Workshops
Guided by award-winning photographer Steve Simon, elevate your photography in this intensive five-session photography bootcamp. Explore your artistic vision, refine your skills, express your passion through captivating images, and more!
There are no available registration dates at this time.
Note: This workshop will be held in a live, online format utilizing the Zoom platform.
Class meets for 5 Thursdays, Apr 4-May 9 (skipping Apr 25) from 11am-1pm ET.
In this intensive five-session bootcamp, Steve Simon teaches concepts from his revised and critically-acclaimed book, THE PASSIONATE PHOTOGRAPHER: DREAM IT; BE IT. All participants receive a PDF copy of the book.
Steve’s innovative and newly updated bootcamp will detail the ten steps for success to encourage and inspire you— regardless of your passion for a specific genre. You’ll learn to take chances, try new approaches and push past photographic boundaries and cliches well beyond your comfort zone. He provides an overview of his working philosophy and deconstructs the elements that make good photographers great. You’ll learn to capture lyrical, poetic and decisive moments that capture the energy of place and evoke an emotional response from the viewer.
- Course Length: Five Two-Hour Sessions.
- Genre: All Genres of Photography.
- Skill Levels: Passionate Photographers.
- Includes: PDF Copy of The Passionate Photographer Book & Bonus Handouts.
“The more personal you make it, the more universal it becomes” is the mantra that will help separate you from the pack, liberating you from your photographic routine towards a deeper visual exploration to transform your passion into a unique personal vision. Steve shares his shooting philosophies gleaned from a lifetime of wandering with his cameras.
A surefire technical strategy leads to technical competence letting creativity soar, and closing the disappointing/frustrating gap between the images you thought you took and the images you actually got. You will learn to focus your concentration as you shoot—being in the moment past fears and insecurities. Steve will give you his minimalist view on gear along with a simplified shooting process to maximize your response time to capture decisive moments.
We will talk about processes for creating evocative portraits with strategies for approaching strangers and working with subjects to create powerful people pictures. Street Portraits and capturing Urban Landscapes will also be covered.
Students explore the power of personal projects to fuel passion and vision, regardless of genre. Steve will describe finding that story or theme you feel passionate about to take you to the next level in your photography and become the photographer you want to be. You will be guided to shoot a larger targeted volume of images working every photographic situation to its maximum—creating a compositional process and template you can apply to every shooting situation.
Editing
We then focus on the art of culling your work, one of the biggest challenges facing photographers today. Steve will lay out his culling process with tips and ideas based on his “criteria philosophy” of editing as well as offering expert advice for keeping your images safe and secure. At the end of this section of the bootcamp, you will be a better editor of your own work making more confident selections and having the plan to keep your irreplaceable images safe for the long term.
Critique
It feels good to hear nice things about your photos from friends, relatives and fellow photographers but pats on the back are less useful than meaningful, constructive criticism. We will put our photography out into the world and seek opinions and critiques that we can use to improve and push ourselves forward – since this is essential to our development as photographers.
Each participant will provide 4 images for critique. This is one of the most important modules, the ability to share work and discuss in an open and honest way in a safe and encouraging space. You will learn critical thinking as well as setting goals and creating strategies for maximizing personal success. You will glean as much from the critique of others as you will from your own images.
Comprehensive
This will be an intense and fun course giving you a reinvigorated passion for your work, and a clear and concise plan of action going forward, maximizing your strengths and talents.
All images copyright Steve Simon.
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Instructor: Steve Simon
Steve Simon is an award-winning documentary photographer and author of five critically acclaimed photography books including The Passionate Photographer, which was chosen as one of Amazon’s "Top Ten Art and Photography Books." He has photographed on assignment in more than 40 countries and his work has been published in the New York Times Magazine, Mother Jones, Colors, Life, Time, Le Monde, Harpers, Macleans, Walrus and many others. Steve is best known for his work focusing on the human condition, capturing life as he encounters it. His documentary work has been featured in solo shows in Buenos Aires, Montreal, Toronto and New York. Visa Pour L’Image in Perpignan, France has showcased Steve’s work three times. His post 9/11 work Empty Sky has been published by Life Books and a complete set of prints from that project was acquired by the 9/11 Memorial Museum for their permanent collection.