FINDING YOUR VISION ONLINE WORKSHOP
ALEX WEBB AND
REBECCA NORRIS WEBB
APRIL 2021
FINDING YOUR VISION ONLINE WORKSHOP
Do you know where you’re going next with your photography—or where it’s taking you? This intimate, two three-day weekend workshop will help photographers begin to understand their own distinct way of seeing the world. It also will help photographers figure out their next step photographically–from deepening their own unique vision, to the process of discovering and making a long-term project that they’re passionate about. A workshop for serious amateurs and professionals alike, it will be taught by Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb, who together and apart, have authored 20 books—including their recent Aperture book, Brooklyn: The City Within, Alex’s La Calle, and Rebecca’s new Radius monograph, Night Calls. Included in the workshop will be an editing exercise and an individual session with the Webbs. About a month after the workshop, on Sunday May 23, there will also be a group follow up online meeting, which we encourage participants to attend, but it is optional.
We welcome passionate beginners and professionals, college students and seasoned photographers, photojournalists and fine art photographers—anyone who is 18 years old or older and is passionate about photography. Participants are welcome to photograph in black and white or color, but we encourage everyone to photograph digitally, since we won’t have enough time to process film before each class. Because participants will be selecting their images from each day’s assignment, as well as sequencing them, they will need—besides a digital camera and laptop/computer—editing software such as Lightroom or Bridge. More information about assignments, materials needed, and additional details will be sent out to participants once they are accepted.
NOTE: This is a workshop for photographers who collaborate with the world, not for those who dramatically alter their photographs digitally. You have to be 18 years old to apply.
FINDING YOUR VISION ONLINE
Intimate, two three-day weekend workshop
Tuition €1670
Maximum 12 photographers
Workshop language is english
APPLICATION
Former Webb/Norris Webb and Blueberry workshop students or photographers we know are invited to apply without a formal application.
All others need to email Blueberry the following to apply:
1. 10 small jpgs (2000 pixels long side; 72 dpi) that best represent who you are as a photographer—or supply a link to a series or two of your work online.
2. Short statement about why you’d like to take this workshop from Alex and Rebecca (no more than 100 words).
3. Short bio (no more than 100 words). Be sure to also include the following information: date of birth; country of origin /country of residence; profession; previous photography studies.
Rebecca Norris Webb, Blossoming 2019, from the Radius book, Night Calls
SCHEDULE IN BRIEF
Monday, April 12: 21.00 CET (3PM ET): Each participant must upload 30 images (sized 2800 pixels on long side; 72 dpi) into their workshop Dropbox folder, in preparation for the first day’s class on Friday.
Friday, April 16: 17.00- 21.00 CET (11-3PM ET): Zoom Workshop Hours; between workshop sessions, students will be working on their assignments to provide material for the next session.
April 17&18: 18.00- 21.00 CET (12-3PM ET): Zoom Workshop Hours; between workshop sessions, students will be working on their assignments to provide material for the next session.
Saturday and Sunday Assignment Deadline: By 16.00 CET (10AM ET) on Saturday and Sunday, assignments must be uploaded into your workshop Dropbox (each day, no more than 5 images into A Folder; 25 images into B folder). Images must be sized 2800 pixels on long side; 72 dpi.
Monday, April 19 - Thursday, April 22: Students continue working on their assignments
Thursday: April 22: 03.00 CET (9PM ET): Deadline to upload up to 40 images into your Dropbox folders from new work you’ve made between Monday April 19, and Thursday April 22 (no more than 15 images in A folder; 25 images in B folder). Images must be sized 2800 pixels on long side; 72 dpi.
Friday April 23: 16.00 - 22.00 CET (10-4PM ET) Each participant has a 20-minute individual meeting with the Webbs. The rest of this day you are free to continue working on your assignments.
Saturday, April 24: 18.00 - 21.00 CET (12-3PM ET): Zoom Workshop Hours; between workshop sessions, students will be working on their assignments to provide material for the next session.
Sunday, April 25: 17.00 - 21.00 CET (11-3 PM ET): Zoom Workshop Hours.
Saturday and Sunday Assignment Deadline: By 16.00 CET (10AM ET) on Saturday and Sunday, assignments must be uploaded into your workshop Dropbox (each day, no more than 5 images into A Folder; 25 images into B folder). Images must be sized 2800 pixels on long side; 72 dpi.
GROUP FOLLOW UP SESSION (optional)
Wednesday, May 19: 03.00 CET (9PM ET): Deadline to upload your assignment into Dropbox. Students need to upload new images they’ve taken between April 26-May 22. Participants can upload up to 15 images into their A Folder; 25 into their B folder. Images must be sized 2800 pixels on long side; 72 dpi.
