Education & Mentorship 

The mission of the LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph is to celebrate the vision of extraordinary photographers, ignite conversations about critical issues, and foster the next generation of artists. We foster, support, and challenge early-career photographers through workshops and labs, one-to-one guidance, and LOOKbetween.    

Education & Mentorship 2015:

On Thursday, June 11th LOOK3 will present Innovation Labs, Workshops, and Portfolio Reviews for early-career photographers, university photography students, and high school photography students at the Jefferson School City Center. The generous contributions of our wonderful supporters allows us to offer all educational initiatives free of charge. LOOK3 will underwrite 60 seats for high school students, 30 seats for early-career photographers, 25 seats for university students, and 80 portfolio reviews.

Thank You

LOOK3 Education & Mentorship is supported by BAMA Works, Charlottesville Area Community Foundation, L.E.A.W. Family Foundation, Office of the Provost & the Vice Provost for the Arts (UVA), Magnum Foundation, Victoria Norwood, and the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center for their support of LOOK3's Education & Mentorship Program.

INNOVATION LABS are open to early career photographers and university students. 
 

INNOVATION LAB I

Disruptive Images: Photography and Intervention

Thursday, June 11, 2015  10:00 am - 5:00 pm
Applications are due by Tuesday, May 5th
Admission is FREE, however application and acceptance are required.
APPLICATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED.

In collaboration with LOOK3, Magnum Foundation’s Photography, Expanded initiative will offer a project development laboratory that explores photography as intervention. 

The widespread popularity of photo sharing platforms like Instagram mark the continued, and increasing, social importance of photography as a communication tool. But photography—in contrast to moving image formats— also maintains its unique power as a physical object within the realm of visual representation. How might documentary photographers leverage the photograph’s utility as an easily translatable and digitally exchanged form of communication as well as an object that can be inserted into physical space and site-specific contexts? How can photographic installations or interventions be used as a platform to inform, activate, and empower communities?

Participating photographers will learn from socially-engaged practice and activist strategies to develop ideas for installation and intervention-based work that merges physical and digital environments. This is a hands-on lab, which will require each participant to bring a body of work that’s currently in-progress. We will begin the session with a presentation of case studies and a discussion on tools, tactics, and approaches. We will then move to a paper-based project development exercise where photographers will create plans for applying new approaches to the projects they bring to the lab.

The Magnum Foundation (MF) champions in-depth, independent documentary photography that fosters empathy, engagement, and positive social change. Photography, Expanded is an MF initiative that activates collaborative innovation between photographers, journalists, and technologists creating multiplatform stories on social justice issues. 

Emma Raynes is the Program Director of the Magnum Foundation's Emergency Fund, which supports independent photographers to cover under-reported stories on pressing social issues. She is also a member of the faculty at the International Center of Photography. Raynes earned a BA in Art History from Bowdoin College and an MA in Cultural Anthropology from the New School for Social Research. She is the recipient of several awards for research and photography including three Freeman Foundation Fellowships and a Hine Fellowship from Duke University's Center for Documentary Studies.

INNOVATION LAB II

Cutting Through the Noise: Shaping Visual Stories For Impact 

Thursday, June 11, 2015  10:00 am - 5:00 pm
Applications are due by Tuesday, May 5th
Admission is FREE, however application and acceptance are required.
APPLICATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED.

In collaboration with LOOK3, and led by German-born Canadian photographer Zun Lee, this Lab will model how to conceive, develop, and produce a meaningful body of photographic work. Do you have a wonderful idea for a long-form photography project but feel unsure about the immediate next steps? Are you stuck developing your story and in need of fresh, innovative ideas? This full-day lab will help demystify the process. We will work collaboratively, moving through concrete steps that take you from initial instinct to fully realized project. The lab will help develop a deeper sense of personal connection to your work, build strong planning skills, and provide numerous hands-on tips and tools to realize your own project step by step.
 
Participants will be required to submit a project idea and preliminary work (3-5 images) in advance. You will have a chance to discuss your ideas and your work during the day – perfection isn’t required, just passion, commitment, and collaboration. The end result: through effectively blending creative insight with practical innovation, this lab will enable you to develop successful, sustainable long-form projects.
 
Zun’s project Father Figure: Exploring Alternate Notions of Black Fatherhood began as a short personal essay during a photo workshop in 2011. It has since been widely published. The Father Figure photo book was shortlisted for the Aperture Photo Book Prize and selected for PDN Photo Annual 2015. Zun will share the approaches and lessons learned that moved his project from idea to completion. 
 

Zun Lee's Exhibition Father Figure: Exploring Alternate Notions of Black Fatherhood

Through intimate black-and-white frames, the viewer can gain access to often-overlooked moments in the lives of African American men whom Lee has worked with since 2011. Lee brings into focus what pervasive father absence stereotypes have distorted—black men who define parental presence on their own terms and whose masculinity is humanized, not viewed with suspicion. At the African American Heritage Center gallery in the Jefferson School through August 29th.

