April 18 - April 22 2016
Raleigh Studios, Hollywood
Magnum Photos are excited to partner with Photo Independent to bring three workshops, lead by leading Magnum photographers to Hollywood, Los Angeles. For nearly seventy years, Magnum’s international photographers have chronicled the world; interpreting its environment, people and events and helping to shape documentary photography as a modern form of artistic expression. These workshops will be lead by Magnum photographers Bruce Gilden, Moises Saman, and Constantine Manos.
Photo Independent is an annual photography art fair held in Hollywood, California. As the first photographer-only art fair showcasing fine art photographers, Photo Independent provides a unique forum of exchange between photographers and art professionals through exhibitions and specialized programs. A slideshow of work created by the workshop participants will be featured during <a href='http://photoindependent.com' target='_blank'>Photo Independent</a>, April 30-May 1, 2016.
Aimed at photographers with a good understanding of photographic practice, each Magnum photographer will lead their groups through a daily program of shooting, reviews, group critiques, mentoring, editing sessions and the opportunity to learn amongst peers. Students will spend the five days alongside their selected photographer developing visual language, photographic identity, practical, technical and conceptual skills and the expertise required to compete in a changing marketplace. Participants will be asked to approach a photographic story in Los Angeles or the surrounding area. Upon acceptance, students will be emailed a welcome package with directives from their instructor as well as pertinent details about the workshop and information on traveling to and working in Los Angeles.
Each photographer will lead students through a focused program:
Moises Saman: Visual Storytelling <a href='https://magnumphotos.wufoo.com/forms/mohy5g91nbvoqk/' target='_blank'>Apply here</a>
This intensive five day program designed to guide and encourage photographers in refining visual narratives in the Magnum tradition of documentary storytelling.
Constantine Manos: The extraordinary and the everyday <a href='https://magnumphotos.wufoo.com/forms/mvdo0901uuctjz/' target='_blank'>Apply here</a>
The primary mission of this workshop is to teach precise techniques for photographing in the public domain unobtrusively at close range – combining people, place, and moment in unique images. Students will strive to capture magic moments that make complex statements and reflect your personal feelings toward the subject matter.
Bruce Gilden: Be Yourself <a href='https://magnumphotos.wufoo.com/forms/mbeaawm0qjppdd/' target='_blank'>Apply here</a>
Open to both passionate amateurs and professionals, Bruce Gilden’s workshop will help you define your personal vision, sharing with you his own experience and the principles that have guided his career.
Full details of each workshop is detailed below.
The workshop will culminate in a screening of each student’s work at the prestigious Photo Independent Fair, offering unique visibility to individual participants work.
Tuition for the Magnum workshop is $1350 USD and does not include flights, accommodations, or meals. All on the ground expenses are the responsibility of the student. Students will be emailed a full welcome package with suggestions for lodgings as well as a guide to Los Angeles. Magnum Photos will also supply each student with a letter of credentials for the workshop in the event that access to subjects is required.
About the individual workshops:
<b>Bruce Gilden: Be Yourself</b>
Bruce Gilden brings to his workshop his unique style of street photography which has truly become his own over the past 40 years of working in New York City and other urban areas, both in the US and abroad. He will work with the students to teach them how to improve their pictures shot in the streets by best identifying their working “style” for street photography, and aiding them in gaining “street smart” sensibilities necessary to working in any environment- that ability to be in the middle of the scenario, but be unobtrusive.
In addition to his master class, Bruce Gilden will also give a lecture-presentation on his 40-year body of street work.
<b>"I want to help you MAKE photographs, not TAKE photographs!"</b>
Open to both passionate amateurs and professionals, Bruce Gilden’s workshop will help you define your personal vision, sharing with you his own experience and the principles that have guided his career:
1- It begins with “You”. Be yourself. Photograph who you are.
2- A photojournalist places one fact after one fact but photography is more subjective than that.
3- If you’re comfortable with yourself, you can accomplish almost anything.
4- Go back to a place that has visual possibilities. You are as good as what you eat!
5- If you want to shoot something, DO IT NOW! Later you might change your mind, or the place might have changed.
6- You must act and react. Do your thinking beforehand.
7- Be courageous but not foolish.
8- You need intuition to feel things out and a bulldog mentality to persevere.
9-Build up a body of work and a style from this perseverance.
10- Find your niche and style and build up a body of work through commitment, hard work and intelligence.
11- Do you have a language yet? Listen to yourself, not to others.
It takes years to lose your influences and become yourself.
12- Persevere through your working years, this will make the difference of whether you’re special or run of the mill.
PRE_CLASS ASSIGNMENT :
Shoot either 50 digital images or 2 rolls of film in a familiar area, somewhere you are “comfortable” working in, AND 50 digital images (or 2 rolls of film) in different, or “new” situation. Please present no more than 5 images.
FIRST DAY OF CLASS
In addition to the pre-class assignment, bring your best photos, ones that are indicative of your style (they do NOT have to be “street” photographs). Please don't bring more than 12 photographs.
After Bruce Gilden reviews student portfolios, each student will be given a personal assignment related to their strengths or weaknesses.
EVERYDAY:
Bruce reviews the work and then everybody goes out to shoot on their own.
