Ireland Digital Photography Workshop

Doulough Valley, Famine Road, Co. Mayo. Connemara, Ireland.

Ireland’s Spectacular West Coast
A Digital Photography Field Workshop
with Stephen Johnson and Anthony Hobbs

July 8-17, 2017
$4500
Seats limited to 12 students
Single room supplement $450

Join Stephen Johnson and Anthony Hobbs for an unforgettable journey along the rustic West Coast of Ireland. This workshop will include hotel stays in several towns along our route from County Clare towards Achill Island. Along the way, participants will explore western Ireland's landscape with its rugged coast, lush greens, rocky islands, lake-filled valleys and remote castles.

Irish culture and history will also be part of this trip as we visit key locations and provide natural and human history discussions along the way. Some Gaelic language lessons and Irish folk arts performances might also be picked up on our travels along with the warmth and friendliness of the Irish people.

Sample Previous Itinerary

If you are interested in joining the reservation list for this workshop, please email us at info@sjphoto.com. We are limiting this workshop to 12 students. Photography instruction, ground transportation, lodging and some meals included. Airfare to and from Shannon will be participant's responsibility. A $500 deposit is required to reserve your place in the class.

Poulnabrone Dolmen a portal tomb in the Burren, County Clare, Ireland, dating back to between 4200 BC to 2900 BC.

Kerry Landscape

The Details

In addition to the wonderful educational and cultural experience, ground transportation in Ireland, lodging during the tour and two meals per day will be provided.

Critiques will be held along the way to evaluate how you are doing with your photography, solve probelms and discuss ways of making stronger photographs. Brinigng your own laptop helps tremendously.

A day's break will be arranged for rest and relaxation in Galway with much to see.

Workshop PDF

The Workshop Program

Individual problem solving is a high priority in this workshop program. Classes are kept small to maximize individual attention. Plan to bring some of your work to demonstrate how you see, what you are happy with and photographs that indicate problems you are encountering. Bring your own digital camera and laptop. Other digital equipment will be available to explore during the workshop. Participants are responsible for their own airfare and one meal per day.

The instructors are committed to individual instruction in the field and will not be concentrating on their own photographs. Emphasis is placed on composition and exposure with techniques for dealing with difficult lighting situations. Use of a tripod is particularly important to achieve these goals. Many evenings will include critiques and lectures on topics such as composition, digital exposure, archiving, raw conversion and color management.

Ireland Photography Workshop with Stephen Johnson and Anthony Hobbs from Stephen Johnson on Vimeo.

Anthony Hobbs. Left: County Kerry. Right: Kilkenny.

Our ten day itinerary starts in Limerick, goes on to the Kerry Peninsula and the Kenmare River, then to Dingle and Tralee, up to Ennis and the Burren, the Cliffs of Mohr, the Aran Islands, Galway, Clifden, Connemara and the national parks district, then back through inland hill and river country.

Stephen Johnson

A photographer, teacher and designer, Stephen has been teaching and working in photography since 1977. His books include At Mono Lake, the critically acclaimed The Great Central Valley: California's Heartland, Making a Digital Book and Stephen Johnson On Digital Photography. He runs his own photography, publishing and design company--scanning and designing his photographic books using a Macintosh computer since 1988 and since 1994 photographing in the field with digital view cameras.

Current projects include With a New Eye, his groundbreaking and historic all digital national parks project, a new book Stephen Johnson On Digital Photography for O'Reilly, ongoing portfolio development and extensive lecturing

Stephen's pioneering work in digital photography, desktop color separations and digital imaging has included software and product development for clients such as Apple, Adobe, Eastman Kodak, Leaf, Ricoh and SuperMac. His work with Adobe includes the creation of the duotone curves shipped with their Photoshop software.

n 1999, Folio Magazine declared the publication of Johnson's digital photographs in Life Magazine to be one of the Top 15 Critical Events in magazine publishing in the twentieth century. As early as 1997 Apple Computer awarded Steve their "Profiling Excellence" Award at Print '97 in Chicago. Stephen Johnson was named as a 2003 inductee into the Photoshop Hall of Fame, recognized for his achievements in Art. Canon named Steve as one of their Explorers of Light in 2006. In 2007 X-Rite named Stephen as a founding member of their exclusive Coloratti group of photographers and educators honored for their skills in color management.

