Now What? Creative Solutions for Your Photographic Journey
with Aline Smithson
March 15 and 22, 2025
Course Description
Over two Saturday mornings in March, grab coffee and join Aline Smithson online as she advises photographers in developing new career strategies in the ever-shifting photography landscape, as traditional paths to success seem to be in constant flux. For over 25 years, Aline has been considering the photographer’s journey—for herself and others. As an artist and educator, she is a thoughtful observer of how one navigates the photographic waters and understands the importance of a photographer taking charge of their career and not waiting for things to happen.
The traditional path of getting your work out has changed, and the artist must think creatively about how to adapt to the new reality of selling your art. Quite a few galleries have closed their doors and others have gone virtual. In addition, photo centers and museums are looking for work that speaks to this moment in time. It can be a confusing time to be a fine-art photographer and an important time to understand the shifting sands.
This two-session, online seminar explains, uncovers, and helps demystify the current fine-art photography landscape as well as inspire each participant to present their photographs with thoughtful consideration. Aline addresses print editioning, pricing, presentation, and installation while providing a road map to taking charge of your career.
Equally important to creating a stellar and deeply considered body of work are all the elements that surround and support it—your bio, project statement, website—and the understanding of where and how to place the work. Participants work on elevating their written materials and all the varied elements that accompany their work.
Join Aline this spring for a program fresh with new beginnings.
Additional Information
WHO SHOULD ATTEND:
All are welcome at all stages of the journey!
Special Notes:
Class will meet 10:00 am – 12:00 pm (Mountain Time) on Saturday, March 15, and Saturday, March 22 (two online group sessions).
Zoom Video Conferencing software (available for no charge from Zoom.com) will be used to facilitate the class sessions. Further details will be emailed to registrants.
Santa Fe Workshops always aims to produce a high-quality experience for our online attendees. That said, variables including regional and local internet provider speeds, traffic on Zoom's servers, and your own computing hardware can contribute to a less than ideal streaming event. While we do our best to minimize the impact of these variables, they are outside the control of Santa Fe Workshops.
Policies:
View Withdrawal and Transfer Policies for online programs.
For the convenience of participants, recordings of each class session are posted privately for one month after the end of each session. Santa Fe Workshops takes the recordings down after one month to protect the intellectual property of our instructors.
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about
Aline Smithson is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, and editor based in Los Angeles, California. Her practice examines the archetypal foundations of the creative impulse and she uses humor and pathos to explore the performative potential of photography. She received a BA in Art from the University of California at Santa Barbara and was accepted into the College of Creative Studies, studying under artists such as William Wegman, Allen Rupersburg, and Charles Garabedian. After a career as a New York Fashion Editor working alongside some the greats of fashion photography, Aline returned to Los Angeles and her own artistic practice.
She has exhibited widely including over 40 solo shows at institutions such as the Griffin Museum of Photography, the Fort Collins Museum of Contemporary Art, the Shanghai, Lishui, and Pingyqo Festivals in China, The Rayko Photo Center in San Francisco, the Center of Fine Art Photography in Colorado, the Tagomago Gallery in Barcelona and Paris, and the Arnika Dawkins Gallery in Atlanta. In addition, her work is held in a number of public collections and her photographs have been featured in numerous publications including The New York Times, The New Yorker, PDN (cover), the PDN Photo Annual, Communication Arts Photo Annual, Harper’s, Eyemazing, Soura, Visura, Shots, Pozytyw, and Silvershotz magazines.
Aline is the Founder and Editor- in-Chief of Lenscratch, a daily journal on photography. In 2012, Smithson received the Rising Star Award through the Griffin Museum of Photography for her contributions to the photographic community and also received the prestigious Excellence in Teaching Award from CENTER. In 2014 and 2019, Smithson’s work was selected for the Critical Mass Top 50.
In 2015, the Magenta Foundation published her first significant monograph, Self & Others: Portrait as Autobiography. In 2016, the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum commissioned her to a series of portraits for the Faces of Our Planet Exhibition. In the Fall of 2018 and again in 2019, her work was selected as a finalist in the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize and exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in London. In 2019, Kris Graves Projects commissioned her to create the book LOST II: Los Angeles that is now sold out. Peanut Press Publishing released her monograph, Fugue State in Fall of 2021, also sold out. Her books are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Getty Museum, the Los Angeles Contemporary Art Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, London, the Metropolitan Museum, the Guggenheim, among others. In 2022, Aline was honored as a Hassleblad Heroine. With the exception of her cell phone, she only uses film.
Get to know Aline in our Inspiration Series video »
Website: alinesmithson.com
Instagram: @alinesmithson
