A brief video extract from this workshop’s Analysing Picture’s session where we investigate how pictures, both real and imagined, also come to capture hearts and minds independently of what they are a picture of.
STREAMED On-Demand delivery +
Tutorials Live Streamed on ZOOM
This intermediate workshop is attended via STREAMING On-Demand delivery so the course material can be studied in your own time and at your own pace, while your practice and questions are subsequently addressed, clarified and supported in free follow-up Tutorials. The cost per person/workshop is AUS $330 and includes all fees and charges.
Tutorials – Live Streamed
• 02 February 2025 (AEDT) 10.30am to 11.30am
• 13 July 2025 (AEST) 10.30am to 11.30am
• 23 November 2025 (AEDT) 10.30am to 11.30am
• Time Zone Convertor
The workshop is dedicated to how pictures ‘think, emote and misbehave’. That is, how they ‘work’ for and against us and the essential processes underpinning all image creation and affect. For the ‘problem’ with photography, as with all technologically mediated art, is when it gets in the way of our understanding, making it hard to know what to pay attention to and why. Therefore, like any language the process needs to be deconstructed and demystified so we can work with it, not against it. It is about helping you understand, manage, and creatively work with the elements and principles of pictorial design that transcend banal ‘rules of composition’, artifice or conceit. In our LIVE Tutorials we analyse your images, or those you admire and wish to emulate, thereby ensuring that your pictures ‘sing’ and become what you ‘need them to be’, while also capturing ‘hearts and minds’ way above and beyond what it is a picture of.
The workshop is supported by a resource rich website and presented in six one hour sessions accessed by clicking on each Session Button below:
Session 1 – Myths and Illusions
• The ‘burden’ of photography – fact versus fiction
• The human visual system – reality versus illusion
• The Metaphysical – beliefs, expectations and desires
• Representing colour in digital imaging workflows
• Editing colour – what do you desire?
• Imagining colour – what lets you down?
Session 2 – Analysing Pictures
• The structure of images
• Drawing compositions – the relationships within the image
• Tonal compositions – the drama of the image
• Colour compositions – the personality of the image
• Spatial compositions – our presence and agency
• Temporal compositions – our histories and narratives
Session 3 – Building Pictures
• The Elements of Pictorial Design
• Figures and grounds
• Line and Direction
•. Shape and Size
• Texture and Tone
• Hue and Chroma
Session 4 – Designing Pictures
• The Principles of Pictorial Design
• Diagonals, corners, quadrants, edges
• Form & Repetition – Vigilance & Habituation
• Harmony & Discord – Unity & Conflict
• Gradation & Contrast – Dominance & Balance
• Rhythm, Melody & Syncopation – odds against evens
Session 5 – Creating Pictorial Affect
• Picturing things – Picturing feelings
• The nature of light, shade, and shadow
• Linear Perspective – lines, shapes and dimensions
• Aerial Perspective – temporal and spatial relationships
• Imaginative Perspective – elements of coercion
• Emotional theories of scale and aspect ratios
Session 6 – Case Studies
• Ontological frameworks (Meaning and Affect)
• Symbols, metaphors, archetypes and equivalents (Pictorialism)
• Inherent versus imposed values (Structuralism)
• Brahms Symphony no.1 – Furtwangler and Bernstein (Classicism)
• Virgil Donati (Contemporary Music and Performance)
• Bill Henson (Contemporary Photography and Installation)
The ‘Flipped Classroom’ facilitates a uniquely comprehensive yet individual learning experience where your creativity, knowledge and needs focus the inquiry, while your engagement and participation defines your outcomes. Our Live Streamed Tutorials are designed to maximise our time together clarifying the course content and answering any follow-up questions and topics.
Venue: STREAMED On-Demand delivery
Duration: 6+ hours (workshop + ongoing tutorials)
Resources: Extensive course notes, videos, test images, actions, macros, luts
Cost: AUS $330 (includes all fees and charges)
More Information: See FAQ (Education)
Updated 06 November 2024
What are the differences between your Understanding Pictures, Exhibition Preparation and Thinking Photography workshops? Our Understanding Pictures workshop concentrates on Pictorial Design and the construction of pictures for enhanced aesthetic affect. Exhibition Preparation focuses on the refinement of images for public presentation in galleries, publications and online. Thinking Photography refines the scholarship and rationale underlying both the construction and presentation of images. Therefore these workshops effectively address the What, How and Why of research based contemporary artistic practice’s creative and cultural contributions.