New England School of Photography

Our personal vision courses offer students already comfortable with their technical skills the opportunity to explore different avenues in their image-making. Heavily project and critique-oriented classes, identify and realize their own unique artistic vision.

You will have full access to NESOP's black and white darkrooms, color printing rooms and digital imaging lab access to the digital imaging facility is restricted to students taking or who have taken other courses in our digital imaging classrooms or lab). Facilities are available to workshop students after 5 p.m., Monday–Friday and all day Saturday and Sunday. Access to these facilities is based on your workshop status and your compliance with the policies and procedures regarding use of our facilities.

Click here to view the current workshop schedule.

Click here to view all current workshop enrollment forms.

Enroll Now:  Please note that enrollment forms are course-specific and may be accessed directly above the course description by clicking on the "click here" link.  

Personal Vision Course Descriptions
The following is a list of workshops that we currently offer at NESOP and have offered in the past.  If there's a workshop in which you are particularly interested, please let us know!

• Advanced Color
• What The Moment Has To Offer
• A Kick In The Pants
• The Toy Camera
• The Documentary Project  [ Offered Summer 2009 ]
• Documentary II:  Extended Projects  [ Offered Summer 2009 ]
• Street Photography I  [ Offered Summer 2009 ]

• Creative Exploration:  Toys, Tricks & Techniques  [ Offered Summer 2009 ] *NEW*

• The Passionate Landscape  [ Offered Summer 2009 ] *NEW*

• Photographing People  [ Offered Summer 2009 ]  FULL

[ Advanced Color ]
This advanced printing course is designed to assist students in honing their color printing skills while also offering them one-on-one critique of their work, guiding them in the development of a cohesive body of color images. Critiques will address and solve aesthetic concerns and encourage students to “think outside the box” and take visual risks with their image making. Students are required to bring color negatives and color photo paper to the first class.

Prerequisite: The C-Print: Learning to See and Control Color

[ What the Moment Has to Offer ]
Photographs with the power to astonish can be found anywhere. What is required is a skilled photographer who is visually aware and ready to capture the fleeting moment. This workshop is designed to open up the photographer to the photographic moment in the everyday, offer guidance in equipping oneself for it and provide invaluable critique of work created throughout this course. Being open to what the moment has to offer photographically requires a delicate balance of social engagement and visual awareness and preparedness. This workshop will offer an ongoing dialogue concerning social responsibility and artistic creation.

[ A Kick in the Pants: A Critique Workshop ]

As artists, we all need a kick in the pants. No matter how passionate or how dedicated we may be, it takes practice and commitment in order to reach that next level. Maintaining that discipline is perhaps the biggest obstacle we face in becoming better photographers. This workshop is designed to guide, stimulate and motivate those who love making pictures, but often find it hard to get out there and shoot.

Through intensive weekly critiques and class discussions, we will explore new ways of going about making pictures while continuing to refine our own existing creative process. Discussions and demonstrations will occasionally focus on different technical aspects, like being resourceful with portable lights, keeping shooting situations simple yet effective and developing the ability to solve visual problems with creative solutions. Most importantly, this class will provide a forum for students to show their work on a regular basis and receive individual feedback from their instructor, their classmates and occasionally from visiting professional artists— feedback that is honest, productive and geared toward the weekly progress of each photographer.

If you’re looking to begin a longterm project, or are in need of a new perspective on your current project, this course is ideal.

[ The Toy Camera ]
Explore the creative possibilities of the non-conventional camera, from the plastic “toy” Holga to the homemade pinhole. Get back to the basics of film photography, utilizing simplified photographic tools which will allow you to arrive at a poetic and sensitive handling of light as a key element of composition. Discover how a “lack of control” process can result in a sophisticated image.

Required Equipment: Students are required to purchase a HOLGA camera for this course.

[ The Documentary Project ]

To download printable enrollment forms for The Documentary Project, click here.

