About the Workshop

Are you a photographer hoping to better articulate your imagery and the process through which it’s realized? Or a writer longing to explore how making pictures will refine and add complexity to your voice? In this photo based workshop, you will take a deep dive into your personal history as it relates to your creative practice.  Through class exercises and writing prompts, participants will explore the motives and concepts behind the subjects they choose, the technical modes used to realize those choices and finally, the visual motifs utilized to shape and convey these ideas.

All aspects of your photographic process will be touched upon, giving you a clearer and fuller understanding of WHAT exits and matters within your work and HOW to best interpret and shape these concepts. Photography is literally about looking. Therefore we are taking time to look back and unpack and understand the history of our instincts, as well as the materials and technology we use to fix them in time.This act makes it easier to look down and better understand where we are now…ultimately allowing us to look forward with new found direction and clarity.

The workshop includes daily presentations of artists to contextual aspects of the workshop, writing/image prompts, readings, field trips, group critiques, discussions as well as a portfolio review for each participant. The end goal of the week will be to gain new insight and clarity into your artwork, working methodologies, materials of choice and overall language for why, how and what you create. Participants are encouraged to make new work during the workshop as well as to examine their archive with fresh eyes.

Students should bring digital cameras and, if they have, laptops and tripods.

About the Instructor

David Hilliard creates large-scale multi-paneled color photographs, often based on his life or the lives of people around him. He is widely published and exhibits nationally and internationally. Hilliard received his MFA from Yale University and has won numerous awards including a Fulbright Grant and a Guggenheim Fellowship. His photographs can be found in the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., and the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, among many others. He is a regular visiting faculty at Harvard University, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, and Lesley University. Hilliard’s work appears in many publications and is represented by the Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York NY, Jackson Fine Art, Atlanta GA, The Schoolhouse Gallery, Provincetown MA, Rivalry Project, Buffalo NY.