“HAND TO LAND: THE ANALOG LANDSCAPE”
4-DAY WORKSHOP WITH JOHN CHIARA
AUGUST 25-28, 2020 AUG.10-13, 2021
BOWEN ISLAND, BC

1 SCHOLARSHIP AVAILABLE | APPLICATIONS ONGOING

JULY 22, 2020 UPDATE: due to continuing COVID-19 related travel restrictions this summer John’s 4-day workshop had to be postponed to next year from Tue. Aug.10 to Fri. Aug.13, 2021. Applications are free of cost and remain open until filled on a first-come first-served basis. Limited to 12 participants, with currently a few seats open and 1 scholarship (50%) available! Photographers of all backgrounds welcome (no prior darkroom or film shooting experience required). Shooting paper & processing chemistry included (provided by FotoFilmic). For more workshop details scroll down to the FAQ section.

WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION

Join famed San Francisco photographic artist John Chiara for 4 intensive yet fun days of workshop intended for photographers who are looking to experiment with the purest form of analog photography while pushing the boundaries of their practice outside of the digital comfort zone. Whether you’re a novice, professional or enthusiast of photography, this workshop will display a raw, hands-on, alchemist approach to the medium you can keep building on for years. Known for making large scale photographs with hand-built cameras — the largest a 12 feet deep and wide Camera Obscura yielding unique organic photographs as large as 50″ x 80″ — Chiara will teach participants how to make one of a kind images using a variety of cameras and techniques. 

During the first two workshop days, participants will learn how to hand-craft their own makeshift box cameras and take them out for a spin exploring the majestic Bowen Island landscape shooting onto direct positive black and white photographic paper (no negative) sized to their new equipment.

Chiara will also guide participants through a discussion on previsualization and other ideas on how to use the photographic process to empower them to envision the landscape around them unmediated (such as how to move beyond ‘framing’ without any viewfinder).

Using these techniques, participants will be able to slow down their approach and take all aspects of the scene into consideration to make single, original photographs that can simultaneously stand as image, object and document. Back at the FotoFilmic Space, Chiara will teach participants how to work in the wet darkroom to develop their images using black and white processing methods.

The workshop will end with a group critique where participants will display all the images made in the workshop along with any other work they would like to show and receive feedback on.  There will be time for one on one conversations about the work with the artist. Participants will take home their own one-of-a-kind photographic prints. 

© Cover image: © John Chiara, Untitled, 2019. Negative Chromogenic Photograph. 

ABOUT JOHN CHIARA

JOHN CHIARA (b. 1971, San Francisco, CA) earned a B.F.A. in photography from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City in 1995 and an M.F.A. in photography from the California College of the Arts in 2004.
Chiara plays with the boundaries of the photographic medium through his choice of process and the mastery of its possibilities. His approach is distinguished by its physicality and recalls the early days of the medium when artists dealt with heavy, awkward equipment and endured long exposure and development times. Chiara’s large-scale cameras, which he designed and built himself, are transported to locations on a flatbed trailer to produce one-of-a-kind large-scale prints. The design of the cameras, which is much like daguerreotype box cameras, allows the artist to simultaneously shoot and perform his darkroom work while images are recorded directly onto oversized photosensitive paper (not film). This process, which Chiara first discovered as a student in 1999, invites anomalies in his final prints and adds to the mystery and lyricism of his pictures.

John Chiara and 1 of his cameras, 2017 © Chris Gould

In 2011, the Pilara Foundation in San Francisco commissioned Chiara’s Bridge Project which was included in the Pier 24 Photography group exhibition, HERE. John photographed extensively in Los Angeles in 2011, and, in 2012, Chiara was one of 13 international artists’ whose work was included in the exhibition Crown Point Press at Fifty at the de Young, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. The Pilara Foundation again commissioned Chiara in 2013, for the group exhibition A Sense of Place at Pier 24 Photography. Chiara spent much of 2013 photographing the surrounds of  Mississippi, culminating in an exhibition in the Delta town of Clarksdale as well as a book entitled, Coahoma County, Mississippi (ROSEGALLERY, 2015). The artist is featured in Light, Paper, Process: Reinventing Photography, on view at the Getty Museum until 6 September 2015. John Chiara lives and works in San Francisco.

Website  |  Instagram

ABOUT BOWEN ISLAND

Nestled in spectacular Howe Sound, North America’s southernmost fjord surrounded by towering peaks that rise straight out of the sea, Bowen Island is Vancouver’s paradisiac getaway since the 1900s. Dubbed ‘Happy Isle’ in the 1950s, this enchanted island is known to Vancouverites for its exceptional serenity, centennial natural park and laid-back country living all easily accessible a beautiful 20-minute ferry ride from metro Vancouver.

Today Bowen Island attracts visitors from all around the globe for its lakes, beaches, crown forest lands and beautiful hiking trails up to Mount Gardner (2350 feet) offering stunning panoramic views of Howe Sound. While on Bowen visitors can also enjoy many amenities in Snug Cove (aka Downtown Bowen), Bowen’s main hub and historical marina featuring an array of attractions from historic turn-of-the-century buildings and quaint boardwalk boutiques, galleries, fine groceries and cafés, as well as Artisan Square (aka Uptown Bowen), the island’s original artistic village just a short trek up the hill now also home to the new FOTOFILMIC SPACE.

APPLICATION FORM