PORTFOLIO REVIEWS are open to early career photographers and university students. 

Portfolio Reviews are powerful and often career-defining experiences for photographers. We will offer eighty twenty-minute portfolio reviews free-of-charge to early career photographers on a first-come-first-served basis. Reviewers will be drawn from leaders of the profession. One-to-one reviews are intended for early career photographers (defined as within first five years of professional practice). Reviewers are drawn from the leaders of the photography field.

Sign-ups will open at 9:00 AM ON THURSDAY, APRIL 16th and close when all slots are filled.

SIGN UP IS NOW CLOSED! THANK YOU FOR YOUR RESPONSES. REVIEWS ARE CHOCK-FULL!
 

THANK YOU TO OUR WONDERFUL LINEUP OF 2015 PORTFOLIO REVIEWERS!

Mike Davis is the Alexia Tsairis Chair for Documentary Photography at the Newhouse School, where he teaches visual storytelling and runs the Alexia Foundation Grants. Mike also works as an independent editor with international photojournalists on their portfolios, books, and exhibits. He has edited over thirty books, has been a photo editor at National Geographic magazine, the White House, and several of America’s leading newspapers, and was twice named newspaper picture editor of the year. He has taught at numerous universities and workshops throughout the country and abroad including The Atlanta Photojournalism Seminar and Somos Foto in Ecuador, and he has juried numerous awards including the W. Eugene Smith Grant.

Janna Dotschkal is an Associate Photo Editor for National Geographic online. She contributes to National Geographic's Proof photography blog and curates the Webby award-winning Found archival Tumblr. Janna is also an experienced multimedia editor and winner of the White House News Photographer's Association first place award in Multimedia Issue Reporting. 

James Estrin is a Senior Staff Photographer for the New York Times. He is also a founder of Lens, the Times's photography blog and has been its co-editor since it went online in May 2009. James has worked for the Times since 1987 and was part of a Pulitzer Prize winning team in 2001. In addition to photographing, editing and writing, he produces audio and video for nytimes.com. He is also an adjunct professor at the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism. 

MaryAnne Golon is Director of Photography at the Washington Post. As a member of the senior newspaper management team, she supervises all aspects of photography for the daily and its digital forms: on the web, mobile and tablet. Golon received an IFA Lucie award as Picture Editor of the Year in 2013. Golon was previously Time magazine's director of photography and co-managed the international newsweekly’s photography department for more than 15 years. Golon led the photo team that produced the Hurricane Katrina and the September 11, 2001 special Time editions that each won coveted ASME National Magazine Awards. MaryAnne Golon received a B.S. in Journalism and Communications from the University of Florida and is a distinguished alumna. She completed a fellowship in Public Policy and Media Studies at Duke University.

W.M. Hunt has been collecting photographs for over thirty-five years. He is a founding partner of gallery Hasted Hunt, now Hasted Kraeutler in Manhattan. A professor at the School of Visual Arts, he has been profiled in The New York Times as well as the BBC's The Genius of Photography and elsewhere. W.M. Hunt is on the Board of Directors of the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund and The Center for Photography at Woodstock.

 Anil Ramchand is the Senior Editorial Director at Corbis. Since joining the agency in 2005, Anil has been involved in developing Corbis’ global editorial strategy. He manages its News, Sports, Entertainment and Archival collections, representing and working with world-class photographers and partner agencies. Passionate about connecting stories with audiences, Anil has worked in extensively in music prior to venturing into photography. 

Molly Roberts is a photography editor, curator, and photographer; she currently serves as Chief Photography Editor at Smithsonian Magazine. With twenty-five years of experience in the publishing world, she is responsible for the content and appearance of many magazines, books, web sites and apps. She is an advocate for powerful visual storytelling and human rights and created the non-profit HumanEyesUSA to present documentary photography projects in public spaces and to use imagery to help illuminate complex issue facing America. Roberts recently joined the board of directors for Women Photojournalists of Washington.

Brian Ulrich is an American photographer known for his exploration of consumer culture. Brian's work is held in collections including the Art Institute of Chicago and the Cleveland Museum of Art. Photo District News named Ulrich one of 30 Emerging Photographers (2007) and he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship (2009). His work has been featured in the New York Times Magazine, Time, Mother Jones, Artforum, and Harper’s. Aperture and the Cleveland Museum of Art published his first major monograph: Is This Place Great or What (2011). The Anderson Gallery published the catalog Closeout: Retail, Relics and Ephemera (2013). Brian is currently an Assistant Professor of Photography at Rhode Island School of Design.

Yukiko Yamagata is the Associate Director for the Open Society Foundations Documentary Photography Project, which explores the intersection of photography and social change through grantmaking, exhibitions, public programs, and workshops. Prior to joining Foundations, she was a researcher for the In Motion: The African American-Migration Experience project, an exhibition, book, website, and digital archive organized by the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and a senior curatorial assistant-researcher in the Department of Photography at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

UNIVERSITY & HIGH SCHOOL WORKSHOP I:

Students will be nominated for the workshop by their teachers. The workshop will not be open to general applications.
 

Beyond the Selfie: Photography, Social Media & Global Activism 

LOOK3 in partnership with UVA Professor John Edwin Mason will offer a collaborative workshop for local high school and UVA students that will actively explore the intersection of photography, social media, and activism.

In less than a decade, the global landscape of visual culture has changed radically. It is no secret that the camera phone and social media are driving this transformation—together, they have completely changed the way we take, use, and view photographs. The impact is profound; consider Instagram with over 300 million users to date with numbers growing every hour. How can we harness such technologies to make us better communicators? How do we as photographers use these technologies to make ever more relevant, provocative, and meaningful work?

This workshop provides a unique place to engage these important questions as well as to create hands-on work. In the morning, students will discover the ways in which disruptive technologies and new means of communication are transforming the visual culture that surrounds us. We’ll look at case studies from around the world that examine how we create our sense of personal identity and present ourselves to the world (for example, through Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) to new forms of global activism. By examining the ways photographers have harnessed phonography and social media, we will identify practices for developing powerful projects.

In the afternoon, collaborative teams of high school and university students will take the new information to the street with hands-on shooting assignments. We’ll return to the classroom to share the results and discuss how to develop and strengthen each project. The future promises continual radical change, and this workshop will give us the tools to harness its power.

John Edwin Mason teaches African history and the history of photography at the University of Virginia.  He is the author two books about South Africa, including One Love, Ghoema Beat:  Inside the Cape Town Carnival, an extended photo-essay that explores the lives of carnival troupe members.  He is currently writing a book about photographer and filmmaker Gordon Parks.

HIGH SCHOOL WORKSHOP II: 

Students will be nominated for the workshop by their teachers. The workshop will not be open to general applications.
 

Snap! Photography, Advocacy, & Nature

Internationally recognized photographer and Harvard entomologist Piotr Naskrecki will conduct a day-long workshop for thirty high school students. Drawing on his work photographing our planet's smallest invertebrates, Piotr will share his techniques and insights on using natural history photography as a tool for advocacy.

The TREES workshop was inaugurated in 2014 as a collaboration between LOOK3 and National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore, working with his Photo Ark exhibition of endangered species as a jumping off point. This year's TREES artist, Piotr Naskrecki will work with the themes in his exhibition of large-scale close-ups of the world's tiniest creatures to engage students in actively examining the intersection of photography and the environment. Young photographers will gain insight from participatory discussions and hands-on experience through a shooting exercise designed to demonstrate the power of visual storytelling in increasing conservation awareness.

Learning from this renowned photographer and scientist, students will discover how to see the natural world in a different way through the lenses of their cameras. Piotr will share tips and insight about equipment and how to think about photography as a tool for advocacy.  Designed to help students learn—on-the-spot—how their own photographic work can make a positive impact, students will take what they learn on to the Downtown Mall to document the interaction between the natural and urban environment. The day will conclude with the sharing and discussion of the students’ work. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Piotr will lead this workshop with support from the International League of Conservation Photographers (Washington, DC).

PAST EDUCATION EVENTS AND MENTORS 

2014: Taking place only once every four years, LOOKbetween is the anchor event of the LOOK3 mentorship Program. Learn about LOOKbetween 2014 here.

2013: Pamela Chen, Mary Virginia Swanson, Alex Chadwick & Bruce Strong, Denise Wolff, Todd Hido, Stacie MacKenzie, Jessie Wendor & Sasha Wolf

2012: David Alan Harvey, Lynsey Addario, Maggie Steber & Ernesto Bazan, Eugene Richards, Bruce Gilden

2011: Mary Ellen Mark, Christopher Anderson, Alex Webb & Rebecca Norris Webb, Brian Storm

2009: Eugene Richards & Larry Fink, David Alan Harvey & James Nachtwey, Brian Storm

2008: William Albert Allard, David Alan Harvey, Eugene Richards

2007: Maggie Steber, Alex Webb & Rebecca Norris Webb, David Alan Harvey

The LOOK3 Mentorship Program aims to:

• Challenge photographers to push their practices farther through review and productive critique.

• Create platforms that encourage dialogue about  vital issues in photography. 

• Strengthen advanced visual literacy and critical thinking skills.

• Support peer-to-peer exchange and ongoing collaboration; and provide opportunities to interact with established professionals.

• Deepen awareness about the implications of photography.