Online

Seeing Family: A Creative Approach to Telling the Story

with Heather Evans Smith

Online registration for this program has closed. To check availability, find out about future dates, or if you would like further information, please call 505-983-1400 ext. 111. Also, get the SFW E-Newsletter for updates!

Sign-up for the Newsletter:

Course Description

Though it can take many different forms, family is something we all experience, a universal aspect of our shared humanity. How can we explore this topic and express it in imagery that goes beyond the documentary portrait?

Heather Evans Smith has been chronicling the subject of family for years through photo-based work that reflects her experience as a woman, a mother, and a native Southerner, as well as her memories of growing up in a rural town as an only child, reliant on her whimsical imagination. Her photographic images employ conceptual settings to explore memory, loss, and family, and over the course of five days, she shares her techniques and strategies with participants, discussing the in-depth process that brings her ideas to fruition.

Family is beautiful, tender, complicated, and often hard. At times an old photo, memento, or song can evoke a memory or relationship, resulting in a still life that tells a story or sparks an insight. With these connections in mind, participants are given weekly assignments that encourage them to think about family from new and creative perspectives.

Under Heather’s guidance, we discover unique ways of using photography to explore the complexity and nuance of family. Join her and discover fresh approaches for delving deeply into this multifaceted subject.

Additional Information

WHO SHOULD ATTEND:
Amateurs, Advanced Amateurs
What You Should Know:

Working knowledge of digital workflow and manual mode on your digital SLR or mirrorless camera. Participants must be able to download and select images using image editing software for class sessions.

Policies:

View Withdrawal and Transfer Policies for online programs.

Categories
Portraiture, Storytelling
about
Heather Evans Smith

Heather Evans Smith is a North Carolina photo-based artist whose work reflects her southern roots, motherhood, womanhood, and a whimsical imagination she relied on as an only child in a rural town. Her photographic imagery explores the ideas of memory, loss, and family in conceptual settings.

Heather’s work has been exhibited in both solo and group exhibitions at venues including the Fox Talbot Museum in Lacock, England, the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, NC, and Leica Galerie Milano in Milan, Italy. She is a Critical Mass 2014, 2018, 2021, and 2024 Top 50 recipient, 2022 Silver List artist and the CENTER 2022 Me&Eve grant recipient. Her first monograph, “Seen Not Heard,” was published by Flash Powder Projects in 2016 followed by two self-published monographs, “Alterations” and “Blue.”

Upcoming programs with Heather Evans Smith
Color and Memory: Defining a Powerful Narrative
with Heather Evans Smith

Gorman on Gorman: Five Decades

November 17 - 19, 2020

Finding Your Voice

December 15 – 17, 2020

Wild Stories: The Perilous Art of Adventure Writing

December 1 – 4, 2020

Color, Light, and Design

January 4 - 21, 2021

You May Also Like

Meaningful Travel Photography and Visual Storytelling

with Raul Touzon

July 14 – August 18, 2025

Transcendent Portraiture

with Fritz Liedtke

March 3 – 20, 2025

The Impactful Image

with Christopher Michel

October 13 – 17, 2025

Color and Memory: Defining a Powerful Narrative

with Heather Evans Smith

June 3 and 5, 2025

The Empathetic Portrait

with Andrew Southam

April 24 – May 22, 2025

The Intimate Image

with Elizabeth Opalenik

October 20 – 24, 2025

Landscape and the Story of Place

with Christina Selby

April 7 – 11, 2025
– Summer Season

The Creative Composite

with Julieanne Kost

July 7 – 11, 2025

Vietnam: Land of the Blue Dragons

with Jennifer Spelman

April 4 – 15, 2025

Autumn in Kyoto: Japan’s Most Cultured City

with Eddie Soloway

November 12 – 21, 2025

The Wedding Storyteller

with Roberto Valenzuela

April 5 and 12, 2025

Streets of Italy: Rome, Florence, and Naples

with Massimo Bassano

April 9 – 17, 2025

Day of the Dead in Oaxaca

with Marcela Taboada

October 29 – November 3, 2025

Brand Storytelling for Photographers

with Benjo Arwas

April 25 – 27, 2025

In Search of Light in India

with Jennifer Spelman and Michael Amici

October 17 – 28, 2025
– Summer Season

Editorial Portraiture: Thinking Outside the Box

with Peter Yang

July 21 – 25, 2025