Rome – Workshop Description

Your Story of Rome

Tuesday, June 1 to Saturday, June 5, 2010

Rome is a city with a story, or rather with millennia of stories, and through photography, we will concentrate on learning to tell a story of Rome  – your story of Rome – with images.

It’s a city that sees hundreds of thousands of tourists a year who make millions of photographs of some of the most famous sites in the world. The grand and amazing fountains, the Baroque churches, the riotous markets, the bridges over the Tiber, the beautiful Roman people… everything falls under the stare of the camera.

Our goal is to figure out how to make our own images and how to take those images and create a story that gives us our own sense of what it is that Rome means to each of us.

In the field, we’ll spend time trying to find unique ways of seeing iconic sights as well as finding subject matter that is well off the beaten track. Back at the hotel, we will edit your take, working on shot selection, sequence and series to help you tell your own story of Rome. We will work with digital photographic equipment for its remarkable speed of feedback and response, combining daily photographic experiences with real-time editing and critiquing of images.

Before we depart Rome, you will have produced a group of your own images designed to tell a story that is yours and yours alone; your response to one of the greatest cities in the world.

We’ll be based in the centro storico, the historical center.  Our accommodations at the Albergo Cesári are ideally located between the Pantheon and the Trevi Fountain; it’s a “walk to” location for so many sites (including Giolitti, one of Rome’s premier gelaterie) you’ll want to photograph.  The hotel also has a great rooftop terrace where you can relax in the evening.

Because we will work with digital photographic equipment, we’ll be counting on its rapid feedback and we will be able to critique our images individually and via digital projection as a group. I will work with you as you edit your downloaded images to help you develop your story. Because the group will be shooting together and editing together,  you will learn a lot from your fellow students as well.

I have limited this experience to a maximum of 12 photographers in order to ensure the best level of personal instructional attention. This is an intermediate-level photographic experience; you should have at least three years experience making photographs, have a basic understanding of photographic processes and technology and should be comfortable using a digital SLR camera in manual mode. Non-photographer companions are welcome and warmly invited to attend.