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One of Ed's images from his recent trip to India to teach a workshop. ©Ed Kashi

After wrapping up a National Geographic Photo Camp in January, teaching young Indian students to use cameras for the first time, I returned to India in March to teach a workshop for American and European adults who want to become better photographers — some to make it a profession, and others, who are already professionals, to gain a new perspective that refreshes their work and attitude. The workshop students ranged in age and background: an American in her 60s who is a retired doctor and environmentalist but has been using photography for 40 years; an Italian professional photographer in her 40s who mostly does commercial work and wants to break into photojournalism; a young American just starting out as a photographer; an Italian photography lover in his 40s who is an Alitalia pilot; a German psychotherapist in his 50s who also loves photography; a British journalist in her late 20s who wants to improve her photography to be a double threat.

Occasionally during these workshops, it can feel uninspiring and frustrating when leading a clutch of prosumers, many of whom you know will not become photographers. But I cherish the NG Photo Camps and most of them won’t become photographers either. In the end, anything that allows me to teach, to impart my experience and passions, is satisfying and ultimately useful to my students. If one truly loves photography both as a craft and a profession, whether you want to change the world or just want to learn how to better enjoy your creative process, then it’s all good in my eyes.

As with any workshop, this recent one had a distinct arc: the beginning, always rocky, with people jet lagged, not sure of who is who, what they should be doing and maybe nervous about exposing their work to strangers. Then, just like with the kids in Udaipur, the experiences, breakthroughs, and imagemaking gives them strength, confidence, and joy that reaffirms their desire to be photographers. Both groups of students also come to the initial classes with varying degrees of confidence and creativity — most with timidity and all with the need for guidance, the fear of getting close to subjects and the desire to learn and improve that marks all beginners or intermediate photographers.

Often the teens have never picked up a camera before, so the camp is new, exciting, and overwhelming. For them, becoming a photographer is not a goal, or even a possibility, while the adult students are already photographers who may want to make it their profession. The outcome of their extra experience may come as a surprise, though: The 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. One major challenge for the adults specifically is not being Indian. Photographing in a foreign culture reveals to them the difficulty of getting beyond the surface, and it requires the foreign adults to achieve a different level of inspiration and discovery than the teens from India. I also can be more candid in my critiques with the adult students than the teens and center my comments on their photography. If I know an adult photo student wants to make photography their profession, then I’ll take a more critical approach to their images as well as their approach, behavior, even dress sometimes (especially with females), 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.

The teen, who is being asked to use photography by outsiders to tell their stories, requires a yet another approach. In these cases, I am not trying to cradle or soften my approach for the teens, but what I don’t want to do is snuff out their enthusiasm or courage. And given these NG Photo Camps are not designed to make the students into photographers, my role is one of support and encouragement, to help them tell their stories and open their minds to the possibilities of photography, writing, self expression, and life!

So what do I get out of these workshops? Exposure to other photographer’s concerns, ambitions, ideas, and inspirations. An income stream to make up for a loss of work for serious documentary photography. I can’t deny it also soothes my ego to be, for a short time, among photographers who respectfully listen and appreciate what I have to say. In this subjective profession, we often flourish or fail according to others’ whims and the uncontrollable fortunes of fate (others might call that luck!); the break from that provided by teaching is refreshing and rejuvenating. I also love sharing my work with others and, especially, the chance to help shape photography’s future, teaching human values and creativity by sharing my passion for the craft and my commitment visual storytelling.

World-renowned conservation and fine art photographer Art Wolfe is in the process of reinventing his business model — upgrading to a liveBooks website and selling his stock images directly through a Photoshelter account that is linked to it. Art will be contributing to RESOLVE regularly, but we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to record a few words of wisdom while he was visiting last week. We shot the short interview below with Art and Jim Martin, executive director of Art Wolfe Inc. and an accomplished photographer himself, near our San Francisco office.

When Art started to see diminishing returns from stock sales years ago, he reworked his business around selling images himself through his website. Understanding that “fur and feathers” stock photography was not sufficient to keep his business afloat, he also did what many photographers are now learning the value of — he diversified. On top of stock and print sales, Art is also reaching millions of viewers through his TV show Travels to the Edge and is reworking his workshops for more intimate, challenging classes.

• The Fairey/AP lawsuit saga drags on. Last week, the Center for Internet and Society (CIS) at Stanford University filed suit against the AP on Fairey’s behalf. Now the CIS is asking the public to send examples of photos that are “like” the Mannie Garcia photo, we assume to prove that Fairey’s image didn’t necessarily come from that one specific photo. For more from Fairey’s side of argument, head over to the New York Public Library (NYPL) on February 26 for a discussion with CIS founder Lawrence Lessig, Shepard Fairey, and author Steven Johnson. The event is jointly sponsored by NYPL and Wired Magazine. Tickets are on sale here. (via Boing Boing)

• Magnum Photos is now accepting submissions for 2009 membership. As you’ve probably heard, Magnum is open for submissions only once a year. And only a talented few, and sometimes none at all, are invited as nominee members. If you’re looking for some inspiration, check out last year’s nominees: Peter van Agtmael and Olivia Arthur. Submission deadline is May 31, 2009.

• Northern Short Course (NSC) McLean, VA is fast approaching, on March 19 – 21. And so is the deadline for its Still Photography and Multimedia Contest. To make things easier for everybody, this year the NSC is accepting all entries electronically, due by February 27, 2009. In addition to more than 20 workshops, The NSC also offers bonus portfolio review sessions in the evenings.

What are you looking for from speaker proposals, especially from people who haven’t spoken at WPPI before?
We have 10 new speakers this year who have never spoken for us before. They’re a little different from what we normally see. They may be talking about a different aspect of lighting, or a different approach to Photoshop, or right now photographers are very interested in posing and lighting techniques. And, of course, they should address how to make their work stand out from everybody else so that they can continue to do business in this down economy.

What goes into that program description?
There is an outline, essentially, of what they want to teach. Sometimes it’s only five or six lines, and then we ask them for more information. Remember it’s got to fill up a 2-hour class. It has to be a topic about which the person is extremely knowledgeable and a topic that will pique interest, to make the audience want to ask questions. We also check out a potential speaker’s website to see what kind of photographer they are.

Do you think there are topics that are particularly hot-button issues right now, and how do you keep a finger on the pulse of what people who come to WPPI would like to hear more about?
We always send out a survey after the convention. We ask people to critique the classes that they have been to and also to submit topics that they think were missing.

In the big classes, people want to go back to the basics. We have a lot of attendees who have never been professionally schooled in photography. They picked up a digital camera and thought they had a feel for it. They didn’t go to Brooks or RIT. They feel they have a lot to learn in some of the basic areas they may have just skimmed over because they have a good eye.

As I said, posing and lighting are two of the main areas of interest. They also want to learn how to get the picture right in the camera, without having to “fix” the image in postproduction. This year, of course, we’re emphasizing how to keep your studio afloat in this bad economy. We have a whole program track, The Business Institute, which covers that topic, with seven classes specifically addressing marketing. More »