Visual storytelling and artistic expression are explored through the exploration of crafting and finalizing of personal projects. These projects not only set us apart but also drive professional growth while nurturing personal and human connections. Students are encouraged to use photography, text and motion.

Students also have the opportunity to complete individual assignments on-location and practice their skills related to research, scouting, shooting within a deadline, and delivering a final product. These projects serve as the cornerstone defining our identity as visual storytellers.

The workshop consists of individual and group critiques on your workshop creations, as well as the option to seek feedback on other ongoing projects.

Whether a professional or a high-level amateur seeking to elevate and refine your work, this workshop promises transformative impact. The focus lies in assisting participants to develop their personal vision and distinct styles.

We are offering two 50% off vouchers towards tuition. Interested participants will need to contact registration with their voucher number to be registered over the phone: (970) 923-3181

VOUCHER #1: P1134-24-V1P1134-24-V2
VOUCHER #2: P1134-24-V2P1134-24-V2

Workshop space is limited.

Use the following discount code to receive 10% off any of The VII Foundation Summer Workshops in Arles, valid now through May 28 at 11:59 PM EDT:

EK10Arles

In this three-day workshop, participants will gain valuable insights into creating videos and marketing them for multimedia, NGO/ Foundations/ nonprofits, and editorial content. Short films, feature documentaries, and experimental video storytelling will be presented and discussed.

Attendees will learn essential techniques for transitioning their photographic skills to the world of video, focusing on capturing compelling scenes and crafting engaging narratives in linear video storytelling. The workshop will emphasize the theoretical aspects of video production, highlighting the importance of shot selection and sequence creation to effectively communicate a story. Ed will also demonstrate examples of experimental and non-linear videos.

By the end of the workshop, photographers will have a solid foundation in the principles of video storytelling and a clearer understanding of how to diversify their services and branch out into the growing field of video work.

I’m excited to be back at Photoville this year as part of the 1in6by2030 exhibition, a global photo project documenting the opportunities and challenges of aging.

1in6by2030 is a multi-year, global visual storytelling project, involving photographers around the world. Launched in 2023 by Ed Kashi, Ilvy Njiokiktjien and Sara Terry, 1 in 6 documents an unprecedented era in the history of humankind: by the year 2030, 1 in 6 people in the world will be over the age of 60.

This fundamental population shift will have huge ripple effects on individuals, families, communities, societies, and governments. The project aims to support a widespread conversation about this promising – and challenging – era in human history.

Join me for this special exhibition at Montclair Art Museum, where photographs from over 40 years of my career will be up! Hope to see you there — Ed

For Ed Kashi, the abandoned moment is the consequence of a fractional instant of surrender. The photographs in this exhibition, made over a 40-year period across four continents and in both black and white and color, reveal glimpses of transitory events filled with frenetic energy–the chaos of everyday life. Embodying photography’s intrinsic power, they preserve moments that can never occur again in exactly the same time and space. In these photographs, geometry, mood, and possibility unite to create something new and magical, capturing the untamed energy of a moment with abandon.

This group exhibition by the Monroe Gallery, which represents photojournalists from around the world, including Ed Kashi, seeks to examine the harmful effect of humans on Earth. Multiple of Ed's images will be in the exhibition and available for sale. More details below!

This Fragile Earth

Opening reception Friday, November 24 5 – 7 PM
Exhibition Dates: 11/24/23 - 01/21/24

Our Fragile Earth simmered into worrisome new territory this year. Two new companion exhibits feature a wide range of photographs documenting the grandeur of nature and majestic landscapes alongside images illustrating devastation caused by environmental neglect and the effects of a changing climate across our Fragile Earth. Just as photographs illustrating the transformative experiences of nature have been instrumental in promoting the cause of environmental conservation, photographs from recent climate events can raise awareness about global warming, channeling it into hope and into collective action. This exhibit informs in the hope the images motivate awareness and change.

I'll be in Egypt from November 16 - 21 on behalf of Photopia Cairo for a lecture, photography workshop, and an exhibition of my City of the Dead photographs.

ARTIST TALK & LECTURE

On November 19th, I'll give an artist talk where I will share my journey through the City of the Dead, as part of my Exhibition. I'll also cover the importance of personal projects, long-form visual narratives, and advocacy work and hyper-local storytelling.