LAST DAY OF CLASS:
From the recently-completed assignments, each participant will have produced an essay that Bruce Gilden will help in putting together.
<a href='https://magnumphotos.wufoo.com/forms/mbeaawm0qjppdd/' target='_blank'>Apply</a>
<b>Moises Saman: Visual Storytelling</b>
This intensive five day program designed to guide and encourage photographers in refining visual narratives in the Magnum tradition of documentary storytelling.
Photographers will develop a documentary story over the course of five days, under the guidance of Moises Saman. A story list will be provided to all participants to introduce them to the locality (geography, culture, politics) and is designed to generate documentary story ideas for participants. Students will be encouraged to respond to the the world around them through careful observation.
Moises Saman will guide students through creating a coherent documentary photo story in response to the locality, through daily critiques, group work, and lectures. Students will each be supported to develop a personal working method and a unique vision.
Moises Saman is particularly interested to see applications from photographers who are developing documentary projects in and around Los Angeles.
Students will learn about shooting in challenging environments, how to develop a story, how to tell a story over one image and over a sequence of images, how to edit your work, to creating a final sequence.
Intended for photographers wishing to broaden their visual perspective and push the boundaries of their personal development, the workshop will elevate the professional standard of photographers and hone their skills in visual storytelling, under the guidance of one of Magnum’s contemporary practitioners; Moises Saman.
About <a href='http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=MAGO31_9_VForm&ERID=24KL535GR6' target='_blank'>Moises Saman</a>.
<a href='https://magnumphotos.wufoo.com/forms/mohy5g91nbvoqk/' target='_blank'>Apply</a>
<b>Constantine Manos: Making the Ordinary Extraordinary</b>
“The flow of people in a setting, their changing relationships to each other and their environment, and their constantly changing expressions and movements - all combine to create dynamic situations that provide the photographer with limitless choices of when to push the button. By choosing a precise intersection between subject and time, he may transform the ordinary into the extraordinary and the real into the surreal. ”
<a href='http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=MAGO31_9_VForm&ERID=24KL53ZOQY' target='_blank'>Constantine Manos</a> is a master photographer, famed for his unique aesthetic and his precision in capturing the sensitivities of daily life. Manos' important bodies of work include A Greek Portfolio and American Color. His photographs are in the permanent collections of museums and galleries across the world, from the Museum of Modern Art, New York; to the Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris.
The primary mission of this workshop is to teach precise techniques for photographing in the public domain unobtrusively at close range – combining people, place, and moment in unique images. The elements of chance, time, place, and personal point of view play important roles in this PERSONAL DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHY. Basic skills in camera technique are required for this course. You will strive to capture magic moments that make complex statements and reflect your personal feelings toward the subject matter.
You will be searching for personal poems plucked from the raw material of daily life. This is not photojournalism, although the lessons learned here may be applied in photojournalism and all photography. You will be working in the tradition of street photographers such as Cartier-Bresson, Frank, and Winograd, You are not photographing what things look like; you are photographing how you feel about them.
After an introductory lecture and portfolio review on the morning of the first day, we will go into the world to photograph. Digital images will be edited and brought to class on a memory stick for projection and critique the next morning. This process will be repeated throughout the course of the workshop.
You will work with a digital camera and wide-angle lenses in the 28-35mm (full frame equivalent) range in color or b&w.
Bring tightly edited set of 10-15 images for review and critique either on a memory stick or as prints.
<a href='https://magnumphotos.wufoo.com/forms/mvdo0901uuctjz/' target='_blank'>Apply</a>
<b>How to apply</b>
First registration is open until March 18th, 2016, second registration closes on 8th April 2016.
Participants that have applied to meet the first deadline will be notified by 23rd March 2016. Participants that apply after the first deadline will be notified within seven business days on the status of their application. Please see below for our cancellation policy.
<a href='https://magnumphotos.wufoo.com/forms/mbeaawm0qjppdd/' target='_blank'>Apply here for Bruce Gilden</a>
<a href='https://magnumphotos.wufoo.com/forms/mvdo0901uuctjz/' target='_blank'>Apply here for Constantine Manos</a>
<a href='https://magnumphotos.wufoo.com/forms/mohy5g91nbvoqk/' target='_blank'>Apply here for Moises Saman</a>
A $100 application fee is required for each application. If accepted, this balance will be applied to the final tuition. If the student is not accepted, a refund of the application fee, minus a $5 processing charge, will be granted.
For any questions or for more information, please contact emily.graham@magnumphotos.com
Cancellation Policy
- If a participant decides to cancel for whatever reason, it must be confirmed in writing:
. Magnum Photos will reimburse all the registration costs except for $50 administrative fee, if the participant informs Magnum Photos of cancellation at least 3 weeks before the first day of the workshop. Beyond this time limit, Magnum Photos will charge the following:
. 50% of the cost if cancelled between 6 and 20 days before the workshop commences.
. 100% of the cost if cancelled less than 5 days before the workshop commences.
. All workshops that are commenced but not completed through the fault of either the contractor/or participant need to be paid in full.
- Magnum Photos is not responsible for reimbursement of travel expenses in case a workshop is cancelled. We recommend that you buy refundable air tickets and/or travel insurance.