freeman patterson
st.martins, new brunswick
Earlier this month I had the opportunity–and privilege–to be part of a group of photographers attending a week long workshop with Freeman Patterson and his teaching partner of fourteen years, André Gallant. For those of you who have not heard of Freeman Patterson, he is a photographer, writer, and teacher who has inspired many budding artists with his approach to visual design. His most well-known books include Photography and the Art of Seeing, Photography for the Joy of It, and Photographing the World Around You –the latter of which is based on these workshops. While the book is a real gift to photographers who are exploring the visual world, I can say that there is no substitute for spending time personally with Freeman and André. I read the book a couple of times before attending the workshop but just as Freeman wrote in the preface, the creative interaction between the instructors and the attendees takes on a life of its own that cannot be fully recreated through the written word.
I have read what some have written about “learning to see” and attempted to practice the techniques suggested by others but I feel the ability to truly “see” had eluded me until I attended this workshop. To be able to express visually what you’d like to say through your images and ultimately to develop a photographic vision, one needs to know the language of visual expression. Just as we all learned to communicate verbally by understanding subjects, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, and their relationship to each other, photographers need to learn to communicate using the building blocks of visual design. Over the next few posts, I’ll share the lessons I learned and some of the images that were part of that learning.
For those of you who are looking for a workshop to attend in 2010, do yourself a favour and sign up for this one; you will not regret it. Not only will you strengthen your commitment to your craft, you will leave with much more confidence and with a stronger sense of self-expression.
I’ll close this post with a few words about the image above. As you might know, I am not very comfortable taking photographs of people nor do I like having my photo taken so there will be no picture of me with Freeman and André. Instead I’ll share this image taken along the shore of the Bay of Fundy. For me, this image expresses how I will remember not only our time in St Martins but also Freeman himself–with a tripod, happily photographing something wonderful he has just seen.
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