EXHIBITION: CITY OF THE DEAD

The Citadel District, Cairo, Egypt

November 17-25

Curated by Photopia supported by the US Embassy in Cairo.

EXHIBITION INFO

There was a time when in the City of the Dead, Cairo’s vast 13th century necropolis, the only living occupants were caretakers, paid by families to maintain their ancestral mausoleums. But as Cairo’s population density skyrocketed, refugees from the growing housing shortage laid claim to the city’s main cemetery.

In 1993, over one hundred and twenty thousand people lived, worked, shopped and went to school in and among the mausoleums. Today, that number is much higher. Huts are built around tombstones, between which laundry is hung to dry, and masses of people live and work in dwellings built amongst the grand burial sites of famous religious and political figures of Egypt’s rich history.

The City of the Dead, the oldest continuously used Muslim cemetery in the world, with history tracing back to the seventh century, is now under threat of demolition, with many tombs scheduled for exhumation.

It's being razed as part of a "modernization" plan by the current government, and will be replaced by a highway ironically called the "Passage of Paradise". This destruction is part of a worrying trend in Egypt: mass evictions, destruction of historic neighborhoods and landmarks, all to make way for luxury high-rises out-of-reach for most Egyptians.

DEVELOPING A VISUAL NARRATIVE IN STREET PHOTOGRAPHY with ED KASHI & EYES IN PROGRESS

Transcending the Documentary Approach

GOAL

* Learn and practice street photography techniques: find the right composition and light, choose appropriately gear and camera settings
* Identify the strong points of your creative approach in street photography, enhance them and stick to it
* Frame the moment: how to make sure you spot the right moment in a street scene, become invisible
* Master portraiture in the urban landscape
* Develop a narrative through the editing process and create a meaningful photographic series of the daily life in Amsterdam

Sep 20 - Sep 23, 2023
4 days in Amsterdam - 1550 €

Early Bird 1450 €
before Jun. 20th

About the Event

Join me for the official launch of Mariusz Smiejek’s new publication Not Surrendering.

Photo Museum Ireland Saturday 14 October at 5.00pm

Admission free, all welcome

This special in-conversation event with Mariusz Smiejek marks the launch of his new book Not Surrendering, a unique portrait of everyday life among loyalist communities in Northern Ireland. Smiejek will be joined by Ed Kashi, renowned photojournalist and member of VII Photo Agency, who will also discuss his own work in Northern Ireland and the overlap between their respective projects.

By focussing on the spaces his subjects inhabit, aspects of their daily lives, and the particularities of their neighbourhoods separated by ominous ‘peace walls,’ Smiejek’s photography brings to the fore the psychological state of siege which permeates working-class districts in Northern Ireland. The aim of Not Surrendering is to increase awareness and knowledge about processes of reconciliation in post-conflict societies that are divided territorially, politically, nationally, and religiously.

Copies of Not Surrendering are for sale in the Museum bookshop and the photographer will be available to sign copies after the in-conversation event.No Surrender will be on display in our downstairs Archive Gallery from 5th - 28th October 2023.

Address: Meeting House Square, Temple Bar, Dublin, D02 X406

Mariusz Smiejek
Born in Poland, living in the North of Ireland, works in the UK & EU. Smiejek is a freelance visual storyteller specialising in the raw narrative of human and social conditions. Noted documentary work explores post conflict communities, refugee and asylum seekers, child slavery, street children, human trafficking, victimised women, dangerous livelihoods, corruption and systemic abuse. Additionally, he works as a photography tutor in the UK, Ireland, Poland, Italy, Portugal and Ghana. He is founder and volunteer at Between Pictures Project.org

Ed Kashi
Ed Kashi is a renowned photojournalist, filmmaker, speaker and educator who has been making images and telling stories for 40 years. His restless creativity has continually placed him at the forefront of new approaches to visual storytelling. Dedicated to documenting the social and political issues that define our times, a sensitive eye and an intimate and compassionate relationship to his subjects are signatures of his intense and unsparing work. As a member of VII Photo, Kashi has been recognized for his complex imagery and its compelling rendering of the human condition.

