Workshops: Inversnaid and Peters Valley

When I left full time teaching in the fall of 2001, my plan was to spend more time making my own images and to teach occasionally. Over the past year I have taught two workshops in very different locations.


Inversnaid Photography Center

Last fall I was asked to speak at the Scottish chapter of the Royal Photographic Society at Dunfermline. Jack Dykinga, a great landscape photographer, was the other scheduled American speaker. To make a long story short, the events of September 11 cancelled the fall trip to Scotland for both of us. Fortunately Roy Robertson of the RPS invited both of us to speak at the spring meeting.

In addition to speaking at the conference, I was invited to lead a workshop at Inversnaid Photography Workshops. Inversnaid Photography Workshop is located near Loch Lomond north of Glasgow and west of Stirling. Andre Goulancourt, and his partner Linda Middleton run the workshops out of this Bed and Breakfast which is located in a beautifully restored hunting lodge (originally built for the Duke of Montrose in 1790). The Lodge and Workshop are located on 50 acres where Andre and his assistant Ian King run a herd of highland cattle and a flock of sheep.

Students live and work in the hunting lodge. The workshop includes a ten enlarger darkroom, loading room, and wonderful studio and critique space. The meals are served in a delightful dining room. After dinner you can retire to the study or return to the studio or darkroom. Conversation is a premium. The commute is from your room, down stairs to the studio or darkroom, to the dining room, to the study and back to the studio. It is a wonderfully civilized way to run a workshop.

The workshop I lead was titled "Craft Inspiration and Vision". Students ranged from a relatively inexperienced photographer to a professional architectural photographer. The exchange of ideas and working methods was very open and on going. The students learned as much from each other as from me. And that's the best type of workshop.

We began gathering about 7:30 to load film and look at the previous days work. Breakfast was served at 9 am. After this full Scottish breakfast we met to look at portfolios. We spent about two hours a day reviewing portfolios, usually two people a day. Tea was served about 11 am. Lunch was 2 pm and tea again at 4 pm and dinner at 7 pm. In between we shot, processed, and made a few prints. The setting was beautiful, the hospitality was 5 Star, and the meals were delicious.

Andre and his assistant Ian run a wide variety of workshops at the Inversnaid Photography Center. Andre is an excellent teacher and he invites many of the best teachers from throughout Great Britain to teach as well. Most workshops are held on the grounds and include basic and intermediate black and white, the Zone System, Introduction to the View Camera, and a critique class with Thomas Joshua Copper. In addition Inversnaid offers several digital classes. Off campus they offer wildlife and landscape photography classes on locations around Scotland.

If you are ever looking for an excuse to go to Scotland, (but who needs an excuse) Inversnaid Photography Workshops is a great place to begin or end a trip. You can work on your photography, stay with gracious and generous hosts, and eat incredibly well. Andre, Linda and Ian, the staff at Inversnaid, will feed your soul as well as your body.

Workshops topic and dates for 2003 will be announced soon. Most likely May 2003





Peters Valley Craft Center

Another unique but very different workshop location is The Peters Valley Craft Center in New Jersey. I know I can hear you thinking, "New Jersey, land of asphalt and Springstein." But Peters Valley Craft Center is located in the very northwestern corner of New Jersey near the Delaware River on the eastern edge of the Delaware Water Gap National Park. It has taken over the old town of Bevans, NJ and the area is just beautiful.

Peters Valley Craft Center is an internationally known center running workshops in fine woodworking, ceramics, fiber arts, jewelry making, blacksmithing, and photography. They run a 12 to 14 week summer program, offering beginning to advanced classes in all of the various disciplines. The Photography Program, directed by Andy Schmitt, is offering classes ranging from Using your Automatic Camera, to Gum Bichromate Printing.

The darkroom facilities are located about 2.5 miles from the center of the campus on Thunder Mountain. It is either long walk or a very short drive from most residences and the dining hall. It was rare that I didn't want to stop and make a photograph or two on the way to the darkroom. I took students from Waterford School there this past summer for two weeks. We had 11 photographers and two instructors and the darkroom worked very well for all of us. It is not luxurious but very functional.

Meals are served in the "center of town" in the dining hall. The food at Peters Valley is by tradition very good. So good, in fact that they have published a couple of cookbooks from recipes used over the years. Over a meal you may sit with a blacksmith, or potter, or fabric artist. It is a delightful experience to step out of your own craft and talk to others experiencing the same growth and frustration in a completely different art form.

Housing at Peters Valley is, at best, funky. Students are housed in 1960's houses that have modified only slightly in the past 40+ years. Summers in New Jersey are often hot and humid. Bring a fan. The landscape and location is beautiful. There are no street lights at Peters Valley, so the evenings are dark. Beautifully dark.

At Peters Valley most workshops start on Friday morning and end at noon on Tuesday. Next summer I am offering a 10 day workshop, The Project, Concept to Completion, from August 20th to 31st. The idea underlying the workshop is for students to come with an idea for a project on which they want to work. For 10 days they do nothing but pursue that project. We will work together to plan it, set up a shooting schedule, discuss a final presentation format, and work together to complete the project. For those that want o produce a platinum portfolio the opportunity will be available. If you prefer to produce a silver portfolio or want to try printing with Azo for a final portfolio these are also options. It is an opportunity to define an idea and work on it until completion.

I am large format photographer, but this class is not limited to large format photographers. But it is not a class about learning to use a view camera. Peters Valley is offering a basic view camera class earlier in the summer. This class is about using the tools you already know and working intently, intensely and intelligently for ten days to produce a body of work.