News

Film Field Trip at NASAD Conference in Pittsburgh

Charles Altschul, Howard Greenberg and Mark Ulano on the set of The Next Three Days.
Charles Altschul, Howard Greenberg and Mark Ulano on the set of The Next Three Days.Maine Media College President Charles Altschul and Master of Fine Arts degree program Chair Howard Greenberg took some time away from the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD) Annual Meeting in Pittsburgh to connect with two Workshops faculty.

They visited with Mark Ulano on the set of The Next Three Days, a Paul Haggis film starring Russell Crowe.  Mark, who won an Academy Award for his work on Titanic, teaches Sound Production and Mixing for the Workshops. Altschul and Greenberg also met with cinematographer Steven Fierberg. Fierberg was in Pittsburgh shooting Love and Other Drugs, which stars Anne Hathaway. Steven, who teaches Camera and Visual Storytelling at the Workshops, won an ASC Award for outstanding achievement in cinematography in 2002.

Maine Media College is pursuing national accreditation through NASAD.

MMC Fall Trimester Finals

Maine Media College faculty, students, families, and friends gathered this week for final project and portfolio viewing to wind up the end of a 10-week fall trimester.

Wide-ranging work included documentary and fine art digital and traditional dark-room photographic printing. This term marked the first for MMC’s new Multimedia Professional Certificate Program. The audience had an opportunity view documentary presentations of imagery and audio carefully woven together to create compelling narratives.

The students return at the beginning of January to begin their second trimester of work. All will continue with project work, with photo students branching off into electives such as studio lighting and large format photography, and Multimedia students advancing into multimedia publishing and graphic design work. The still photographers also have the opportunity to work with their multimedia peers in a new course offering Multimedia Collaboration.

MaineMedia.edu Launches, Thanks to Capital Campaign

Maine Media Workshops is pleased to announce the launch of a newly redesigned website which enhances the world wide image of the school and firmly establishes the relationship between the workshops programs and Maine Media College.

With generous support from donors to the school’s New Vision Capital Campaign, MMW was able to engage Boston designer Clif Stoltze and his team at Stoltze Design. With MMW staff, they took a careful look at the online needs of the school and came up with a presentation that reflects the high caliber of the school’s program offerings, and provides for more streamlined access to information for students and visitors.

"The design of our new website now reflects our prominence as a media school – but the changes are not just superficial,” says Maine Media Executive Director Charles Altschul, “Using open source technologies, we now have the capability to engage our constituencies in dynamic new ways. Over time, I look forward to our website becoming the go-to resource for media artists worldwide."

The New Vision Campaign began immediately following the school’s transition to non-profit status in 2007. To date over $1.2 million have been donated by individuals, foundations, and businesses to provide needed updates to the campus,  develop new programs, purchase new technologies, and establish a scholarship endowment.

Our thanks to the New Vision donors whose generosity has made this new website possible. We welcome you to explore MaineMedia.edu today!

Workshops Alumna Joins Board

The Workshops Board is pleased to welcome photographer Emma Simmons as its newest director.

Emma brings her experience on the board of the Otter Island Foundation, as well as her talent for photography and passion for the school, to her new role at MMW.


photo by Richard CurtisA graduate of Colorado College with a degree in Hispanic Studies, Emma traveled to Tanzania to volunteer at a day care and an orphanage. During her three months working as a volunteer, Emma recalls, “I realized the amazing access I had with the villagers I was living with and captured their lives with my camera. I was granted access into someone’s life that a regular tourist would not experience.”

Upon returning from Tanzania, she decided to expand her love of photography with serious study. She enrolled as a student in the Summer Residency program at the Workshops, immersing herself in a 12-week intensive course of photo classes. With her mentor, Elizabeth Greenberg, she charted a program of workshops, which included work with master faculty Alison Shaw, Bob Krist, Bob Sacha, Jay Dickman, John Isaac, and Joyce Tenneson.

Working in the industry, Emma has assisted many photographers in their studios or on location. In 2008 she assisted John Isaac during his destination workshops in Kashmir and Rajasthan, India; a journey which resulted in the exhibition “Celebrating India” at the Workshops Gallery in August 2009, in which Emma was a featured artist.

"Emma's youthful perspective, combined with a keen understanding of how non-profit organizations operate positions her to be a particularly refreshing addition to the 'family,'" says board Secretary Peter Ralston, "Its a deep pleasure to welcome her aboard!"

