Evolution of The Color Workshops

Two summers ago, with the encouragement of both some ex-students, friends and clients, I decided to begin to offer a series of color photography workshops. While a majority of younger photographers work in color, my sense was that most academic photography programs primarily teach the technical aspects of color, little attention is actually paid to the emotional language of color, no less how color decisions interact with concept. Most undergraduate photography students complete their studies with a basic understanding of RGB, CYMK, saturation, color temperature, and possibly tonal value. After that, it is the devil and the deep blue sea.

The initial workshops were mostly oriented towards teaching Color Theory basics, and included Color Contrast Theory, Color Harmony Theory, and Color Cognition. The end goal of these early workshops was to help people to gain an understanding of how color was being used by other photographers/visual artists for visual impact, but also begin to help folks begin to develop their own personal sense of color. Much of what was discussed in these workshops is pretty subjective, and our primary teaching tool was a series of baby assignments that honed in on critical aspects of color as they relate to saturation, tonal value, tonal sequencing, and gray scale interactions with color.

In Spring 2022, besides teaching the Color Theory workshop, I also began teaching the Color Projects workshops. A number of folks who had taken the previous workshop, now wanted to apply their expanded color skills into extended personal projects, or an expansion of style in their portfolios/websites. In this workshop there are no fixed assignments, but rather customized assignments specific to each person's project.

Initially this second workshop was primarily attended by photographers, but over the last year numerous people from other visual arts have been taking the workshop also. At this point, I tend to think of this workshop as being broadly taught across the whole visual arts spectrum, which seems to be a real eye opener for almost everybody independent of their preferred medium.

Which leads me to some new exciting developments, and announcements concerning the upcoming summer/fall Color Workshops. Firstly, this summer 2023, I will be teaching both the Color Theory, and Color Projects workshops beginning in early July thru mid August. As in the most recent workshop, in winter 2023, you will have the option of doing the workshop as a 3, 4 or 5 meeting option depending on your goals. The costs are exactly the same as the winter fee schedule. However, there will be a 50% discount for all visual arts students who attend either, or both of the workshops this summer!

Besides these Zoom based summer workshop developments, there is also very serious discussion of doing a location Color and Context intensive workshop on location in Autumn 2023. More on this later in the summer.

Specifics about upcoming summer workshops to follow in a week or so. Please e-mail me at davidthewass@gmail.com or contact me at (415) 374-5043 to sign up or learn more!