Online

Transcendent Portraiture

with Fritz Liedtke

November 3 – 20, 2025

Mondays and Thursdays; 9:30 – 11:30 am (Mountain Time)
  • Tuition $595.00

Course Description

Great portraiture goes far beyond the right lens or lighting setup; it begins with vision and connection. In this immersive workshop, you learn to approach portrait photography as an artist: crafting images that are moody, evocative, and far more than just headshots.
Fine-art and commercial photographer Fritz Liedtke leads you through the “why” of portraiture—why we photograph people, and what makes a portrait truly resonate. From there, you explore the “how”—drawing inspiration from master artists as you examine the creative and technical choices behind powerful portraiture.You learn to build genuine rapport with your subjects, pose and light them in flattering and compelling ways, as well as strategies for finding volunteer models to practice with. Through live demonstrations and engaging discussions, you explore a variety of techniques: directing and posing subjects, harnessing natural light and modifying it, working with artificial lighting and off-camera flash, and blending ambient and flash for dramatic effect. You also follow image-making all the way through post-processing, developing a final look that aligns with your creative vision.

Weekly assignments encourage experimentation and growth, helping you gain confidence and fluency with your tools and techniques. By the end of the course, you walk away with a deeper understanding of portraiture and a portfolio of rich, artful images that express your unique perspective.

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.

Special Notes:

Class will meet 9:30-11:30 am (Mountain Time) on Mondays and Thursdays starting November 3 and ending November 20 (six online group sessions). Enrollment is limited to 12 participants.

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.

Categories
Creative Vision, Portraiture
© Fritz Liedtke
about
Fritz Liedtke

Fritz Liedtke began photographing as a teen, carrying his Kodak 110 Instamatic around on a US tour with his father at age 14, in their little blue Datsun B210. As an adult, he as continued to explore the world, camera in hand.

Fritz holds a BFA in photography and printmaking, and has won numerous awards, grants, and residencies for his work.  His images have been widely published by magazines such as National Geographic, Lenswork, PDN, Professional Photographer, View Camera Magazine, Rangefinder, Silvershotz, PhotoLife, Diffusion, and blogs such as Lenscratch, Photoeye, LensCulture, F-stop, and others.  His work is held in such collections as the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Griffin Museum of Photography, The Haggerty Museum, Portland Art Museum, Yale University Library, Lishui Museum of Photography, Scripps College Rare Book Collection, and more.  View his Vitae here.

Aside from making art, Fritz enjoys creating unique images for his commercial and editorial clients, traveling, and teaching workshops on photography and the artistic life.   He is constantly looking for new ways to approach the world through art.

Fritz and his family call Portland, Oregon their home.  They live on several acres outside of town surrounded by herons, egrets, ducks, and bitterns.  And a few frogs.

Upcoming programs with Fritz Liedtke

Transcendent Portraiture

March 3 – 20, 2025

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