January, 2008

WORKSHOPS 2008,
Great Smokey Mountains and Park Workshop

In April I will be leading a workshop with Bruce Barnbaum in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I look forward to working again with Bruce because we had a terrific workshop together in Nova Scotia a couple of years ago. I also am excited to be sharing my knowledge of this area with fellow photographers because I am returning to my earliest beginnings as a photographer.

I began work as a photographer in 1978 for The Daily Times in Maryville Tennessee. By the early '80's I had begun working with an 8x10 view camera as a break from my journalist duties. I took several workshops with large format photographers Michael O'Neil and John Sexton and discovered I really enjoyed the slower way of working that this camera required. I became passionate about working with my 8x10 and started to bring it along on assignments from the newspaper that took me to the western side of the National Park.

In the fall of 1983 I gave myself the personal project of shooting this area exclusively with the 8x10 camera. I wanted to take a good slow look at the park over time rather than a quick get-the-shot-and-get-out newspaper journalist approach. The parameters of the self-assignment were this: For one year I would photograph the area between (and including) Townsend and Cades Cove every week for a minimum of four hours.

Although I fell short of my goal, that year I did make twenty to twenty-five trips to the mountains to work on my project. I spent most of my time just inside the park's boundaries on the dirt road leading to the Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont. I would travel this road, trying to find light, objects, and patterns that interested me. I also spent time learning to photograph architecture using the preserved and restored buildings of Cades Cove as subject matter. Cades Cove was a working farm valley until the 1930's when the National Park was formed. The Park Service has attempted to recreate the 19th century feel of this farming valley and preserve it for future generations.

This self-assignment allowed me time and space to create work in a different manner. The year photographing in the Smokies affected the rest of my career as a photographer. Working with the large format camera and the time spent near Tremont and in Cades Cove allowed me to see differently, to change my seeing from that of a journalist to an artist. As an artist I didn't have to worry about capturing an image for the front page. Instead I was learning to make images for myself, images that demanded more from me than had ever been required before.

One image that I made during this time still remains one of my favorites. It appeared in STRUCTURE as Plate 11: Methodist Church, Cades Cove TN. What interested me was the way the light reflected off of the tin steeple and the pattern of triangles throughout the image. The steeple is triangular, the moldings over the windows are triangular, as well as the pattern of light above the right hand window. It is not a typical architectural image in that the entire building is not in the image nor is there a complete view of the front or facing sides. However it spoke to me then as it still does today.

The workshop with Bruce will allow us to explore areas beyond Cades Cove. The Walker Sisters' Cabin is one of these locations. The trail to the cabin begins in the Metcalf Bottoms picnic area and is an easy 1.1-mile hike into the site. Between 1923 and 1934, the surviving six sisters (of eleven children) who were living at the farm refused repeated efforts to sell their land to the Park Service. They relented in 1943 and ownership of their 123 acres passed to the U.S. government. A lifetime lease on the house and land remained in effect until the last sister died in 1964.

The cabin stands as a reminder of the authentic lifestyle of many mountain folk well into the 20th century. I made the photograph of the bowls about twenty years after the last sister died. I have no idea if they are original to the cabin or were put in later or if they are even still in the cabin. These bowls symbolize to me a tenuous link with the past. Although I never knew the family, something of them remained through the people I knew in the area who were friends with the sisters, who remembered this place as a working farm that provided most of what a family needed to survive in this mountainous environment.

In addition to an unusual and beautiful environment, Bruce's workshops allow for serious and thoughtful discussion of each participant's work. Generally we spend the morning in the field making images, return for lunch and critique back at the hotel talking and go back out to photograph in the afternoon. Based in Townsend, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park entrance is only a few minutes away from our hotel. Bruce and I both work with large format cameras. However, I want to invite anyone working with any format, who is interested in the history and beauty of the Great Smoky Mountains, to join us for this workshop. Color, black and white, traditional film or digital, it doesn't matter how you capture the image. What matters is that you bring a passion for your work, a willingness to share your work with others, and a desire to explore a beautiful American National Park. Both Bruce and I hope to see you there!

For further details contact Bruce Barnbaum at www.barnbaum.com or email at photoartswrkshps@aol.com or tillman@tillmancrane.com.