In 2020, Maine Media began a series of online lectures, covering a wide array of subjects, often with a focus on creating and thinking about art during challenges and isolation. Hear from experts in filmmaking, photography, writing, and more!
Past Alumni Lectures
All alumni and staff may retrieve their password to view this content by emailing [email protected].
NOTE: While most events are recorded via Zoom and uploaded to this page, certain lectures may include licensed or private content, and will only be viewable during the live, scheduled time.
Paul Martineau, Curator of Photography at the Getty celebrates photographer & beloved Maine Media instructor Rodney Smith & the new retrospective. Listen to the lecture.
Lauren Groff at Pascal Hall July 27, 2022.
Ted Widmer at Pascal Hall Aug. 2, 2022.
During this captivating hour the Caponigros will share thoughts about the soul of photography, joys of printing, & how the two are related.
Join Ralston, Photographer & Storyteller, as he takes us on a journey of Maine’s coast through his photography.
Join Zinman for a presentation about how artists use technology to pursue shared aesthetic, conceptual, & ideological goals across media.
Join us as Gabe inspires you to keep clicking once the sun goes down and to get even more creative with your night vision.
Two Photo Nerds Obsess over Photography Books. Join The Legendary Tim Whelan in Conversation with Cig Harvey.
Artist and educator, Christine Collins discussed her influences, recent projects, and the role of teaching in her artistic practice.
Join Liz Garcia as she walks you through the process to determine if your idea is a TV series, a film, or a limited series.
Justyn T. Davis provided an understanding of angle of incidence and angle of reflection, which are some of the physics of lighting.
Susan spoke about the mixture of her history as a photographer set against the backdrop of her teaching process and principles.
Using humor, feminism and various mediums, Meiners engages in self analysis & critique to arrive at a truthful & authentic version of herself.
Join Budd as she shows images from her largest body of work ‘Street Fam’, inspirations and in depth workflow in processing & scanning.
Hear Danny Dawson talk to NY based photographer John Pinderhughes about his combined careers in advertising and fine art photography.
Stern presented recent work spanning moving image installation, sculpture, photography, and architectural intervention.
Shaw shared her experiments with new idea, Waste Not, Want Not, her approach and personal challenge for her pandemic residency.
Fawundu shared her latest works of connections between Africa & the Diaspora, telling the process of decolonizing her mind while making art.
Aline Smithson takes a look back over her photo journey and celebrates her new monograph, Fugue State by Peanut Press.
A brief look into the life and lessons of movie photography and the reality of one of the industry’s most misunderstood job roles.
Taylor discussed his project, Little Black Boy, insights into his practice & how his work speaks to the Black American experience.
Gabe Biderman from B&H discusses the benefits and challenges associated with making the move to a mirrorless camera.
Hear Flash talk about her art, activism & practice firmly rooted in social justice advocacy around sexual, racial, and cultural difference.
Faculty alum Dr. Kolkin shared his experience as a 20-year medical volunteer and photographer working in diverse communities worldwide.
Lucky discusses the storytelling potential of the crankie—a very old storytelling form involving a decorated scroll.
Hilliard examined the joys and challenges of his decades long photographic collaboration with his dad and the commitment to see it through.
Yesterday is a book of photographs made by Sal Taylor Kydd during the summer of 2020. Aline Smithson says Sal Taylor Kydd has created an exquisite exploration of remembrance, with a particular poetry that runs through her images and words. It’s the poetry of knowing a place steeped in personal histories, a place that holds a sense of belonging and timelessness. Yet it’s also the acknowledgement of subtle changes in both human and natural landscapes with cloud shifting sensibilities.
Inspired by the archive of Richmond native Louis Draper, VMFA has organized an unprecedented exhibition that chronicles the first twenty years of the Kamoinge Workshop, a group of African American photographers he helped to found in 1963. Hear from Dr. Sarah Eckhardt, curator for this exhibition, and Danny Dawson, an early member of Kamoinge.
Daniel Kelm is a book artist who is known for his innovative structures and extensive knowledge of materials. He enjoys expanding the concept of the book. He invented a style of bookbinding called “wire edge binding” in the mid-1980s in order to explore the nature of the book as articulated sculpture.
https://vimeo.com/636383597
In this talk, Macy Chadwick shows her limited edition books that combine structure, image and text in innovative ways. She also discusses her experiences as a letterpress printer, teacher, collaborator, and residency director, considering the relationship between personal creative output and the choice to take a new professional direction.
In this not-your-average Alumni Lecture, join Tessa Rosenberry as she shares her passion for saving this planet, and leads a discussion around ways that we can all make change in our own lives and communities.
