workshops

mike

if you see the picture above, where would you think the man is from???  yup, texas.....but, before you think mike young is a poster boy for the nra, think again...mike contributes 50% of the proceeds from his gallery sales to the alzheimers association in houston..the photo above is just a "joke picture"....

mike earns his living in the steel business, but his passion is photography, which he  temporarily left behind to make mucho dinero selling steel....but since it is "never too late to be the man you could have been", mike is now working hard to recapture his teenage dream....to do fine humanistic/ documentary photography.....keep your eye on mike....i will be pushing him....he will be pushing himself...

his work below is from our shoot at the bullring...

put that gun down mike!!  grab your  camera and step into the light.....

raul

 

   

raul is an exile....both from cuba and from eastman kodak.....fidel ran
his family off the island and raul's passion for shooting made him quit
his tech rep job at kodak....both cuba and kodak seem to have problems,
but raul is doing just fine....see his work below...

together we have 25 students down here in san miguel.....it is so so
cold here today and i did not even know it could get this cold, but
yesterday was "hot"....i mean we had the whole class at a
rejoneador...a bullfight  where the matador rides a horse...yes, the
bull dies....a glorious death they say.....the theory is: the bull
leads the best life a bull could lead....put to stud......and then has
about a 15 minute "slow death" with the very macho matador standing
over him as he takes his last breath.....

if there were any animal rights activists in this class, they did not
raise their hands....all were so excited by the "ballet" of man and
horse, that the death of the poor bull was not even mentioned at the
bar later.....

raul is a bullfighter too.....i literally saw raul take a direct hit
from a small bull three years ago here at this same workshop.....a
"pretend" bullfight where the owner of the hacienda said to all of us
"give it a try"....raul, being cuban and raul, stepped up in front of
the bull....i remember seeing a lot of dust and raul on the ground and
a mix of legs, horns, and red cape.....raul moved....he got up.....raul
was alive!!! he walked slowly to the sidelines.....walking tall....then
collapsed when he got outside the ring....(photo above of raul getting hammered is by kent kobersteen)

we have stories about each other...many.....but this is my blog so i
will only tell the ones i want to tell....

viva cuba, kodak, the bull, y mi amigo raul!!!!

 

lance

lance.....how can you go wrong with a name like lance???  it seems to
me that anyone named lance gets an automatic head start in
life....lance rosenfield listens, thinks and learns.....i met lance in
san miguel de allende, mexico two years ago when he was a part of the
workshop i do there....at that time he was technically proficient, but
was asking for help in becoming more creative....he even had dreams of
"jumping off the cliff" and taking a shot at freelance professional
photography....i winced....

he had a tough time at first, but then came in at the very end, at the
finish line, with a strong set of photographs taken in a transvestite
bar in this little mexican town where i had no idea the local folks
even knew what a transvestite was.... an ornate catholic church 
physically dominates this small town  and the sound of church bells
drowns out most conversations....anyway, lance found the only three
tranies within 500 kms and made revealing pictures....

a year goes by ...then  lance shows up with his buddy ben (ben krain
who you will meet later) in my new york apartment for the workshop
here......lance is an engineer by trade, but is developing quickly the
right side of his brain..it is best if you just read his account of
what transpired in the link below....

but , i do  want a print of his first picture in this sequence.....and
maybe lance should just make the "big jump"

"grace and burn" by lance rosenfield

 

http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0610/rosenfield.html

http://www.rosenfieldphotography.com/

san miguel de allende

my next teaching gig is in san miguel de allende in the state of guanajuato , mexico......actually, i am teaching two workshops back to back  ....last week of february and the first week of march....these are national geographic expedition workshops.....these are large classes.....25 students.....this is a different experience than the small classes i have in my new york loft.....

my classes for the national geographic expedition workshop program  has a split demographic.....about half of the class are wealthier often retired folks...usually a sweet couple or two...some father/daughter teams etc....and the other half of the class are some young firebrands....the mix seems unlikely , but it works.....because of the size and eclectic nature of the class it does not get as warm and fuzzy as the smaller groups, but we all do definitely have an amazing time together......a group show at the end is our goal......how we get there is a secret.....

if this does not work for you, join me in sicily for the easter processions.....
( www.tpw.it)...10 students max for this one.......and, well, you know
the brunello and pasta combo......more on this later.....

Guanajuato, Mexico 1996