| Exploring the Narrative Portrait

Our desire to tell stories can motivate us to make pictures and talk to strangers, but we are often disappointed when our pictures feel staged or self-conscious. Guided by Greg Miller, explore and identify ways to create narrative portraits that feel genuine and real.

How do you make a narrative portrait that doesn’t look staged or self-conscious? What is the magic sauce that makes pictures look real even though you interact with your subject? And how do we do any of this if the idea of talking to the people in your picture paralyzes you with fear? 

Guided by photographer Greg Miller, this intensive, yet fun, workshop helps you explore and identify whatever might be stopping you from making the pictures you have always wanted to make.

We will find what is missing in your narrative portraiture and offer you the tools to make better pictures. We will address the relative discomfort around portraiture while building your confidence to try new things at the same time. Through daily assignments and class meetings with all participants, this class will not only help you build a repertoire of techniques for making narrative portraiture but also discover and cultivate your unique photographic practice.

Additionally, this course equips you with strategies for what to do with your subject once you have them in front of you, including ideas for direction, narratives, as well as light, distance, frame, etc. The class also explores how to negotiate your needs to be a photographer with the needs and boundaries of your subject such as ethics, privacy, and consent.

This in-person workshop runs Monday through Friday. All participants will meet daily for lectures and critiques every morning while afternoons are reserved for photographic demonstrations and excursions. Class demos will also include photographing strangers on the street as well as models. Students will complete assignments and review with the class every day. A one-on-one meeting will be scheduled with every student within the week.

In addition to camera gear, students should bring laptops and an external hard drive.