COURSE DESCRIPTION

The Cortona Center of Photography's one and two week workshops are designed to stimulate creative thinking while expanding technical knowledge for beginners, amateurs, and professional photographers. The program is also designed so that students enjoy their time with us, explore the surrounding countryside, the nearby hill towns, and visit some of the Art of Italy.

To achieve the necessarily flexible program structure the instructors work with each student one on one, setting practical, achievable, but progressive goals based on the individual student's level of proficiency and aesthetic direction.

Thus the novice will benefit from inclusion with advanced participants while the more expert student is able to go forward at his or her own pace.

COURSE STRUCTURE

The Cortona Center of Photography Workshop is a combination of lectures, demonstrations, critiques, group field trips, and individual field work.

While our instructors are professional photographers who can explain the working of your camera and methods for achieving proper exposure, or, for the more advanced, demo the zone system and Photoshop. the course is based on exploration and investigation and not on “mastering” specific techniques.

PHOTOGRAPHIC INTENT & INSTRUCTION

The intent of the workshops is to involve each participant in the creative process by advancing visual concepts and technical skills in a balance that will enable self expression. You will be encouraged to find a personal way of working and exploring our especially diverse subject matter, the dramatic landscape, Etruscan relics, Roman, Medieval and Renaissance architecture, and the wonderful and photogenic people of Tuscany.

To achieve this we will help you attain a mental integration of camera mechanics, focus, depth of field, establishing correct film exposure, etc. with the aesthetic elements of image making such as composition, light, value, mass, and scale. This done self expression becomes possible and the challenging philosophies of image making may be considered.

GOAL

Is that the student's realization of a personal method of working and self expression within the creative process will provide a long term motive to produce original, inspired photography and thus pursue “mastery”.

DAY SCHEDULE

Since our historic location excites exploration an ordered, event, and weather flexible schedule is planned for each day.

While we work primarily in Cortona, one of Tuscany's most beautiful locations, the program also provides several field trips to nearby cities such as Siena, Orvieto, or Montepulciano. Depending on the season, we may photograph a winery, the grape harvest, olive pickers, street scenes in Orvieto or the dramatic rolling landscape beyond Pienza. Sunday is a free day for two week participants and the adventurous may want to make an excursion to Florence or Rome which can be reached in the early morning by train or car.

An example of a day's schedule in Cortona is: students make photographs in early morning light; breakfast together and discuss the day; visit Cortona's fortress Medici or the monastery le Celle. View work and critique; lunch and break; an afternoon demo by a teacher or work, sometimes on your own, in or around Cortona until sunset; scheduled one on one sessions with a teacher; dinner together in a restaurant; end day. The critique is often changed to the afternoon in order to demo or make photographs together immediately after breakfast. As you will want to take advantage of the daylight hours, classroom time is kept to a minimum by working together on location. On field trip days, we make photographs all day; skip the day's critique doubling up the next day.

By designating our time, instructors will be available for individual sessions to address aesthetic or technical concerns, conduct personal demonstrations in the field, or provide guidance and encouragement on an individual basis.

Excluding field trip days, we will review student work everyday and discuss related subjects. We will, for example, discuss light metering techniques as they relate to film exposure and contrast control for both the film and digital mediums. These sessions will help you attain a mental integration of camera mechanics like focus and establishing a correct exposure, with the aesthetic elements of image making such as composition, light, value, mass, and scale.

In our small group emphasis on individual instruction will resolve technical problems and aesthetic questions enabling you to find a personal way to work within and concentrate on the creative process.