will be allowed to take five photographic images with you – so get out there and shoot them and be back by noon. These photos do not have to be great works of art; but they must hold meaning for you. Remember, you’re going to be staring at them for the rest of your life. After lunch you’ll prepare your images, and share them, We’ll talk about why you took them, and why you made the choices you made. We’ll then spend the remainder of the afternoon discussing your Thursday project ideas.

4. DAY FOUR – Thursday – A Day In Our Life…Thursday will be devoted from the time you decide to get up, until you give up, to shooting your projects. Each of you will select a person, or a place, whose story you want to tell photographically. Perhaps you want to spend a day in a Laundromat, or a bakery, a coffee shot, or a funeral home. Maybe you want to spend a day documenting the life of a family. Whatever you can pull off, you can do. You should begin think about this project as soon as you decide to sign up for the workshop, and you should start using the internet and phone to reach out to possible subjects – in coordination with me.

5. DAY FIVE – Friday – We will gather for breakfast, and after sharing experiences you will each begin making an initial cut of your 500, 800, or 1200 images to 100, which we will go through. From those 100, you will select 15-20 that tell your story, and will then work those images to bring out the best in them. You’ll then put the images into a slide show, and we’ll share the work.

The fee for the class is $500, with half due at the time of booking, and the remainder due the Monday prior to the workshop.

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.