'I feel for any man, woman or child that has had to live in a war and the nightmare stories I’ve heard from both sides are nothing short of shocking – shootings, torture, bombings, riots, prostitution, gun running and public rape. The majority of these horrors were hidden from newspapers…It was easy to forget that when the IRA fired back against the ‘occupying government’ they didn’t take sharp aim, but instead lashed out at any and all that weren’t from their neighbourhood or didn’t go to their church.' – Ed Kashi

About The Exhibition

Belfast Exposed is thrilled to be exhibiting No Surrender: The Protestants, a body of archival work by internationally renowned American photojournalist, Ed Kashi, presented here over thirty years after it was originally produced.

Created between 1988 and 1991, Kashi's work predates the 1993 Joint Declaration on Peace and the subsequent periods of ceasefires and Peace Process. It is an unsentimental view of working-class loyalist communities in both Belfast and further afield during that time, capturing the often surreal nature of daily life set in the backdrop of conflict.

In his own words, No Surrender represents Kashi's first ‘serious long-term project’. It provides an intimate look at Northern Ireland’s fractious Protestant neighbourhoods in an attempt to illustrate that loyalist communities were far from a universally privileged ruling upper class, and that, perhaps, what many fail to remember is that the real struggle for equality can only begin after peace – that consciously continuing a war can inadvertently make one’s own self the oppressor.

Many of the images that form part of this exhibition were first published in Kashi's 1991 book 'No Surrender: The Protestants' which is currently on sale in the Belfast Exposed Bookshop. The work is presented here in a new light, over three decades after it was first published and now in tandem with Mariusz Śmiejek's Not Surrendering - which provides a contemporary view of many of the issues and communities features in Kashi's earlier work.

No Surrender will be on display in our downstairs Archive Gallery from 5th - 28th October 2023.

Address: 23 Donegall St, Belfast BT1 2FF, United Kingdom

Hours: 11 am - 5 pm Tuesday - Saturday

Instructor: Ed Kashi
6:00 – 8:30 pm Eastern via Zoom
Six Tuesdays beginning October 3, 2023
     Class does not meet October 24
Ed will be available by email between sessions to review and discuss work
Course type: Crit, shooting, lecture, discussion
Course fee: $800
Scholarships: One scholarship position available. How to apply
Prerequisite: Students must be intermediate to professional level

Option to pay 25% deposit now with balance due one week before course starts.

Class Description

The importance of creating your own personal projects is critical to your artistic and professional development. It is also what leads to the creation of your legacy work. 

This workshop is designed for working photographers who have projects already in progress, ideas in the germination stage, or finished projects that need final preparations for dissemination.

The focus of the class is to help you clarify what you care about, learn how to commit to your project, clarify your visual approach, and determine the intended outcomes. We will also discuss who your audience is, writing funding proposals, and how to disseminate the work once completed. 

Documentary work in this workshop's context can be based on observational work and conceptual ideas. Ed will share examples of his many documentary projects in various forms, review and discuss the work of class participants and then guide them forward in their own personal processes. 

I'm looking forward to attending Cairo Photo Week February 8-18, a photography festival with over 90+ photographers, speakers, and mentors. I'll be the keynote speaker for the festival and will also be teaching a photography workshop and offering portfolio reviews.

Please join me for the keynote lecture on Saturday, February 11 from 5 to 7 pm at Cinema Radio Venue. 

Learn more about the festival and get your tickets here.

WORKSHOP:
Developing a Personal Documentary Project

My workshop in Cairo will focus on developing a personal documentary project. All participants will learn how to build a documentary reportage by covering an editorial story. This workshop will help you develop your own visual language as well as learn the practical and conceptual aspects of visual reporting.

Location: Downtown Cairo – Consoleya Co-working Space.

Dates: February 9-12, 2023

Fees: LE 1,000 (please note that payment is subject to your selection).

Full fees should be paid by the 1st of February.

Attendance is subject to portfolio submission. Please submit your portfolio here to be considered for the workshop.

PORTFOLIO REVIEWS

I am offering portfolio reviews at Cairo Photo Week. This is a great opportunity to share your work and receive constructive feedback on your strengths and areas of improvement. Students will have to submit a portfolio, here is the link to the submission: https://forms.gle/BWZuCjCj38FCBXhx7. I look forward to meeting you and seeing your work!

I am slotted for portfolio reviews during the following times:

• 12th of February from 4pm to 5:30pm.

• 13th of February from 10am to 1:30pm. 

