Workshop med Magnum-fotografen Alex Webb i Venezia

Welcome to workshop in “Bella Venezia”

Alex Webb has been a member of Magnum Photos since 1976, has published seven books including Hot Light/Half Made Worlds, Under A Grudging Sun, Crossings: Photographs from the U.S. - Mexico Border, and most recently, Istanbul: City of a Hundred Names. He has worked for many of the major publications including National Geographic, Life, New York Times Magazine, GEO, and is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Hasselblad Foundation Grant, and the Leica Medal of Excellence. Webb’s work has been exhibited widely in the U.S. and Europe in museums such as the International Center of Photography, the High Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego.

Winter is the best time of the year to visit Venice. The streets are free of tourists, and even St. Marco church is quiet and peaceful. It is a cold period, when you can experience both snow and storms. The water can flood the streets and the mist can float in over the canals. The narrow alleys can create the most wonderful light for the camera. On the other hand, when the sun comes out, the brilliant Adriatic light makes the city sparkle.

The workshop workshop starts two weeks before the big event of the year, Carnivale. The citizens will be getting ready. They will be preparing costumes and masks and the whole setting is practically straight out of the movie, “The Merchant of Venice.” A boat ride to Lido reminds one of the beach scene from the film based on Thomas Mann’s novel, “Death in Venice,” made by Viscount.

Rebecca Norris Webb, will also taech in the workshop and she is originally a poet and journalist, had her first NYC solo exhibition at Ricco Maresca Gallery in 2006, the same year her first book, The Glass Between Us, was published. Her series, which uses text and images to explore the complicated relationship between people and animals in cities, has also been included in several group exhibitions, including “Why Look at Animals?” at the George Eastman House Museum of Photography. Her project was awarded sponsorship by the Blue Earth Alliance. Currently, she’s working on a series of photographs in the American West called, “My Dakota.” Rebecca edited Alex’s two most recent books (Crossings and Istanbul) and teaches photography workshops with him in the U.S., Italy, Peru, Russia, Mexico, Turkey, and Spain.

VENICE: EXPLORING YOUR VISION

Workshop description
The workshop will be about street photography in Venice - using the camera to explore the world of this city in a direct, spontaneous way. It is a workshop that will emphasize the development of your unique, personal way of seeing and an intuitive way to edit (to select and sequence photographs). It’s a workshop open both to amateurs and professionals, and you may use digital or analog equipment.

The schedule
There are two basic components of this class: the spontaneous act of photographing and the intuitive editing.
The workshop will begin with Alex and Rebecca critiquing each student’s past work. By the first afternoon, students will be out working on their first assignment, which they will choose themselves. It may be a specific street, a plaza, a neighborhood, a subculture, a profession, a family or individual; something that each feel passionate enough about to return to every day to photograph.

For the rest of the workshop, all participants will meet in the mornings and critique as a group each student’s ongoing work. Throughout the workshop, the aim is to build a coherent set of images for each photographer to represent his or her photographic stance or attitude towards the city of Venice.

Besides photographing and editing each day, discussions based on Renaissance art; it's color and composition is an important aspect. Throughout the workshop the group will also touch on a variety of other topics, including the process of photographing spontaneously and intuitively; how to photograph in cultures other than one’s own; the relationship between images (such as the sequencing and juxtaposition of photographs); the practical realities of the magazine and art worlds; 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.

For more information see www.studioa7.no or http://agency.magnumphotos.com/about/workshop or call producer Anne Lise Flavik +47 920 17 130. Email annelise@studioa7.no