Michael Famighetti
Michael Famighetti is editor in chief of Aperture’s editorial program, overseeing the magazine, books division, and digital program. In 2013, he organized a relaunch and reconceptualization of the magazine, which won a 2018 National Magazine Award for General Excellence. Famighetti is recipient of an ICP Infinity Award for Critical Writing and Research for the magazine’s “Vision & Justice.” He is currently a visiting critic at Columbia University, Hartford’s MFA program, and a participant in the School of Visual Arts’s Mentors program. His writing has also appeared in Frieze and Bookforum. He is a member of the American Society of Magazine Editors, and has been a guest reviewer and speaker at many international festivals and institutions.
Michael's Upcoming Workshops
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II
Level II
Photography students have a basic understanding of photography principles and technology and are comfortable using an SLR camera in manual mode. New Media students have a basic understanding of video, multimedia or animation software. Students have basic computer skills and are comfortable using a Macintosh computer.
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III
Level III
Photography students have some formal training and significant experience making, capturing and digitally processing images using Adobe Lightroom and/or Adobe Photoshop. New Media students have some formal training in conceptual and technological aspects of video, multimedia, coding or animation and are versed in the appropriate software applications. Students have a portfolio of their artwork.
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IV
Level IV
Photography students have advanced skills and knowledge of photography and digital image processing. New Media students have advanced skills and knowledge of video, multimedia, coding or animation. Students are self-motivated and have multiple portfolios of their artwork.
Jul 27 - 31, 2026
9 AM - 5 PM
We Make Pictures in Order to Live
Michael Famighetti
Tuition $1,195
Code P0921-26
We tell ourselves stories in order to live. This line opens The White Album, Joan Didion's quintessential 1979 collection of essays. Though Didion didn't write much about photography, her prose did something photographic through its crystalline rendering of thorny realities of human experience. "We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images to…freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience," she wrote. Many photographers might recognize their work, processes, and motivations in those words. A narrative structure may be followed or dismantled. An image can invent a fiction, communicate a version of truth, or linger in the space between the two. But to connect with an audience, like a story, a set of photographs needs a form: a series of images in a sequence, a portfolio, a book, or a strategy for exhibition. This workshop explores different approaches to editing, sequencing, revision, and giving shape to a body of work.