Jean talks about how his work and process explore the inner places where “what if?” thrives, and he’s interested in helping others find that place, too. watch as he shares photographs and illustrates his three-pronged process: not knowing how things will turn out, playing a deceptively simple game of “what if?”, and trusting your eye (not your thoughts).
Commercial Director Jon Weiman talks about how he uses the soft-skills he learned from his therapist parents to guide his creative process. From the pitch, through prep, casting, directing on set, collaborating with the crew and editing, Jon discusses the importance of empathy, collaboration, open mindedness and asking the right questions.
As a Lebanese-born American artist and mother, Matar has dedicated her artistic practice to exploring both sides of her cultural background, cross-cultural experience, and personal narrative, in addressing issues of personal and collective identity, through photographing girls and women both in the United States where she lives and in the Middle East where she is from.
Watch Madeleine discuss her entry into photography, influences, and process, as well as her current body of work, which captures a recurring cast of local teenagers here in Maine.
Lucky Platt, author-illustrator of Imagine a Wolf (Page Street Kids 2021) presents aspects of her picture book-making process and the art of visual storytelling. She highlights picture book works-in-progress by students from the MMW workshop Write & Illustrate a Children’s Picture Book.
Dawn speaks about her creative journey of incorporating her imagery into three dimensional work and the integration of multi-mediums into installations, objects and other non-traditional forms.
Join Valerie as she illuminates the process and inspiration behind her projects, highlighting experiments with various mediums, structures and content.
Join Luis as he addresses significant elements that have been important in his path as an editor: images, music, sound, storytelling, and style. Seeking constantly for a voice, developing methodologies, and strategies to face projects in the editing room.
Working on something you can’t understand or can’t see but that you think is there…maybe. Join Sean as he illustrates with versions of two projects made in the same location, one iteration in film and one in still photography.
In this alumni conversation, Vivienne discusses the ins-and-outs of voiceover work, how the emphasis on home-recording has reordered the entire voiceover industry, the many and varied joys of audiobook narration, and how those who are interested can break into the field of voiceover work and audiobook narration.
Hear Steve Fierberg, ASC (Entourage, The Affair) talk about how his cinematic process affects the lighting set up, different lighting techniques, interacting with natural light, simulating natural light and how to fake natural light when shooting a film.
Experience a personal walk through Joyce’s journey, not only as a photographer, but as someone who has had a lifelong interest in teaching and empowering others.
Lucinda, a lifelong poet, reads from her debut poetry collection; reflecting on the emotional journey of a woman navigating the world, dealing with the disappointments she comes across, and coming to terms with her life and beyond.
Hear award-winning film editor Chris Nelson (LOST, Mad Men) talk about Creativity, and how it applies to Storytelling and Character Development for Editors & Directors.
Elizabeth discusses her journey through the photographic world which began at Maine Photographic Workshops in 1979 and continues today with Maine Media. She will share stepping stone images in her career, the influence the Provence and Tuscany programs had on her artistic growth and engage in stories with contributors that are in Workshop Stories: changed through photography to be released Spring 2021.
Maggie Steber believes “Over a lifetime we accumulate experiences that end up being like wallpaper in a house where our subconscious resides. While the photographs I take are not of me nor of my direct life, they are part of me because they show the human experience..” Hear Maggie talk about her creative process and the idea of coming back to self.
David Turner grew up in a small town in the Midwest and made it big in the fashion world of the Big Apple. Listen to him discuss his career path and his photographic approach.
Acclaimed cinematographer and director, Geary Mcleod ASC, discusses his long career path in the film industry, the trials and tribulations, and the hard work it entails, as well as his unique viewpoint from having worked as both a director and cinematographer.
Artist and photographer McNair Evans shares pictures, process, and passenger writings created during his Guggenheim Fellowship to photograph on America’s passenger rail system. Of course the train can be a beautiful way to travel but, for the most part, long-distance trains are used by people trying to get their lives together, find work, or reunite with people they love and hope will love them back. This project explores that search for something just out of reach and a bit intangible. McNair’ photographs explore idealized myths, collective identity, and a shifting psychological landscape within America. Join us for McNair’s presentation of this ethnographic, empathetic documentary project.
Patrisha McLean discusses the role photography, and the Maine Media Workshops, played during a 29-year abusive marriage, and how her photography led to Finding Our Voices, the social justice movement and non-profit organization which marshals Survivor faces and voices to boldly and creatively break the silence of intimate partner abuse, conversation by conversation and community by community.
Annabelle Gurwitch is a performer and a New York Times-bestselling author. Her most recent book is Wherever You Go, There They Are: stories about my family you might relate to. Her other books include I See You Made an Effort (a New York Times bestseller and Thurber Prize finalist); You Say Tomato, I Say Shut Up (co-authored with Jeff Kahn), and Fired! which was also a Showtime Comedy Special.