Sunday, May 23: 17.00 - 21.00 CET (11-3PM): Zoom Workshop Hours
This schedule is subject to change at any time.
Workshop description
This intimate, two three-day weekend workshop will help photographers begin to understand their own distinct way of seeing the world. It is open to serious amateurs and professionals. This workshop will emphasize the development of your own personal way of seeing photographically and learn how to edit (select and sequence) your work intuitively. Discussions about how to take your photography to the next level.
“I only know how to approach a place by walking. For what does a street photographer do but walk and watch and wait and talk, and then watch and wait some more, trying to remain confident that the unexpected, the unknown, or the secret heart of the known awaits just around the corner.” - Alex Webb
“Over the years, I’ve learned that my images are much wiser than I am. I think I may know where a project is going, but slowly and surely they show me otherwise.”
—Rebecca Norris Webb
MORE ABOUT THE WORKSHOP
There are two main components of this class: the spontaneous act of photographing and intuitive editing. The workshop will begin on Friday, April 16, with Alex and Rebecca—a creative team who, together and apart, have authored 20 books—who will critique each participant’s past work as a starting off point for a larger discussion about various photographic issues. After the first session and before the next one, participants will begin working on their first assignment, which they will choose themselves, something they can photograph safely during this pandemic. It may be a specific street, neighborhood, plaza, or urban downtown. It may be a park, farmers’ market, amusement park, restaurants/bars with outside dining, skate park, botanical garden, or other outdoor area. Or it may be something closer to home—your house, your family, your friends. It may be continuing to photograph a series that you’re already working on. But it must be something that you’re passionate enough to return to photograph, because we feel strongly that working deeply into a project is one way of beginning to find your own unique photographic vision.
Throughout the workshop, participants will continue to photograph their assignments—including the four days between the online weekend sessions. During our online meetings, we will critique as a group each student’s ongoing work. Over the course of this workshop, we will try to build a coherent set of images for each photographer that will begin to represent his or her photographic stance towards the place or people or culture or topic that they are photographing. In addition, each participant will have an individual meeting with Alex and Rebecca on Friday, April 23. Lastly, about a month after the workshop ends—on Sunday, May 23—there will be a group follow up online session, which students have the option of attending.
Besides photographing and editing each day, Alex and Rebecca will give a series of online presentations, as well as an editing exercise. We’ll touch on a variety of topics, including the process of photographing spontaneously and intuitively; how to photograph in cultures other than one’s own; the relationship between images while pairing and sequencing them; how to edit photographs intuitively; an introduction to being on press with a book; how to work with a designer on a book; the emotional and psychological implications of working in color vs. black and white; the difference between images in a book and images on the wall; and how long-term projects can evolve into books and exhibitions.
WHAT TO UPLOAD FOR THE FIRST DAY
No later than Monday, April 12, 2021, participants must upload 25-30 images (2800 pixels long side, 72 dpi). This must be a selection of photographs that best represents who you as a photographer. We are most interested in each participant’s individual vision, rather than whether he or she can work professionally. So, upload a personal project or projects—the work that represents your passions, your obsessions—not a set of portraits or editorial pictures done to satisfy an editor, art director, or other client.
TUITION
Tuition fot the two long weekends and optional follow up session is €1670 per person.
Alex Webb, Havana 2000, from the book Violet Isle
@ Morten Krogvold
ABOUT THE INSTRUCTORS
Alex Webb has published more than fifteen books including Brooklyn, The City Within (Aperture, 2019, with Rebecca Norris Webb) and La Calle: Photographs from Mexico (Aperture, 2016), as well as a survey of 30 years of his color work, The Suffering of Light (Aperture, 2011). Webb became a full member of Magnum Photos in 1979. His work has been shown widely and he has received numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2007. His photographs have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, National Geographic, and GEO, among other publications.
Originally a poet, Rebecca Norris Webb often interweaves her text and photographs in her eight books, most notably with her monograph, My Dakota (Radius, 2012)—an elegy for her brother who died unexpectedly—with a solo exhibition of the work at The Cleveland Museum of Art (2015), among other venues. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and Le Monde, and is in numerous museum collections. An NEA grant recipient, Rebecca has a new book, Night Calls (Radius, 2021), in which she retraced the route of some of her 100-year-old country doctor father’s house calls in the same rural county where they both were born.
LINKS
Alex and Rebecca’s website: https://www.webbnorriswebb.co/
Alex and Rebecca’s instagram: https://www.instagram.com/webb_norriswebb/
Rebecca Norris Webb, Havana 2007, from the book Violet Isle