Contemplative Landscapes Mt. Desert Island/Acadia, Maine
future dates TBA
As photographers, we strive to create images that capture the underlying mystery of a seemingly ordinary place. The goal of this workshop is to learn to observe more deeply, and to find and capture such images in the landscape through a combination of intuition and perception. This location surrounded by Acadia National Park offers the “mountain and water” landscapes that are also characteristic of the classical Chinese way of seeing the world, and which we examine during our presentations.
The Contemplative Landscape begins with awareness exercises in photography that we have developed over the past 40 years. The awareness skills include sitting, standing and walking mindfulness that put you in the moment. Perceptual skills offer primary access to the actual visual working of the human eye-brain system, the tool with which we create our images. The perceptual exercises pull you away from the process of copying landscape images made by others and help you concentrate on what you see.
On a typical day in the early morning we’ll be shooting in dawn light. After breakfast comes a presentaton on various aspects of landscape photography technique, history, and ideas. Later in the afternoon we pick another location for evening light photography. We combine the contemplative exercises with landscape photography practice from both Western and Eastern ideas of landscape composition.
The workshop includes opportunities to view one another’s work and to talk individually about your own images with the instructors. Throughout, our emphasis is on the contemplative process of making images rather than on technical details or typical photographic locations.
This workshop is based in Southwest Harbor, on the “quiet side” of Mt. Desert Island in our home community. We explore locations in and out of Acadia National Park, which surrounds the four island communities, and we travel to the Schoodic section of the park for a day. Particpants arrange their own travel and accommodations, but we offer suggestions about where to stay and how to get here.
For more information email [email protected] or call 207-244-1099.