Photographic clients have included the Ansel Adams Publishing Trust, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and the Friends of Photography. Johnson's photographs have been widely published and collected internationally.

In 1997, Life Magazine described Stephen Johnson as an artist that "...applies science to nature and creates art." His images create "...an intimacy that brings subject and viewer close in ways conventional photographs cannot."

The Photographer’s Gallery wrote in 1998: “Stephen Johnson's photography rides on the "bleeding edge" of photography's transition to a digital media. Schooled in the traditions of fine-art western landscape photography, Johnson has taken his understanding of traditional photographic processes and brought those skills to bear on the emerging technologies and aesthetics of digital photography. He has pushed technology companies to rise to the best of what imagemaking can be, and pushed his own vision of how we see and record light in the natural world. This has led him to conclude that the way we have traditionally captured images with silver-based photography has been a poor and distortive view of the real and rich world before our eyes. His photographs look almost "unphotographic" in their clarity and purity of color. He shows us a world we know, but rarely see on paper. His is a truly remarkable vision.”

Anthony Hobbs

Currently Senior Lecturer in Digital Media at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin Ireland.

Anthony has been involved in teaching photography and related media since 1976. His practice and research has revolved around the notion of representation of reality for many years.

His background in photography and interest in technology informs a lot of his work with large format digital imagery. He has worked extensively in collaboration with other artists in exploring digital photography and printing.

The results of this ongoing research was shown as part of a collaborative installation with the artist Fergus Martin in Venice in April ‘03 and a further development of this work was shown in the Green on Red Gallery in Oct. ’03

He was also a participant in the Culture 2000 'Digital Surface ' symposium and made a presentation of the work from this project at Tate Britain in June of 2003. www.digitalsurface.net

He has led many photographic field trips to the west of Ireland and the islands .

Selected exhibitions and activities:

2005 June. Group show The Orphan School Gallery, Sydney

2005 June Group show at the Rooms, St.Johns Newfoundland.

2005 Nov. Sensuous Knowledge Research conference Bergen, Norway

2005 Dec. Photo Research Expedition to Antarctica.

2008 Jan. Presenting research at Sensuous Knowledge , Bergen , Norway.

2008 Dec Photo Research Expedition to Antarctica. Funded by the Arts Council.

2009 Aug. One Person exhibition for Kilkenny Arts Festival.

2011 July . Group Show: ‘Myles away from Illustration’ Vienna.

2013 Jan. Presenting research at Sensuous Knowledge , Bergen , Noway.

2012-2014 ongoing Contemporary Self Portrait project funded by EU Culture program.

To Register
$500 deposit holds your space for 30 days. Registration fee must be paid in full to secure a final spot in the class. Additional information will be sent upon registration.

Call to register 650 355-7507. Checks preferred. Email with questions info@sjphoto.com.

This workshop is financially dependent on adequate class registration. Where minimum enrollment requirements are not met, the class will be canceled, and a full refund given. You will be notified at least one month in advance on an internatoinal trip if a workshop is not going to take place. Student initiated cancellations received prior to one month before the workshop will receive credit for a future workshop of similar value, a 50% credit will be given for notice received at least 2 weeks immediately prior to the workshop (a full credit less a $50 overhead fee will be given if another student is able to fill the spot from a waiting list). No credit will be given if cancelled less than 2 weeks prior to the workshop. Credits need to be redeemed within one year.

You should consider the purchase of refundable airline tickets as we cannot guarantee adequate enrollment to conduct the workshop.