4-session online Group mentorship: From Photographer to Artist

Finding your personal vision and creating meaningful work

My personal goal is to let this small-group mentorship be the reference for all future workshops and mentorships that I will teach: 13 years of 1-on-1 mentorships compressed into 4 sessions. My goal for the students is for them to be able to find one’s unique voice. One’s unique vision. And there’s only one way to find it: by knowing what art is for yourself and why you are creating it. Once you can articulate that in your own words, the vision becomes clear. Furthermore, the goal is that they will acquire the foundational skills, the tools, and the attitude to become an artist who strives to always improve and when necessary also innovate.

We will discuss how a better understanding of art will make you a true artist, not just in name. By demonstrating how I found and articulated my view on art and developed my voice, you will be able to articulate your definition of art. I will also demonstrate how this insight will inform and benefit your technical knowledge of creating masterful photos. The technical and theoretical skills I will teach are skills I developed and use myself, that are essential and are rarely taught anywhere else.

You can use the theoretical and technical skills and insights from this mentorship as a foundation to explore further, alone, with other artists, or with me. Create unique and meaningful work, and become an artist, not a one-day wonder.

When: Sunday, January 21, 28, February 11, and 18 + post-mentorship feedback

Time: 3 pm CET (Amsterdam) / 9 am EST (New York) / 6 am PST (Los Angeles)

Duration:  approx. 3.5 hours for each session incl. breaks.

Seats

The number of attendees will be limited to a maximum of 10 but preferably fewer. I might close the registration earlier than at 10.

You will receive an invite with a Zoom link within 24 hours upon successful payment in full for the first session on January 21. The invites with links for the subsequent sessions will be given after session 1.

Outline

A small group mentorship, along the lines of my 1-on-1 mentorship courses, where we go in-depth into the theoretical and practical aspects of art in general and creating B&W fine art photography. There will be assignments on both a practical and theoretical level, small group discussions, and in-depth reviews and post-mentorship feedback. 

Timeline and deliverables

Pre-mentorship: Ten days before the first session starts at the latest, students will receive the following:

• A detailed program with theoretical assignments, technical assignments, and documentation to prepare for the first session. 
• A 20-minute video for those who don’t use my Artisan Pro panel to make the mapping from Adobe PS to my panel. The panel will be used predominantly to speed up the process. Note that this is not a mentorship about the panel, the panel is just a tool.

During the mentorship: when the mentorship has started students will receive the following:

• After each session, the students will receive the recording of the session and the assignment for the next session and the new assignment
• Practice files where applicable
• Guidance via email in between sessions

Post-mentorship: from February 19th, 2024 to March 31st, 2024 students will get the following;

• Students can send their final images/ series or partially finished images/ series to Joel via email and will get feedback via email. Submit work before March 9, 2024 to get feedback until March 31.

Levels

All levels from beginners to experienced. 

Difference between workshops vs mentorships

The main difference between the workshops/ webinars I teach on the one hand and mentorships on the other hand, is that workshops are designed to learn mostly technical skills with some theoretical skills to enable the student to create technically good B&W images with an artistic visual look within a short period, while mentorships go a few levels further and deeper: technical proficiency is still important but only to support the artistic development. And it’s the latter that plays an important role in mentorships.