Improvisation: Jamming with the Visual Language

Valda Bailey and Doug Chinnery return to Santa Fe Workshops this spring for a unique program on how to elevate your images to another level. In follow-up to their program in December, this new online journey expands upon the why and how they do multiple exposures and goes deeper to explore how to add richness and depth to your work.

In a program designed for all photographers, regardless of style and technical ability, Valda and Doug discuss how to integrate layers of ideas and meaning in your images and go beyond purely retinal beauty. Together, they have spent the last ten years discovering the joy to be had in using their cameras in unconventional ways. They have built up a loyal following of students who have learned from them how to move beyond the technical and instead, focus on creative expression. This program in April is the next step as Valda and Doug join us via Zoom from England for another four-hour adventure.

On Day One, Valda goes “In Search of Gestalt.” She explores this fundamental area of art and design theory to aid our understanding and reveals how we can employ the ideas to enhance our own images. Closely allied to this, Doug then delves into “The Art of Seeing.” His focus is on how to open-up to the secrets of the visual language, an understanding of which is fundamental to making compelling and emotionally connected work.

On Day Two, the ‘jamming’ continues as Valda and Doug dive deeper still into the world of art and question how we might use these lessons learned in our own photographic projects, no matter what style of images we make. Valda shows how the principles of the Bauhaus movement forever changed art and design. She analyses how we can use the ideas of the Bauhaus to infuse our work with richness and interest. Building on this, Doug traverses the world of metaphor. Looking at what metaphor is and how it has been used in art and photography for generations, Doug investigates the many subtle forms of metaphor and how we can skillfully permeate our work with it to add layers of meaning and interest beyond the purely visual.

Question and answer sessions are sprinkled throughout each day’s presentations to keep the audience engagement at a high and enjoyable level. This being said, if you can’t make the live events, recordings of the two programs will be available for all those registered.

Join Valda and Doug for what promises to be an intriguing and craft-enhancing program.