Photo Essay Project
Calling all iPhone owners and writers!
Announcing my latest community experience:
The Photo Essay Project.
STARTS SEP 26, 2011 // 5 WEEKS // INSPIRATIONAL JOURNEY INCLUDED
If you love to take photos with your iPhone and you love to write, this course is for you!
What it is:
The Photo Essay Project is an iPhone exclusive community experience where you will:
SEE: the world around you. In this course, we will get out in the world with our iPhones. We will be using our eyes to move from looking at ourselves to looking at the world and others. We will use what we see to tell our stories or to tell the stories of others.
TELL: without the pressure of a longer manuscript, we delve into the writing style of the photo essay which is wide open to us to pick and choose or be collagists from the genres of journalism, prose-poetry, memoir, and poetry.
CONNECT: If happiness was to be found in focusing on ourselves, we would surely be happy by now! I deeply believe that happiness in found in connecting with others and connecting to the world. With the iPhone in hand, our perception and awareness is naturally and easily changed in amazing ways.
DOCUMENT: A photo-essay, or photographic essay, is a set or series of photographs that are intended to tell a story or evoke a series of emotions in the viewer. A photo essay will often show pictures in deep emotional stages.
Photo essays range from purely photographic works to photographs with captions or small notes to full text essays with a few or many accompanying photographs.
Photo essays can be sequential in nature, intended to be viewed in a particular order, or they may consist of non-ordered photographs that may be viewed all at once or in an order chosen by the viewer.
There is an inter-relationship between photo essays and documentary photography, street photography, and photojournalism.
SHARE: telling stories with photos can be powerful and highly communicative. To see ourselves in others and in the world is an expansive and tenderizing endevour.
We will be telling the story of our photos with singularity or as a thematic continuum over the course of the project. Yes, this class will be a Photo Essay course.
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How does it work?
The course will run for 5 weeks.
Week 1 is preparation week. This is when you set up your Tumblr blog, Instagram account and familiarize yourself with both platforms.
Week 2 to 5 you will be given a photography and writing assignment that will send you out into the world to capture with your iPhone and your words.
The photography assignments are designed to get you progressively outside your comfort zone both photographically and emotionally.
The writing assignments are designed to support that weeks photo assignment as well as support the overall essay if you choose to have a complete thematic work over the month, which I hope you will.
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Worried it will be beyond your technical abilities?
We will be working with:
- iPhone and iPhone apps
- Tumblr
I will be making recommendations for iPhone apps to use for photo processing as well as support you in setting up your Tumblr blog and Instagram account. Because I am not the most tech-savvy gal out there, the apps I will recommend are very user-friendly and bring amazing results that you will have so much fun with.
Each participant will be encouraged to set up a Tumblr blog where we will upload our photos on a specified day. We will circulate a list of everyone’s Tumblr site URL prior to the first posting day assignment so we can surf around and see and comment on what everyone is doing.
The reason we are choosing Tumblr instead of a Flickr group is we want to use the Tumblr site as a virtual gallery for your project in a continuum in one place so that people can see the flow and narration of your photo essay. Posting to Flickr becomes a clusterf*#k of images that is difficult to view.
But don’t worry, I am one of the most technically challenged people on the planet and I made my Tumblr site all alone from my iPhone!
Everyone will also get onto Instagram and we will have a hashtag specifically for the project. Best thing: from Instagram, you can upload directly to your Tumblr site.
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So in summary:
Each week you will receive to your inbox that week’s assignment, and a week later, everyone will post to their Tumblr sites that photo essay.
During the week, I will be doing an interactive live Q & A/teaching/inspiration call that you can attend live or at your own convenience (it will be recorded). I will be talking about apps, my approach and process and anything under the sun that you want to know or discuss. There will be an opportunity for you to submit your questions to me either by email or live on the call.
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What you will get from the course:
- new connections with other like-minded people
- new iPhone photo app know-how
- exposure to other people’s stories and artistic expression which is often extremely inspiring
- practice in learning to write a photo essay
- a designated arena to stretch your imagination
- the wonderful combination of photos and words for a story
- growth
- interaction with fear
- confidence
- support
- adventure
- magic
- a complete photo essay
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REGISTRATION IS CLOSED!
REGISTER HERE TO BE NOTIFIED WHEN THE NEXT ROUND BEGINS:
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Hear it from people who have participated in my other courses:
“Diamond Cuttters is whip smart and inspirational.I’m writing from a more honest and brave place thanks to Bindu’s passion for personal expression. Bindu creates a nurturing space while challenging us to think deeply about the work.”- Megan Matthieson, idanceiwrite.com
“Bindu gave me a lantern for my path.The treasures were deep. Bindu weaves people together in love and purpose. In her own healing adventures, she helps others to heal.”-Pema Teeter, StoryCharmer.com
“I first signed up for Diamond Cuttersfor the motivation of a submission deadline, and because I hoped to get helpful feedback and encouragement for my emerging creative writing work. I got so much more than I could have imagined.With the tools and structure provided by Bindu, EVERY class (whether the group is workshopping your piece or someone else’s) produces incredible insights, inspiration and ideas that you can take back into your own writing.I think it’s the intimacy and safety of the small group, plus the very focussed approach, plus the skilled and gentle guidance of Bindu herself, that combines to make this such a special experience. At the end of each call, I’m on a ‘high’–energised to get back to work on my latest project. (And I know I’m not the only Diamond Cutter who feels this way!)As an experienced business writer, and budding life writer, the Diamond Cutter sessions proved too good to do just once. I come back again and again.”-Rebecca Leigh, SmartFreshWriting.com
“Diamond Cutters creates an incredible gathering of writers who are willing to work (not just talk about it).You get much clearer about both your blind spots and your power. Bindu’s facilitation is genius. You must contribute. You must think. You must give voice to what you think. You must produce. And sometimes that (supportive) push is just what you need to quieten the voice that will constantly challenge your right to write. Bindu sets up a process and an environment in which it is only possible to grow. (Warning: could be addictive!)”-Jacquie Molloy, JacquieMolloy.com
“Bindu Wiles is willing to be vulnerable. Her 21:5:800 online writing and yoga group opened me up to the possibilities of sharing my work via online communities, and Diamond Cutters gave me the courage and conviction to finally finish a book I’d been working on for over 30 years. I am infinitely and perpetually grateful to Bindu for the place she imagines — and creates — for us all to travel together in peace.”-Carol Barash, Ph.D.
