In order to share a story one must first understand the story.

We began planning for Rebirth in December of 2009.  Interestingly, the idea we had has morphed a bit.  The spark is still the same as the first day we decided to move forward with this idea.  The structure and purpose has changed, though.  And perhaps that’s a very natural progression of any project upon which we endeavor.

Our initial thoughts of hosting a workshop have eased into a realization that what we really offer is more of a retreat.  The broad concept of giving artists room (and time) to explore has narrowed into giving them those things, but with a purposeful structure that will further enahance creative pursuit.  There is no specific skill we are hoping to teach — at least as it pertains to the craft of photography.  This is not a workshop geared to teach lighting skills.  It is not a marketing seminar.  It is not a workflow and processing class.

Though we do suspect you’ll come away with a broader understanding of all of those things.

We want to help you learn to tell whatever story it is you are meant to tell.

technique + thoughfulness

We love the spirit of creativity that is embraced every year at our retreat, and we do all that we can to foster that, but we want to be very clear about something – we’re not just a “feel good” workshop. Yeah, we definitely want you to enjoy your time here, and we’re going to push your boundaries a bit using teaching methods that might seem a little obscure at first. But make no mistake – we teach LOTS of hands-on technique. We just prefer to give you a bit more than that as well.

Here are just a few of the things that you’ll have an opportunity to do:

Holga 101 and Beyond
Encaustic Wax Painting and Burning
Polaroid/Fuji Transfers
Salt Prints/Palladium Prints
Wet Plate/TinTypes
4×5 sheet film and polaroid
Mixed media
Writing Exercises
Image critiques & project development
Lightroom Techniques
Digital Printing
Lighting, lighting, lighting
Custom bookmaking
Building a custom portfolio box
and we’re adding new stuff just about every week.

The best part? We keep the retreat small on purpose. That way we can tailor things to meet your specific needs. Over the next few months we’ll be reaching out to the registrants of our 2012 retreat to work with them specifically to create a curriculum that best fits the needs of each attendee.

Learning is different for each of us. Our goal is to provide you with as many tools and as much knowledge as possible, and to create an environment of creativity and acceptance that pushes your boundaries. There is no “one size fits all” solution for this. So you won’t see much of that at rebirth. We don’t want to teach you one way of doing things. We want to show you some techniques and share some ideas so that in the end, you can find your own way.

Register below for updates

We will officially open our 2012 retreat for registration in the Fall of 2011.  We will limit our next retreat to only 12 attendees  Previous attendees will have an opportunity to sign up first before opening registration to everyone.  If you’d like to be updated as soon as we are taking registrations, please fill out the form below.