Vincent Versace – “Postcards From the Vacation that is My Life- Being Taken by the photograph”. Vincent Versace is an internationally recognized pioneer in the art and science of digital photography. His passion for natural light photography is manifest not only in his work but also through his role as a creative and technical leader, contributing to innovative breakthroughs across the entire digital image value chain.
An anecdotal look into the passion for filmmaking using the instrument of sound. Mark Ulano, CAS, AMPS is an Oscar-winning production sound mixer, he has been recording sound for film professionally since 1976. His work on TITANIC won him an Academy Award for Sound Mixing as well as the Cinema Audio Society Award for Best Sound mixing for a Feature Film. He was also Oscar-nominated for ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD, INGLORIOUS BASTERDS, and AD ASTRA.
Join Tom for a talk about filming during quarantine. And about his current documentary project focusing on the mission of career war photographer Reza Deghati. Reza is educating and empowering young photographers in the impoverished neighborhood, Villa 31 in Buenos Aires, to document their experiences with photography.
John Paul Caponigro will show you how to create a dynamic synergy between the skills you already have – photography, writing, drawing – to unlock your untapped creative potential. You’ll be inspired to overcome creative blocks and try new things, practicing them in your own ways, for your own purposes, as you progress on your own creative journey. The creative process is driven by exploration and discovery, offering many insights along the way and though it changes it never ends.
This informal talk explores the profound differences between literary and visual storytelling, what narration means, and why it matters that we feel someone guiding us through the story.
Tom Gasek is a stop motion animator whose work you’ve seen in projects including The California Raisins and Wallace & Gromit. His pioneering research into non-puppet stop motion has changed the game, showing that to make incredible animations, whatever you have on hand is all you need. In this Alumni Talk, Tom shares some of the ideas, tricks, and tools to creating non-puppet stop motion animations.
During the world event that became COVID-19, those of us not on the front lines have been given an opportunity to cocoon in many different ways. To reflect, germinate, contract, despair, revive, create and knock over all the blocks and start again. Hear Valerie discuss her journey through becoming an actor, writer, director and teacher.
How do you get a fresh perspective in this changing world? How do you express yourself in times of change, unrest, and insecurity? Photographer, Laurie Klein goes into details, including getting out of your comfort zone.
“Collecting as Passion and Profession” brings together two New Yorkers — a collector turned educator/advisor and an auction specialist/curator turned collector — on the considerations of building a collection, what they collect, and how the passion of photography has changed their lives.
Jim will discuss both the why and how of putting together a printed portfolio of your work. Whether you want to present work to galleries, provide a culmination to a long-term project, or simply want to show your finished work to friends, creating a portfolio can be a valuable and satisfying project.
Author, Maurice Carlos Ruffin discusses the best techniques to help you get started writing your stories. The discussion will also include best practices for bringing fiction to a satisfying conclusion.
Sal Taylor Kydd discusses her latest book Landfall that takes us on a journey through the islands of the Penobscot Bay in Maine. Sal will be sharing her process and journey with writer and photographer Kat Kiernan.
Frank Ockenfels hosts a conversation about light: Seeing, creating, and manipulating one of the fundamentals of photography. He’ll discuss his trademark approach to adapting unusual, ten minute situations into beautiful photographs. Hear how he makes light collaborate with the subject to create the moment, and what tools you can use to do the same thing.
Join Maine Media and David James for the story of the Star Wars: The Force Awakens read through photo, and how he and director JJ Abrams turned the first cast read through into a viral moment. James will discuss what goes into taking still photographs for some of Hollywood’s most exciting productions.
Greg Miller discusses his evolution as a photographer around the theme of unrequited love and adopting photography as a conduit to his past. Using an 8×10 large format camera, Miller uses the serendipity of chance meetings with strangers and street photography to build insightful, narrative photographs.
A wide ranging discussion of the creative process with poet and teacher Kevin Pilkington. He will read a selection of his past poems, as well as those from his forthcoming collection and favorite poems by fellow poets.
Aline Smithson shares a myriad of approaches and concepts that a photographer can use to create work while staying put.
A short video from Anneli Skaar, who recently gave a lecture discussing her book “Nansen’s Pastport”
Ellen Bass explores the role of the poet to transmute suffering into beauty, to find the exquisite tenderness in pain, to make meaning in the face of our fragility. She will read her own poems and those of others.
Screenwriter and MMW Film Program Chair, Wayne Beach speaks about the robust opportunities for creativity in filmmaking when facing isolation.
Richard Blanco – Poetic Relief: Solidarity in Solitude