I'm looking forward to teaching this brand-new workshop with The Image Flow in San Anselmo, California. In this workshop, I will teach you the concept behind taking abandoned moment photographs and how to let go of precise control while photographing, and instead rely on intuition and spontaneity to guide you. -Ed

Ed Kashi: Advocacy Journalism
December 5, 2022-May 5, 2023

Featuring the photographs made by Ed Kashi ’79, this exhibition considers Kashi’s practice of what he terms “advocacy journalism.” It highlights three projects, ranging in subjects from aging in America, to oil in the Niger Delta, and kidney disease, to explore how photojournalism can catalyze interdisciplinary teaching and learning.

Visual Storytelling for Impact and Meaning

Visual Storytelling in the Digital Age
Eyes in Progress
Sept. 14-Sept. 17, 2022
4 days in Amsterdam
1250 €

GOAL

Learn and improve how to build a documentary reportage by covering an editorial story. To refine storytelling and story composition by analyzing real-situation problems, images analysis, editing and captions writing.

This workshop will also focus on how to gain a new perspective on one’s works and attitude.

Most of all, this workshop will help you discover your own visual language as well as practical and conceptual know how to confront real situation reportage making.

PROGRAM

« [... ] Adults bring more neuroses, habits, and fears, along with their more developed talent and purpose. They are hampered, in a way, by their photographic baggage, their professional dreams, or their desire to emulate or outdo other people’s photographs. For these reasons my adult students are as much in need of guidance as the kids, but in certain ways they also present a greater opportunity for growth. [... ] If I know an adult photo student wants to make photography their profession, then I’ll take a more critical approach to their images and I try to get them to express their intentions so they become clearer and stronger about why they want to do this. [... ] The amateur who just wants to improve their photography requires a different approach. To me it’s important to help them grow while also preserving their love and joy for the craft. We all know people who are wonderful in some art form yet drop it because they lose the joy when they realize they’re “not good enough” to “make it” professionally. In fact, many very talented people just don’t have the stomach to handle the pressures, rejection, and bullshit involved with being a professional in something that is so personal and subjective. » Ed Kashi (from RESOLVE, collaborative online community )

This will be a hands on workshop with shooting sessions, individual assignments, daily group discussion and editing sessions.

You’ll be expected to fully immerse yourself, take risks and push your boundaries in order to move forward into another level in your photography.

Day 1:
Masterclass – Projections
Ed Kashi will spend time talking about his own work and the different projects he has worked on. He will share his photographic references with the group and discuss the challenges of being a working photographer.

Portfolios reviews and projects definition
Each participant will receive and in-depth critique of their work which will also be used as a jumping board for workshop assignments. Participants are highly encouraged to come to the workshop with defined ideas on the subject they want to photograph during the workshop. However, a list of ideas in Amsterdam will be sent to the participants before the workshop begins, Eyes in Progress is able to help in establishing contacts with local associations and persons.

Day 2:
Masterclass – Focus on how to define a story-telling project
During this morning session, Ed Kashi will talk about how to define a storytelling project and the importance of the photographers’s point of view. He will give several examples on how to precisely define an angle to a story that is personal to the photographer and consequently will bring value to his story.

Shooting sessions
Each participant goes shoot his own project. Help with directions, contacts and translation in Amsterdam will be provided by the workshop team if needed. Participants are encouraged to come back and forth at the studio in order to have feedback on the shooting process and recommendations/advices to improve.

Back at the studio
Through the selection and discussion of the best images of the day, the participants will work towards developing their own photographic style and hopefully, see their overall approach improve.

Day 3:

Shooting sessions
Each participant goes shoot his own project. Help with directions, contacts and translation in Amsterdam will be provided by the workshop team if needed. Participants are encouraged to come back and forth at the studio in order to have feedback on the shooting process and recommendations/advices to improve.

Back at the studio
Through the selection and discussion of the best images of the day, the participants will work towards developing their own photographic style and hopefully, see their overall approach improve.

Day 4:
Final portfolio editing
Each participant will work on a large edit of his images, then they are printed and laid down on a table (10×15 format). The final editing is made during a one-to-one session with Ed Kashi, the other participants are encouraged to attend the sessions of the others. They are then to write a personal statement on the work, which will be send to the mentor of their choice.

Teaching language: English.

Workshop hours: 9h30 to 17h30.