Long-term personal projects are the lifeblood for many photographers. These passionate projects are what keep you up late at night editing or wake you up early in the morning to create new images. However, there are times when all photographers need input from others and help with next steps for your ongoing work. Brian Finke is offering this opportunity for insights, guidance, nourishment, and community with a springtime online workshop.
Brian’s workshop focuses on developing and completing a long-term personal project of contemporary documentary photography and how to use this final body of work to create commercial opportunities or an art practice. Group sessions are committed to image reviews, discussions on evolving the project, and building a unique narrative to the story. There is time to focus on sharing working practices, including how to manage your career as a freelancer and what it’s like working with galleries, agents, magazine editors, art buyers, and book publishers. We look at the history of documentary photography and how it has changed—where it was, where it is now, and what’s the future.
Participants should already be working on a project or have project ideas in mind that they can readily photograph throughout the spring. The workshop consists of six group sessions of three hours, meeting on Mondays every other week allowing for the unfolding of a body of work over time. The end result of this workshop with Brian is a completed personal project for each participant.
Working knowledge of digital workflow. Participants must be able to download, select, and transfer images to an online platform for weekly critiques.
View Withdrawal and Transfer Policies for online programs.
Brian Finke’s visual cultural commentary focuses on authenticity and the absurdity of everyday life and the range of human behavior. A stylized documentarian and trained photojournalist, Brian’s honesty and intimacy when capturing subjects strikes at the core of contemporary life, with a uniquely American point of context and graphic sensibility.
Often with boundary pushing subject matter, Brian challenges the viewer to confront what is often right in front of them, with an almost surreal understanding of immediacy, time, and place. From street photography to commercial portraiture to fashion editorials, His immersion in culture-at-large creates imagery that is deeply tied to the political and emotional undertones of the modern world.
A graduate of the School of Visual Arts in New York City, Brian received a BFA in photography. He is the author of several books, and his first monograph, 2, 4, 6, 8 (2003), was named one of the best photography books by American Photo magazine. Earlier in his career, Brian was one of twelve artists nominated for the International Center for Photography’s annual Infinity Award, and he won a prestigious New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship. His work is in nine museum collections in the U.S. and abroad, and he regularly shoots for editorial clients like National Geographic, M magazine, and The New York Times as well as commercial clients, including Delta Airlines, Uber Eats, and eBay. In addition to photographing his long-term personal projects, Brian is a guest teacher in photography at the International Center of Photography in Manhattan and FotoFilmic in Vancouver.
A native Texan, Brian lives in Brooklyn and is passionate about travel, tattoos, barbecue, and biking. His next monograph Backyard Fights is being released by Hat & Beard Press Fall 2022.
Website: brianfinke.com
Instagram: @brianfinke
