Thin Places: Photography and the Sacred in Nature

In certain landscapes, the natural world seems to open—its surfaces dissolving into light, motion, and mystery. The ancient Celts called such moments Thin Places—rare spaces where the boundary between the material and the spiritual grows porous, and where one feels a profound sense of connection beyond words.

In this new online workshop, fine-art photographer and filmmaker Lev L. Spiro guides participants to explore and photograph those fleeting thresholds—moments when light, atmosphere, and emotion align to reveal something deeper than representation. Building upon Lev’s celebrated classes The Artful Garden and Story and Emotion in the Natural World, this course expands the inquiry into the realm of perception itself—how to see, feel, and render the unseen within the visible.

Through richly illustrated presentations, demonstrations, and individualized feedback, students learn to:

• cultivate awareness and receptivity in the field
• use light, movement, and time to evoke energy and presence
• embrace ambiguity, metaphor, and mood as expressive tools
• integrate conceptual intent with intuitive seeing
• develop images that resonate as visual meditations rather than mere depictions

Along the way, Lev introduces the spiritually attuned work of photographers such as Paul Caponigro, Masao Yamamoto, Keith Carter, and Albarrán Cabrera, whose approaches illuminate how technical mastery can serve poetic vision.

Whether you photograph forests, deserts, oceans, or the quiet corners of your own backyard, Thin Places invites you to move beyond documentation—to create images that breathe, shimmer, and speak to the quiet mystery of the world.