© Aline Smithson, Lexie Turned, from Revisiting Beauty

Workshop: Photographing with Intention
with Aline Smithson

APG is honored to host esteemed interdisciplinary artist, editor, filmmaker and educator, Aline Smithson, for an in-person workshop at the APG Gallery at Ansley Mall, Thursday – Saturday, September 26-28, 2024.

Today’s fine art photography market asks for more than beautifully, well crafted images. Curators, gallerists and editors are looking for work created with intention and/or work focused around an idea or concept. In addition, they are looking for photographers who can not only articulate their images, but interpret the world with intelligence and thoughtful analysis, whether it be work made close to home or in regions undiscovered.

Join Aline Smithson for a 2 1/2 day workshop designed to help photographers create significance in their imagery. Participants will be exposed to genres of contemporary photography, projects created around ideas, and projects that tell personal stories. Aline will offer exercises so that students can identify a personal vision or a subject worth exploring, including photographing in the surrounding area. Work will be examined and critiqued thoroughly, offering students invaluable feedback as they reexamine the intention behind their photographs. She is not looking for technical expertise as much as the thought behind the photographs.

Ultimately, the workshop will inspire participants to reconsider how they make work, how they interpret their lives and their world, and by bringing depth and meaning to their efforts. Designed for all levels of fine art photographers.

Instructor’s Bio –

Aline Smithson is an interdisciplinary artist, editor, filmmaker, and educator based in Los Angeles, California. Best known for her conceptual portraiture and a practice that uses humor and pathos to explore the performative potential of photography. Growing up in the shadow of Hollywood, her work is influenced by the elevated unreal. She received a BA in Art from the University of California at Santa Barbara and was accepted into the College of Creative Studies, studying under artists such as William Wegman, Allen Rupersburg, and Charles Garabedian. After a career as a New York Fashion Editor working alongside some the greats of fashion photography, Smithson returned to Los Angeles and her own artistic practice.

She has exhibited widely including over 40 solo shows at institutions such as the Griffin Museum of Photography, the Fort Collins Museum of Contemporary Art, the Shanghai, Lishui, and Pingyqo Festivals in China, The Rayko Photo Center in San Francisco, the Center of Fine Art Photography in Colorado, the Tagomago Gallery in Barcelona and Paris, and the Arnika Dawkins Gallery in Atlanta. In addition, her work has been featured in numerous publications including The New York Times, The New Yorker, PDN (cover), the PDN Photo Annual, Communication Arts Photo Annual, Harper’s, Eyemazing, Soura, Visura, Shots, Pozytyw, and Silvershotz magazines.

Smithson is the Founder and Editor- in-Chief of Lenscratch, a daily journal on photography. She has been an educator at the Los Angeles Center of Photography since 2001 and her teaching spans the globe. In 2012, Smithson received the Rising Star Award through the Griffin Museum of Photography for her contributions to the photographic community and also she received the prestigious Excellence in Teaching Award from CENTER. In 2014 and 2019, Smithson’s work was selected for the Critical Mass Top 50. Her work is held in significant public collections including the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Crocker Art Museum, and the Santa Barbara Art Museum.

In 2015, the Magenta Foundation published her first significant monograph, Self & Others: Portrait as Autobiography. In 2016, the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum commissioned Smithson to create a series of portraits for the upcoming Faces of Our Planet Exhibition. In the Fall of 2018 and again in 2019, her work was selected as a finalist in the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize and exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in London. In 2019, Kris Graves Projects commissioned her to create the book LOST II: Los Angeles that is now sold out. Peanut Press Books published her monograph, Fugue State, in Fall 2021. Her books are in the collections of the Getty Museum, the Los Angeles Contemporary Art Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, London, the Metropolitan Museum, the Guggenheim, the Museum of Modern Art, among others. In 2022, she was honored to be a Hasselblad Heroine. With the exception of her cell phone, she only shoots film.

Artist Website: www.alinesmithson.com

Workshop: Photographing with Intention with Aline Smithson
Instructor’s Name –  Aline Smithson
Date(s) – Thursday – Saturday, Sept. 26-28, 2024
Location – In-Person: APG Gallery
Time(s) – Thursday and Friday: 9am-5pm ET / Saturday 9am-1pm ET
Workshop Fee – $950 Members/$1,200 Non-members
Maximum Enrollment – 10
NO REFUNDS LESS THAN 30 DAYS BEFORE EVENT