Emma is currently a contributing photographer for the Orbtiz travel website. You can view her featured blog Through the eyes of Emma to see images from her most recent travels.

Maine Frame Available Online

Maine Frame, the book resulting from MMW’s 2009 student photo contest, is now available for purchase through the Blurb’s online bookstore.

The book features 100 photographs taken by Workshops 2009 alumni. Online community voting brought over 4,000 viewers to our website, casting close to 15,000 votes. The book, which also features a foreward by Maine Media College Photography Chair and Workshops instructor, Brenton Hamilton, launched at a MMW Alumni party at B&H October 21. Over 100 Workshops and MMC alums, staffers, faculty, and the B&H team were on hand to reconnect and to celebrate the work of our students.


Maine Frame is featured online as a Blurb Staff Pick and is priced at $24.95. Five dollars of every purchase is contributed to the Workshops scholarship fund.

Many thanks to our great friends at Blurb and B&H, and our talented alumni for making Maine Frame such a success!

Annual Appeal 2009 Under Way

Maine Media’s second annual appeal kicked off last month to an immediate and generous response from alumni, faculty, and friends.

As a new non-profit, we achieved great success with last year’s initial fundraising efforts, helping the school to begin much-needed campus improvements, keep our technologies state of the art, and start a scholarship endowment. But there is a lot more to do.

If you’ve already received your 2009 annual appeal letter, we appreciate your consideration of a tax-deductible gift this year. For your convenience, and for readers who have not received an appeal letter in the mail but would like to make a gift, please visit our website and make a secure gift online.

Thanks go out to our generous donors on behalf of the Workshops staff and board, our thousands of alumni through the world, and the next students to share the magic of a Workshops experience!

Film School Alum Wins at Williamstown Fest

Workshops '08 alum, Cole Christine, recently got the call many emerging filmmakers hope for: Steve Lawson, Executive Director of the Williamstown Film Festival phoned to let him know that the film Cole had written and directed at Maine Media while a student in a Four-week Film School workshop, Brian's Life, had one the festival Student Shorts category.

Cole’s piece won out over more than 75 entries in this first year for the student film category. The film, shot primarily in nearby Camden, Maine, tells the story of Brian -- a lonely, elderly man nearing the end of life:

After a doctor’s diagnosis of his aortic aneurysm, Brian makes one last journey to town to pass on advice to his only friend, Dan, a young and withdrawn store clerk who exhibits the same characteristics that made Brian a wretched recluse.

Fearing for Dan’s future happiness, Brian confesses his life’s failures and presents Dan with a chance to avoid a similar fate before the last scene.

Cole, a freshman at Vermont's Bennington College, and who will be back in Rockport this winter for a Workshops internship, had this to say in a recent message: "I'm so excited for this and wanted to let everyone at the workshops who helped me get to this point know about this event!"

Brian's Life will be screened at the festival on Saturday, October 24th at 2:45pm in the Images Cinema.  For more details visit www.williamstownfilmfest.com.

Feinstein's Kutuuka Supports Ugandan Orphanages

After receiving my MA in photography from the University of Wisconsin in 1979, I opened a photography gallery in Kansas City. The gallery, which showed work by everyone from Levitt to Arbus to Cartier-Bresson to Leibovitz, was in existence for twelve years. I closed its doors so that I could return to my true love: making my own pictures. I dusted off my Hassleblad when I turned forty, started working again and never looked back.

Fifteen years, many workshops, a couple of books and some exhibitions later, I am happy to announce the publication of Kutuuka.

It is a book that grew out of the Maine Media workshop I took in 2006 with Thatcher Hullerman Cook: Photographing World Relief Efforts in Uganda. During the workshop I spent close to three weeks shooting at orphanages in Uganda. Thatcher was a magnificent and generous teacher. When I returned home, I decided to do something to help the children I’d met and photographed.

Within a couple of months, I started a non-profit organization called Change the Truth. We raise money and awareness for and about the orphans living in Uganda, specifically at St. Mary Kevin Orphanage in Kajjansi.

Kutuuka is a book featuring my photographs from that first trip and two subsequent ones, as well as essays by Thatcher and a social worker, Ann Thomas. It also includes drawings and paintings by some of the children from the orphanage.

Underwritten by a generous friend of Change the Truth, Kutuuka is available for purchase through Change the Truth.  All proceeds go directly to provide school fees, food and medical care for the children at St. Mary Kevin Orphanage.

- Gloria Baker Feinstein

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