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Maine Media Workshops by Sarah Coleman Among the dizzying array of photo-workshop providers, the Maine Media Workshops (MMW) is an industry leader. Article rating: 9.67

These days, anyone who wants to take a week-long photography workshop has a vast array of choices. Perhaps you’d like to hone your photographic skills while shooting cowboys in rugged Wyoming, or while capturing flame-colored fall foliage in New England?  For the more adventurous-minded, there’s the opportunity to travel by dug-out canoe to photograph an Embera Indian village in the Panamanian jungle, or to visit Korea’s Demilitarized Zone.

Among this dizzying array of photo-workshop providers, the Maine Media Workshops (MMW) is an industry leader. One of the country’s oldest photography workshops, MMW was founded thirty-five years ago in the small coastal town of Rockport, Maine. Each summer, it offers a full slate of classes taught by acclaimed photographers, ranging from master landscape photographer John Paul Caponigro to veteran photojournalist Constantine Manos. There’s also an impressive list of off-site classes, taking place in locations ranging from Vietnam to Istanbul.

With its thirty-five year pedigree – not to mention its stunning coastal location and excellent chef – MMW has consistently been able to draw excellent faculty members and enthusiastic students. Two years ago, though, the Workshops ran into financial difficulties and founder David Lyman sold his interest to a board of trustees, which turned it into a not-for-profit organization. The transition had some minor bumps – waiting for a legal transfer of the Workshops’ name meant that this year’s catalog went out later than usual, for example – but has been generally very smooth. “We want everyone to know that we’re still around, bigger than ever and better than ever,” says new executive director Charles Altshul.

Recently, I headed up to Maine to see how the place is doing under its new management. It was an active week that reflected the diverse opportunities available at MMW. The courses ranged from Dramatic Portraiture to Nature Photography, Family Storytelling to Black-and-White Printing, and were taught by a roster of impressively credentialed photographers, including Michael Grecco, Ron Haviv, David Middleton and George DeWolfe. And that was just on the photography side: MMW also has a full spectrum of film classes, which were beyond the scope of this article to explore.

With its group of gently-weathered wooden buildings clustered around an open-sided tent where meals are served, the MMW campus feels intimate and homey. There may be as many as 300 students here in a given week, but since classes go on location so much, the place never feels crowded. Like other photography schools, MMW is moving steadily into the digital age, but it’s also intent on honoring photography’s rich history: there are two spacious black-and-white darkrooms, and classes on alternative photographic processes are among the Workshops’ most popular.

Early in the week, I stopped by David Middleton’s Nature Photography class. Middleton, who lives and works in Vermont, is dynamic and jovial, a natural teacher who’s generous about sharing techniques with students. Showing an image he shot of rocks in water, he described how he used a polarizing filter to remove the water’s silvery sheen. “Do you leave the polarizing filter on your camera permanently?” a student asked. No, said Middleton, because “any glass you put on front of your camera does degrade the image to a certain extent.” Instead, he said, “I put the polarizing filter in front of my eye and if I go ‘ooh,’ I put it on my camera. That’s as technical as it gets.”

Next door, Olympus Visionary photographer Anne Day was leading a workshop in Family Storytelling, unusual in that it caters to entire families. “I don’t think there’s any other place where the whole family can come and study photography together,” said Day, whose own work often features her children. Thirteen-year-old Abby Perkins lifted a digital SLR camera to her eye and peered through the lens, focusing on her older sister Emily. “I feel more professional already,” she said.

During the week at MMW, instructors deliver evening lectures and slideshows, giving students a chance to experience work beyond their own genre. This week, one of the most intriguing lectures was by celebrity portrait photographer Michael Grecco, who showed images from his recently-published book about the adult entertainment industry, “Naked Ambition: An R-Rated Look at an X-Rated Industry.” Shot on location at the Adult Video Network Awards Show, Grecco’s book features quirky portraits of industry personalities, like the Korean rocket scientist who says he invented a sex machine because “I want love, not fighting.”

The next day, in his Dramatic Portraiture class, Grecco outlined key elements of his approach to portraiture. “In portraiture we never bracket exposures,” he told students. “Why? Because you’ll lose the person’s expression.” Instead, he said, “Buddha invented a light meter. Use it.” Later, on location at a local warehouse where antique fire engines are restored to their former glory, Grecco’s students posed models against vehicles and practised configuring lights to achieve more striking effects. “Hey Dave, try putting your light behind the windshield and shooting it a few different ways!” Grecco called out to one student.

Back on campus, students in Ken Martin’s Intro to Black and White Darkroom class were beavering away in one of MMW’s spacious darkroom labs. Anne Murray, an art teacher from Pennsylvania, dipped a print of a beach scene into a tray of stop bath and swirled it around. The “magical” quality of black and white printing inspired her to take the workshop, said Murray. “There are photographers whose work I really love, like Julia Margaret Cameron and Robert Doisneau, and I wanted to learn how to achieve their effects,” she said.

Over in Ron Haviv’s masterclass, students who’d been following a single, complex story in depth over the week were getting feedback from Haviv, a photojournalist renowned for his searing images from war zones. Elizabeth Smela, a mechanical engineering professor from Maryland, had been riding with a police unit in neighboring Rockland. “I like this shot because the cop is doing something, and the woman has an anguished expression,” said Haviv of one image. When shooting a documentary story, he pointed out, “Never think that you’ve already got a situation. One shot could be stronger on its own, another one could work better with the flow of the story.”

Finally, what trip to Maine would be complete without a lobster dinner? MMW ends each week with one, followed by a presentation of work created over the week. As the final slide show played in the auditorium, showing highlights from each class, raucous applause erupted now and again in recognition of an especially good image.

Afterwards, students lingered in the night, seeming not to want to leave. “These images don’t look like what I’d have shot last week,” said Roy Knight, a student in Nature Photography. “I’ve been putting a lot more thought up-front into composing, and experimenting with things like backlighting.” Thirteen year-old Abby Perkins from the Family Storytelling workshop agreed. “I never would have shot an image like that if I hadn’t done this class,” she said of a portrait of her sister Emily lying on a rock with rose petals strewn over her.

Ample proof, then, that the deep focus of a week-long workshop can invigorate and enhance a photographer’s work. In the words of Nancy Kruger, a student in Nature Photography, “The best thing about being here has been learning to see the world differently than before.”

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