Phantomas
Well-known
I just sent an email to Nicos Economopoulos (of Magnum) inquiring about a possibility to join one of his traveling workshops. He'll be running several 1 week full-time workshops in various locations around the world. I've settled on joining him in Beirut. If I'm accepted, that is.
I've been toying around with the idea of joining such workshop for a couple of months now. The idea came unexpectedly from a local guy who bought a camera from me recently. Last year he has joined a Magnum workshop in Barcelona (they still run them) where he got a chance to pick a Magnum photographer as a tutor for a week. I always thought these types of workshops are exclusively for highly talented and/or professionally dedicated people. But after I saw the guy's portfolio I got confidence that I can join too (nothing wrong with his portfolio, but it was nothing groundbreaking or out of ordinary). At that time I was contemplating making a trip on my own with sole purpose of working on photo project (which I will still do, hopefully numerous times). The news of a possibility of a workshop with photographers that I highly admire (Magnum) provided an easy solution - work on locale, learn from a pro. Another important factor is that I admire documentary and street photography and would like to further myself in that field (for personal fulfillment, no other reasons).
I wanted to ask if some of you guys have taken similar workshops. Would like to hear your experiences, stories, etc. I would really appreciate if you could recommend such type of workshop(s) too. Mind that I'm not interested in photo courses dealing solely with technique and useless to me topics like landscape, architecture photography or snapping away only to achieve technical perfection. I'd like to learn to work on a real location, real subject, real stories. I have found a couple of such workshops. So far the ones offered by Nicos caught my eye. But I'm open to alternatives.
Here's the link to Nicos' site: http://ontheroad.gr/ontheroad/home.html
PS: the guy who told me about Magnum workshops told me a story about another group that was working under supervision of Antoine D'Agata in Barcelona. Those of you familiar with his work might imagine that he was pushing his students into danger zone - following hustlers, drug dealers, prostitutes, etc. As a result half of his group ended up robbed and/or beaten 🙂
I've been toying around with the idea of joining such workshop for a couple of months now. The idea came unexpectedly from a local guy who bought a camera from me recently. Last year he has joined a Magnum workshop in Barcelona (they still run them) where he got a chance to pick a Magnum photographer as a tutor for a week. I always thought these types of workshops are exclusively for highly talented and/or professionally dedicated people. But after I saw the guy's portfolio I got confidence that I can join too (nothing wrong with his portfolio, but it was nothing groundbreaking or out of ordinary). At that time I was contemplating making a trip on my own with sole purpose of working on photo project (which I will still do, hopefully numerous times). The news of a possibility of a workshop with photographers that I highly admire (Magnum) provided an easy solution - work on locale, learn from a pro. Another important factor is that I admire documentary and street photography and would like to further myself in that field (for personal fulfillment, no other reasons).
I wanted to ask if some of you guys have taken similar workshops. Would like to hear your experiences, stories, etc. I would really appreciate if you could recommend such type of workshop(s) too. Mind that I'm not interested in photo courses dealing solely with technique and useless to me topics like landscape, architecture photography or snapping away only to achieve technical perfection. I'd like to learn to work on a real location, real subject, real stories. I have found a couple of such workshops. So far the ones offered by Nicos caught my eye. But I'm open to alternatives.
Here's the link to Nicos' site: http://ontheroad.gr/ontheroad/home.html
PS: the guy who told me about Magnum workshops told me a story about another group that was working under supervision of Antoine D'Agata in Barcelona. Those of you familiar with his work might imagine that he was pushing his students into danger zone - following hustlers, drug dealers, prostitutes, etc. As a result half of his group ended up robbed and/or beaten 🙂
