VII Workshop

The Life That Remains: Photographing America’s Rural Spaces

 
Photo: Danny Wilcox Frazier

Photo: Danny Wilcox Frazier

 

Taught by Danny Wilcox Frazier, this tuition-free workshop invites photographers with strong connections and commitment to rural issues, both in and outside of the United States, to the small town of Mexico, Missouri. The weeklong program is funded by VII to support photographers from low-income communities as well as those working on issues about underrepresented populations.

Mexico, like many cities in the Midwest, is a town built on a small industry that no longer exists there. Over 22% of the population lives below the poverty line, along with nearly 29% of children and 70% of mixed-race residents. The workshop will not shy away from the struggles many residents in Mexico face, but will also emphasize the perseverance and strength that the town’s residents have long shown. Small-town America is full of life, a perspective often lost in oversimplified views from the outside.

The thrust of the workshop will be to help photographers bring a unique personal voice to their projects, and take home a new way of seeing not only their own work but also the world of documentary photography. The experience will instill strong technical skills to transform photographs from single images into photographic series. The workshop will also teach the fundamentals of visual literacy and how to use photography as a tool for social justice.  

In committee with VII Academy Curator Yonola Viguerie, VII Trustee Jennifer Gross, and VII Foundation Manager of Operations Amber Maitland, below are our selections for the workshop.

A retrospective on the workshop and its value to the participants can be found here.

Foundry Photojournalism Workshop

“Foundry comes to the heart of Africa and invites photographers from across the continent and beyond to a week of inspiration and education.

We look forward to continuing the workshop started by Eric and Sharon Beecroft and made possible by
all the loyal Foundry volunteers over the years!

Seven days of inspiration.

Each evening students attend presentations from our world-class list of instructors: photojournalists who regularly work with and for National Geographic, The New York Times, TIME, Newsweek, Stern, and countless other international publications.

Seven days of education.

With classes for beginners to professional photojournalists, our instructors challenge and teach you how to create visual stories.

Seven days of community.

Foundry is a bonding experience that creates friendships and networks that last a lifetime.”


This workshop’s tremendous and numerous instructors are Edward Echwalu, Andrew Esiebo, Mariella Furrer, Ron Haviv, Krisanne Johnson, Daniel Schwartz, my former student Nicki Sobecki, Sarah Waiswa.

Given the large number of positions open to participants, we divided the applicants between Jerome and I, Nicki, Ron, and Jennifer Gross, according to financial need. Below are the selections Jerome and I made from the tranche we were assigned.

Here is a retrospective on the workshop and its impact on participants.

After the image: Making Books and Exhibitions

 
OrangeBookPoster-copie.jpg
 

“This three-day workshop with Philip Blenkinsop and Daniel Schwartz in Sarajevo addresses the critical period between the end of a photographic project and the moment when a designer genius embarks on squeezing your images and vision into a book that will neither make you proud nor rich, or when an artist-turned-curator hijacks them to illustrate his agenda. In other words, the period when you need to exercise an author’s authority but still want to listen to those with experience in making books and exhibitions. Generally, it is a period marked by mental exhaustion, self-doubt, and disappointment. Nothing you had envisaged in the field seems to work on pages or walls. Your “best” images prevent you from seeing the true good ones, and there are gaps in the narrative which you are not able to bridge. You stare at your work and your work stares back at you. You are locked in a struggle that is neither stalemate nor armistice. What you need is a breakthrough! To see your work from the outside. But how to achieve this perspective? Moreover, not every great photographer is the best editor or curator of her/his own work.”

This workshop asked critical questions:

  • Why, in the first place, make a book or an exhibition?

  • If you can choose, which should it be: a book or an exhibition?

  • When should you think about a book or an exhibition?

  • What are the motivation and raison d’être of a book or an exhibition?

  • Will it be a book or an exhibition that flatters your ego or that makes an impact?

  • Do you envisage a book or an exhibition before you set out to take the photographs?

  • Or do you want to turn an existing body of work into a book or an exhibition simply because you want to move on?

  • Who will publish the book? Who will host the exhibition?

  • Who is your audience?

Participants, selected from across the Balkan region, brought existing bodies of work or work in progress, photocopies or prints of the images considered, flat plan sketches and drafts of book dummies or maquettes. During the workshop, they were encouraged to forego InDesign and other digital platforms, and use physical spreads of their printed work to explore the composition of a book or exhibition.

In committee with VII photographer Ron Haviv, and VII Foundation staff Diane Wargnier and Amber Maitland, we selected the participants below as scholarship recipients for the workshop.

A retrospective on the workshop and its value to the participants can be found here.

 

Ukrainian Stories

Photo by Anush Babajanyan

Photo by Anush Babajanyan

During this nine-day workshop, each participant will go through the beautiful process of building a story, with the support of John Stanmeyer and Anush Babajanyan. In addition to practical work, lectures on narrative development, the language of photography and the art of visual storytelling will be given. There will be discussions about today’s constantly changing field of photography and how your career and purpose expands through the art of visual narratives and social media communication.

The creation of a concise body of work is one of the aims of this workshop, but the most important goal is the learning experience itself, and the beautiful process of overcoming the challenges while making a story happen. These gatherings with Anush and John are more spiritual and expansive than pragmatic.

This workshop will teach, but it will also inspire participants to become a better photographer and visual storyteller. VII also believes in the importance of creating and expanding its community by sharing intimately and candidly the experience of decades in the field of its photographers.


In committee with VII Academy Curator Yonola Viguerie, VII Trustee Jennifer Gross, and VII Foundation Manager of Operations Amber Maitland, here are our selections for the workshop: