Photography Workshops
The Photographic Workshops offers short, intensive courses in traditional and digital photography, HD filmmaking, and multi-media storytelling in great locations throughout the world. Founded by one of photography's leading educators, David H. Lyman, we offer creative learning vacations, professional workshops and master classes for the world's storytellers, photographers and photojournalists, filmmakers, media professionals as well students and serious committed amateurs. Our short intensive, total immersion career courses are conducted in amazing locations throughout the world. Our mission is to help you master the technology, develop command over the process and become aware of your gifts and passion as a storyteller. We specialize in workshops in digital photography, video, multi-media and traditional filmmaking, as well as Internet publishing. These life changing adventures provide you with the opportunity to work with and learn from some of the world's greatest image makers and visual storytellers, all inspirational teachers and each a recognized master in their respected field. Join a small group of like minded peers, and passionate image-makers in these one and two-week workshops.
Click on the Schedule on the left, or click on one of the destinations.
What sets us apart from others . . .
There are dozens of workshop programmes throughout the world, most are based on the format David Lyman created while building and running The Maine Photographic Workshops. David's new enterprise: Media Workshops International, encompasses a series of workshop centres throughout the world, on the islands of Mallorca and Crete, and in the cities of Liverpool, and in Rio, Brazil. What sets these workshops and master classes apart from more traditional learning experiences are the locations, the faculty, the intensity, the focus and the passion of the participants.
• Our workshops are short, from a week to ten days, to perhaps a month.
• Our workshops are intensive, requiring full-time participation, from 8 AM to past 10 PM.
• Each workshop is focused on a specific technology, career level or genre.
• Each workshop includes in-depth and honest critique, of the work you bring, as well as the work you create during the workshop.
• Enrollment is limited, usually no more than 12 to 14 participants per workshop.
• We tailor each workshop to ensure a class that shares common levels of technical skills and visual awareness.
• Each workshop is a life changing experience, one that will stay with you for the rest of your life.
• Our faculty includes many of the world's leading photographers, filmmakers and media artists, each a knowledgeable mentor, a nurturing teacher with a proven record of teaching at The Workshops.
2009 Schedule
Go directly to the latest schedule of workshops.
The Future
We will be adding more exciting learning adventures and programmes in the months ahead. We will also be sharing our research and discoveries into the world of creativity in David's weekly blog. We are editing video clips right now and will be including insightful tips, technical clinics and advice from our faculty. A forum will give you the opportunity to join the discussions, and we will be showcasing participants' creative projects that result from each workshop.
Partnerships
Many of the workshops we have organized are being offered through Maine Media Workshops, formerly The Maine Photographic Workshops and other partners such as the DigitalJournalist.org.
Mentors, Coaches and Counselling
Besides photo workshops and learning vacations, Workshops International conducts portfolio weekends and career retreats, organizes speaking engagements, lectures and provides personal coaching and mentoring for creative professionals and those looking to change careers, seeking a more creative life and a purposeful retirement. Click on Consulting at the top of this page.
Questions? We Have Answers
If you have questions not answered within this website, or want to talk with someone about a specific destination, or your career in general, email David at DHLyman@WorkshopsInternational.com. He’ll respond by email, or a phone call.
Suggestions and Comments
We are always open to your comments about this website and the programmes we offer. We welcome your suggestions for new destinations and course content, as well as workshop leaders we might include in future programmes.
A letter from Our Founder . . .
We all have stories to tell . . . at bedtime, my two young children are always asking me, "Daddy, tell us what you did when you were our age." So, I tell them about growing up by a lake, spending summers on my great uncle's farm, earning money mowing lawns to buy my first English bike and building my first boat. I can remember asking my father the same thing, and listening to his stories, which are not much different from mine. It's a tradition, this family storytelling, one we need to keep alive. The content of the story is less important than the metaphor it conveys . . . which is the reason we tell and listen to stories. The truth is less important. The metaphor is stronger than truth, for it can reach deeper . . . touch people more profoundly, and allow people to accept, at least in a non-intellectual way, the truth that lies hidden beneath.
As a professional storyteller, first as a journalist and photographer, and now through my lectures and writing, I have been telling stories for 50 years. During this time I've discovered two things. There is an art to telling a story. I am an artist, not a journalist. The stories I tell have a much greater impact when I tell them from personal experience. When there is some element of the storyteller in the story, I am more interested in listening. When we as artists tell stories, even someone else's story, we are also telling our own.
Over the past 30+ years, I built a spiritual and a physical centre in Rockport, Maine - The Maine Photographic Workshops, now Maine Media Workshops. The Workshops' mission has been to train, educate and inspire the world's storytellers: filmmakers, writers, actors, photographers and the technical staff who support the storytelling process. Now we are bringing this successful concept to the Island of Mallorca, Liverpool, England and other locations throughout the world. Our world-wide programme of workshops will help aspiring and working professionals achieve their next career level, and bring emerging professionals into the field, as they find their natural place in the process. While we conduct workshops in the latest technology, it is the creative process, the methodology and the "magic of story" that we teach. We cover story development and writing, financing and distribution, career building and professional growth, but at the heart of it all is that desire to connect through story. The courses we offer, the shared knowledge of our faculty, the structure of each course, the experience of our staff . . . these are the true values of our workshops.
This mission of supporting artists, craftspeople and technicians - a mission that promotes exploration of our inner and outer worlds, helps each storyteller and technician master the technology as they acquire the methodology by which to share their discoveries with others. We help people change careers, become more imaginative, and better as team players, or to launch their own freelance careers. It is our desire that all who attend our courses, workshops and programmes leave with the tools to lead more creative lives as they contribute to making the world a better place in which to live through the stories they tell and the films and photographs they make.
David H. Lyman, Founder & Programme Director
Rockport, Maine USA