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GOAL
* Learn how to create a new series;
* Learn how to edit a photographic series;
* Develop your own visual language and photographic identity;
* Build a creative approach and an artistic coherence in the approach of a subject;
This workshop in full immersion with Gregory Halpern aims at developing the aptitude of the participant to carry out a photography assignment in an institutional context. This experience will allow the participant to develop his/her capacity to produce a photographic work in a given location and in a limited time period.
BIOGRAPHY
Gregory Halpern was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1977. He is known for a distinctive style of documentary photography that is rooted in both the real and the sublime. This approach has led him to photograph, among other things, life in post-industrial towns of the American Rust Belt, the people and places of Los Angeles, and the uniquely unifying experience of a total solar eclipse. Of his practice, he says, “What’s interesting to me about the world is its chaos and contradictions, the way opposites can be so beautiful in relation to each other.”
Though Halpern says he is primarily motivated by the desire to “create” rather than “document,” his work is powerfully affecting in its reflection of the world around us. A study of working conditions for service employees at Harvard, created while he was a student there, resulted in a successful bid for a living wage and was published as a book, Harvard Works Because We Do (2003). ZZYZX, his fantastical book of photographs of Los Angeles published by MACK in 2016, is now in its fourth edition.
Halpern became a Magnum Photos nominee in 2018, an associate member two years later, and a full member in 2023. He has published seven monographs, is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and his photographs are in major public and private collections, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He teaches photography at the Rochester Institute of Technology.
In his seventh book, “Let the Sun Beheaded Be”, Gregory Halpern focuses on the Caribbean archipelago of Guadeloupe. The work resonates with Halpern’s characteristic attention to the ways the details of a landscape and the people who inhabit it often reveal the “undercurrents” of local histories and experiences. The work offers a visually striking depiction of places, as it has been transformed by the forces of nature, people and events.
«I think the most important thing as a photographer is to be curious—and to embrace what you don’t know as much as what you do.» Gregory Halpern
www.gregoryhalpern.com
If you want to be kept informed about Gregory Halpern, you can follow him on Instagram or Eyes in Progress.
Program
Eyes in Progress proposes a frame of a one week training course during which 9 participants will be placed in a situation of total immersion, in order to produce a photographic series, from inception to end, under the direction of a distinguished photographer.
Participants will be placed in a situation of « artistic residence ». Working days shall be split into various sessions: shootings, editing, masterclasses, projection of work, critique and mutual exchanges.
On the final workshop's day, the participants will have the opportunity to show their series in a local public place, an opening will be organized and they will be able to show and present their works to the audience.
Moreover, other activities will be proposed, outside of the working sessions, in order to allow participants to utilize their environment and to spark creativity and inspiration.
These sessions will take place in a typical and very charming country house, a ‘mas’, located in the hamlet of Cosprons (Occitanie region), close to the border of France and Spain. Located in the bottom of a valley covered with vineyards, not far from the Bay of Paulilles, you will enjoy a quiet and beautiful environment, living among warm and authentic inhabitants.
You will be asked to adapt to a total immersion life, to take risks and to go beyond your limits, in order to progress and to get access to a higher level in your practice of photography.
No later than one month before the workshop, participants will be provided with a file. Among other information, you will find in this file a list of subjects and of contacts on site, to allow you to think about your project.
DETAILED AGENDA:
Day One (starting on Sunday, 5pm):
Introduction
Welcome of participants on training site.
Preliminary presentations, each participant briefly introduces oneself to the group, introduction of the invited photographer.
Presentation by Eyes in Progress of the 7 days organization and of the pre-established projects.
Description and presentation of the local environment.
Questions/answers.
First exchanges related to the selected subjects and/or still subjects to further thinking.
Day 2 (Monday):
9:30am – 12:30pm
Each participant shows one or two completed or published series. They will present themselves orally to the group.
1:30 – 3pm
Inception and starting of a photographer’s project
By illustrating his presentation with his own projects, Gregory Halpern will offer advice on how best to approach one's project – paying attention to one’s experience and to previous works. He will discuss environment-related constraints and how to take them into account. He will provide the participants with key-factors and suggestions.
3 – 6pm
The group goes out together in a local town nearby to initiate the shooting sessions. Every participant will be free to achieve an individual reconnaissance outdoor in order to identify some points and/or meet with potential subjects (appointments may have been arranged previously). As far as possible, they will start making work. The workshop's coordinator can help in arranging contacts or in making suggestions.
Back indoors, we will then discuss the reconnaissance carried out, as well as identified constraints. Final choice of projects with Gregory Halpern.
Day 3 to Day 6 –(Tuesday up to Friday):
9:30 – 11pm
Every morning, Gregory Halpern will make a presentation of one of his projects or of some significant aspect or his professional work. The goal of these sessions is to inspire the participants in the realization of their own series.
11 – 17am
Shooting sessions
Every participant goes out to to shoot their subjects. Participants come back to the house in order to get a critical review and improvement suggestions of Gregory Halpern. Daily meetings will be held so that each participant can spend time with Gregory Halpern in order to develop his/her series.
Through a selection and a discussion with Gregory Halpern around the best pictures of the day, participants will work at developing their series and improving their global approach of the subject.
5 – 6pm
Exchanges in group on shooting and associated challenges.
Day 7 (Saturday)
9.30 am – 2 pm
Final editing and sequence
Each participant works on the final editing and sequence of his/her series. The series and its associated text will then be sent to the selected mentor.
2 pm-5 pm
Participants deliver their series to the workshop's coordinator so she can create the sound slideshow that will be presented in the evening.
6 pm
Opening and presentation of each series to the audience through a sound slideshow. Drinks will be offered to the audience.
Day 8 (Sunday)
9:30 am – 1pm
Each participant works on the making up and the sequence of the final selection. He/She writes a text related to the series such as presented. The series and the associated wording shall be forwarded to a mentor of their choice. Final Q/A session with Gregory Halpern.
Working language: English.