As documentarians, we are in the “point of view” business. How do we tell our stories with integrity, clarity and honesty? Where does personal vision come from and how do you tell a story with your unique point of view? What makes a story valid or worthy? What are the practical considerations and how do we keep a long-term project on track? This is a workshop about telling a story with pictures and having it bear your unique vision. We will explore personal style and vision, the elements of editing, the concept of process and how to solve the basic picture problem. Audio will also be explored.

The goal of this workshop is to develop skills needed to become an effective photo documentarian. The course will generate complex questions for the serious photographer and provide a framework to fulfill future projects. Each photographer will select a project that he/she will photograph throughout the workshop. Weekly critique of the ongoing work is at the heart of this workshop.

[ Documentary II:  Extended Projects ]

To download printable enrollment forms for Documentary II, click here.

Designed for intermediate and advanced photographers, Extended Projects continues the work begun in the Documentary Project workshop.  In this course, we mirror and deepen the development of personal vision and the development of a visual voice.  This is a workshop about telling a story with pictures and having it bear your unique vision. The course will continue to generate complex questions for the serious photographer and provide a framework to fulfill future projects. Each photographer will either continue a pre-existing project or select one that they will photograph throughout the workshop.  Weekly critique of the ongoing work is at the heart of this workshop.

Prerequisite: The Documentary Project

[ Street Photography I ]

To download printable enrollment forms for Street Photography I, click here.

This course brings students onto the streets of Boston to capture the pulse of this exciting city. Discussions will cover both the history and practice of street photography and will focus on such topics as approaching strangers, candid, unobtrusive and confrontational shooting techniques, subjective vs. objective imagery, controlling light and exposure on the street and telling the story you observe or choose to create from your surroundings. Assignments will include candid shooting, street portraiture and urban landscapes and will focus on anticipating the moment, developing a sensitivity to lighting conditions and framing the shot. Street Photography is open to both digital and film photographers.

[ Creative Exploration:  Toys, Tricks & Techniques ] *NEW*

To download printable enrollment forms for Creative Exploration, click here.

Get your creative juices flowing! This workshop aims to reinvigorate the artist in all of us utilizing toys, tricks and techniques such as cross-processing color film, solarization of black and white prints, making your own pinhole camera and much more. On a weekly basis we will go out and shoot creative assignments as a group which will eventually lead us into the darkroom to attempt new techniques in developing. Some assignments will require film, but others will be focused less on the printing process and will allow for digital shooting. If you are looking to have some fun, find a new idea for a project or attempt something out of your normal realm of photography - this course is for you!

[ The Passionate Landscape ] *NEW*

To download printable enrollment forms for The Passionate Landscape, click here.

The landscape has been a subject for artists of all types since art has existed. How an individual relates with their surroundings is both personal and universal. Using the camera, we take time to record what we find pleasing or interesting in the world for others to see. Everyone makes landscape photographs when they go on vacation. What separates the good from the great, the great from the transcendent? This class will provide a platform to study the genre of landscape photography and discover new approaches for personal expression. Students are required to bring in images (analog or digital) for group discussion each week. Through weekly slide lectures, analyzing examples, and studying the history of the genre, students will gain a greater understanding of landscape photography and develop and expand their personal style of image-making.

[ Photographing People ]  FULL

To download printable enrollment forms for Photographing People, click here.

This course is designed to help photographers enhance their skills

of photographing people at home, in the studio, or out on the street. You will learn how to make compelling portraits in any kind of situation, dealing with subjects of all shapes, sizes, occupations, and personalities. You will learn lighting techniques that are creative, simple, and best of all---portable. Effective ways on how to deal with AND direct your subject will be discussed weekly, as will the best ways to approach and make photographs of total strangers in a wide variety of locations and lighting conditions. Class discussions will include looking at the work of some of today's most successful Fine Art, Editorial, and Photojournalistic "people" photographers.

You may work in color or black & white.