Collaboration, fine art project 1, Dominican Republic

This past Christmas I took advantage of being in the Dominican Republic, and started a project with my wife, Scherezade a fine artist. This project has been in the works for a long time it just took a while to get off the ground. We hope to have the project completed by this summer 2013. I don't want to give away too many details until we have it all done so the works can be seen as a body of work. Needless to say it will involve what we do best, using themes that we both find interesting and important. Here are a few in-process shots of one of the pieces without showing too much. This particular piece involved a burro (Chilingo's burro to be exact), Javier as our protagonist, and some costuming.  This is just a start of the process.

Teaching, Photography workshop in the "Dominican Republic"

I am just back from teaching a week long photography workshop in the Dominican Republic at Altos de Chavon - The School of Design. Chavon is a world class art school connected to Parsons School of Design. My wife Scherezade as well as many successful artists in the fine arts and fashion fields went to Altos de Chavon. The theme of my class was the "Narrative Portrait." It was an intensive 5 day workshop where we were working all hours of the day, and sometimes late into the night. A great class with very motivated students, one of the best. I don't get to teach that often, but when I do its a great experience, particularly at Altos.

Altos de Chavon, Verano International 2010

When I was starting out in photography many people took the time to show me the ropes me. Yes, I went to Parsons, and studied photography when film was all the rage, but where I really learned photography was from other photographers.  I worked with many photographers as an assistant, some brilliant, and some not so much, but they all had something to offer a budding professional such as myself. I feel that passing on the knowledge is important. Unfortunately my schedule, and travels makes it hard to have a consistent teaching gig in the city. So I take the opportunity to teach when I can either through, volunteering, offering advise to assistants, or teaching a 5 day really intensive course, like the one I teach at Altos de Chavon, usually in the summer. This years focus was on photographing people and telling visual stories. This years class was excellent and was lots of fun to teach. Next year I think I will focus on documentary photography. Anyone interested? Let me know, and I will keep you posted to when the class gets scheduled. It will be fun in the sun, and in a great place. Although, its not a total vacation. I make everyone work hard.

Here are some behind the scenes...

More Cocks

Here is another shot from my recent trip to the Dominican Republic....It is definitely something on the vicious side, but there certainly is beauty in the movements.

Cocks

Here is a little glimpse of a project  I am working on in the Dominican Republic. I got to visit the Traba Mavnaloa in Santo Domingo....very interesting place, very interesting.

Blue sky+blue water

There are not too many places in the world where you get this combination. Luckily I am off to one of them. I am going to the Dominican Republic for a few days. Doing a quick job and even better starting a personal project. More on that as the photographs happen.