Advanced Mentored Studies: Visual Storytelling and Documentary Photography Projects

The digital age has given documentary photographers and photojournalists new ways to tell stories with greater authorship and control. This workshop focuses on how to create a personal documentary project and get it seen. The ultimate goal is to find a subject that speaks to a personal passion, document it in a unique visual style, then disseminate the work. Participants engage new technologies to become more effective storytellers, which include social media, transmedia, virtual reality, and digital video. 2025 is the third year of this three-year intensive program. There are openings if you would like to join for one year. For more information about our next session of this Advanced Mentored Studies program, please contact Andrea Jenkins Wallace, Vice President of Artistic Affairs and Artistic Director of Photography and New Media, at [email protected] with questions.  TO APPLY: Applications for enrollment are accepted on a rolling basis. To apply, please fill out the 2025 Advanced Mentored Studies Online Application Form.

In the days before digital, capturing a photograph involved sending film and filing negatives. Today, photographers create infinite images, utilize metadata, process the digital captures, organize files for easy retrieval, and output for social media, publication, and printing. This can feel daunting, but it isn't; it simply requires a proper workflow. In this workshop students build an understanding of a streamlined process that allows creative vision to unleash while maintaining organization. The week’s goal is to comfortably understand file organization, including naming protocols, metadata, keywords, editing images using Adobe Lightroom Classic, transitioning to Adobe Photoshop, working with third-party plugins, and preparing images for various output requirements. We also spend time printing to see how work transitions from the screen to something tangible we hold in our hands.

This class expands on the traditional methods of collage and explores new ways to visually express ideas. Using mixed-media—paper, photos and photo transfers, found materials, and fabrics—and an introduction to press-free printmaking techniques including stencils, pochoir, and basic transfer processes, we investigate ways to build up imagery and textures that elevate mixed-media materials. Students experiment with new techniques demonstrated daily in class and explore forms of expression that may challenge their previous working methods and expectations. Students work on quick studies as well as multi-day, deliberate projects that produce a personal visual vocabulary and strive toward more advanced, completed work.