Grace bochain Luddy Workshops
My approach to teaching comes from my life journey in making a transition from corporate life to the life that I have now, as a photographer here on Block Island. It also comes from teaching graduate students and from my own experience in what it takes to deepen creative expression and bring it to completed form. In these workshops, I provide a learning environment that is rich in resources, materials, experiences, and tools. I respect your gifts and creative process and want you to discover what is most necessary, true and satisfying for your work and for your life.
We will work together in this most beautiful place, an island away from your daily concerns. The island provides a wonderful way of living as well as an inexhaustible opportunity for beauty, inspiration and discovery.
Participant numbers are limited. This is so each day can be tailored to your specific needs and so that small groups of friends and colleagues can have the workshop to themselves. This also so you can stay with us as a guest in our home in a beautiful situation. You will have your own bedroom unless you choose otherwise, and as our guest, you will be provided with breakfast and lunch. We will also have an opening and closing dinner together.
You are welcomed to bring your own car to the island. We have Mohegan Bluffs and the Southeast Light in walking distance but you may well want to experience more of the island on your own. Cabs are available year-round and I will provide transportation to our scheduled destinations for the duration of the workshops.
Because this is an island out in the open ocean, there will be special issues to consider. I'll fill you in as part of the registration process but for now, just know that occasional ferry cancellations due to weather are part of our lives. Be prepared to alter your schedule by one or two days in the event that ferries are cancelled.
Special programs can be crafted in the off-season to meet the needs of your group. I can also make arrangements to travel to your location.
currently scheduled PROGRAMS
a Creative Life
(September 22-29, 2016)
How can you express your creative birthright? How can you find and follow your inner voice? How can you deepen your relationship with the beauty, creativity, and energy that is already alive in you and in the world? How can you move from not knowing to knowing in an ever-expanding process?
If you would like to explore these questions, this program is designed for you.
I have found that things can open up in the course of a creative approach to life. We can discover talents that we didn't know we possessed. We can find solutions to intractable problems. We can find energy and satisfaction. We can deepen our relationships with others. We can make our own choices. We can feel more free be who we are. We can create something alive and beautiful - in our work, in ourselves, and in the way that we live our lives.
This program will explore what is possible. It will provide inspiration, structure, stories and tools to support you.
This program is scheduled as shown but additional sessions can run by arrangement from September 2016 through the first week in June of 2017. Discounts are available if you come as a couple or a group. Workshops are planned for 3 - 6 people. This is a seven-day workshop. Cost is $1,995 per participant.
To register and for more information, please contact me at: grace.luddy@gmail.com.
Instinctive Photography
(OCTOBER 14 - 18, 2016)
Living on Block Island has helped me develop a photographic method that is grounded in a deepening relationship with this beautiful island. I have found when I teach this method, that it helps people to develop confidence in their own photographic sight. At any technical level and with any equipment, it enables them to create pictures that are personal to them, and full of energy, beauty and life.
In this workshop, I will tell stories and show photographs that demonstrate the concepts and steps of this approach. I will introduce different ways to experience the gift of sight...as a hunter, lover, gatherer, and as a child. I will point to photographs, not as our primary purpose in this method, but as artifacts of what is most important...the fact that we are out in the world, in a relationship, giving it our full attention. I will discuss cameras as useful tools for expanding our visual awareness. We will explore in the context of photography, the dance between planning and surprise, skill and intuition, trying really hard and letting things come naturally. I will discuss the generosity of the world as it presents itself to photographers...the abundance of beauty...the forgiveness of mistakes, and I will briefly touch on "dabhar," Matthew Fox's word for the way that all of us, in any creative endeavor, are welcomed to participate at any moment in the ongoing creation of the world.
This program is scheduled as shown but additional sessions can run by arrangement from September 2016 through the first week in June of 2017. Discounts are available if you come as a couple or a group. This is a five day workshop. Workshops are planned for 3 - 6 people. Cost is $1,695 per participant.
To register, and for more information, please contact me at: grace.luddy@gmail.com.
photography INTENSIVE
(May 12 - 19, 2017)
Block Island provides, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful, varied and accessible places on earth in which to take pictures. We've got wonderful light. We've got beautiful, clean water. We've got miles and miles of accessible beaches and public hiking trails. We've got fresh ponds, salt ponds, landscapes, birds, architecture, boats and any number of other subjects.
With due respect for the tide, the time of day, and the weather, we'll immerse ourselves in this wonderful destination. We'll go out to practice techniques that are specific for each subject, guided by knowledge gained from my years as a fine art photographer on this island. We will cover equipment, photographic theory and practice, special issues, composition, cropping, and computer post processing in Photoshop. You will bring your own cameras, lenses and tripods, (although equipment can be provided by arrangement, subject to availability). You will also bring laptops, thumb drives and photo processing software.
You will leave with at least one fine art print of your own photographs, at sizes up to 48" wide, on paper or on canvas.
As this is a technically oriented workshop, it's suggested that you come with some comfort in using your camera. If you like, we can arrange to work together by computer and by phone before you come to the island. However, during the workshop, I intend to spend time with each of you on your own photography, at your own level of skill, and always starting from your preferred style of learning and doing photography.
This workshop is limited to four participants, accordingly.
This program is scheduled as shown but additional sessions can run from September through the first week in June. Cost for this 7 day workshop is $2,495 per participant. Discounts are available for couples or groups of three or four photographers.
To register, and for more information, please contact me at: grace.luddy@gmail.com.