Alumni Ken Carl recently placed as a finalist in PDN’s World in Focus Contest and is in the running for Bella Pictures’ Photographer of the Year award. A long time alumn of mine who has since turned pro. Ken had this to say about a great year …
Read more on my Alumni blog.
Alumni Ken Carl recently placed as a finalist in PDN’s World in Focus Contest and is in the running for Bella Pictures‘ Photographer of the Year award. A long time alumn of mine who has since turned pro. Ken had this to say …
JP,
You are a keystone in my success and vision. True words, not just kind.
It has been a very powerful year beginning with a “nextstep return” the Hilo, our Next Step Exhibit in July and closing with this PDN selection. I feel strongly that my professional career is at a point of major change. There are challenges and dangers. I need to keep focused on personal projects, specifically the Olson House, so my creativity does not stagnate. There are so many images not yet seen. In my professional career has found unexpected success in the arena of photography of weddings, I am again in the running for Photographer of the Year for Bella Pictures. Calumet Photographic has invited me to do a presentation of my wedding photography in March.
Thanks again JP, looking forward to seeing you again soon.
Ken
Find out more about Ken Carl here.
John Paul Caponigro’s Next Step Alumni Group
For over 10 years I’ve been mentoring a select group of individuals. Their progress has been thrilling to watch. It’s been a true privilege to be a part of their growth. July 7 their first Group Exhibit will be unveiled at the Maine Media Workshops. (link)
Karen Daspit has been a member for over 5 years. Here’s one important thing she learned and her work.
Alumni Insights
The most important thing I learned from my participation in John Paul Caponigro’s Next Step Alumni Group is that a group can create a synergy that produces artistic progression and excellence. Next Step has done that for me, personally. Somehow, watching other artists work improve and establishing a close connection with them via the internet creates a platform for improvement. Our group leader, John Paul Caponigro has set the standards high for critique, and quality of work submitted to the group. This has helped fuel the improvement I have experienced. It is almost a magical experience!
Artist’s Statement
The tropical environment I find in Hawaii inspires my images. The fauna here never ceases to amaze and provoke my creative spirit. I enjoy working with an earthen palate and taking what I see around me and re-composing it to my liking.
I have always been blessed with a creative ability that allows me to “see” a finished image in my mind’s eye.This ability, combined with my experience in the computer industry has served me well in this metamorphic journey.
My work has matured over the last 12 years. While conquering some of the technicalities of a camera, my work was basic and somewhat geometric and design oriented. It has progressed through various themes of flowers and leaves, to what is now a much more intricate and creative product.
I enjoy this task so much. I have met amazing people who have encouraged and mentored me. Living in Hawaii is a blessing to my work.
I strive to charm the observer, as I have been charmed.
See more of Karen Daspit’s work here.
See the Next Step Exhibit at the Maine Media Workshops July 7 – 30.
Stay tuned for individual and group Next Step Blurb books.
Find out more about my workshops here.
Read More
John Paul Caponigro’s Next Step Alumni Group
For over 10 years I’ve been mentoring a select group of individuals. Their progress has been thrilling to watch. It’s been a true privilege to be a part of their growth. July 7 their first Group Exhibit will be unveiled at the Maine Media Workshops. (link)
Shayne Lynn has been a member for over 5 years. Here’s one important thing he learned and his work.
Alumni Insights
I signed up for my first John Paul Caponigro photography workshop looking to become a more technically efficient Photoshop user. The workshop impressed me by going beyond Photoshop and illuminating how to see differently, to be witness to your own work and also use this new knowledge to be more creative – both before and after taking the picture.
I have been part of the Next Step Group for four years. Having an active dialogue with this community of diverse visual artists facilitated by John Paul has broadened my own interpretation of photography and the express power that lies within it. The group helps one clarify meaning and purpose in their own work, and has given me support to pursue my own projects.
Artist’s Statement
These images visualize internal spaces in nature, mirrored in myself – the depth of which I seek to explore and comprehend. They represent the small, simple, meditations of nature and moments I became comfortably lost in. By becoming still (sometimes disturbingly so), I released the pressure to “be creative”, and was able to witness my breath, to sense an image and compose it. The camera frame holds together the pieces of the world for me, defining the horizon, creating a center from which to focus on. I sought to capture a sense of energy moving in containment – a channel of “becoming in an unplanned way – flow”.
See more of Shayne’s work here.
See the Next Step Exhibit at the Maine Media Workshops July 7 – 30.
Stay tuned for individual and group Next Step Blurb books.
Find out more about my workshops here.
Read More
John Paul Caponigro’s Next Step Alumni Group
For over 10 years I’ve been mentoring a select group of individuals. Their progress has been thrilling to watch. It’s been a true privilege to be a part of their growth. July 7 their first Group Exhibit will be unveiled at the Maine Media Workshops. (link)
Jim Graham has been a member for over 6 years. Here’s one important thing he learned and his work.
Alumni Insight
I first came to John Paul 8 years ago. And from that workshop and my subsequent inclusion in the Next Step Group I have been able to develop a voice that speaks through my work. John might say that I always had one and that he only helped untie the strings that has bound it. But, I’d argue differently.
My inclusion in this group helped in my ability to articulate a visual language. An Artistic language. For I do believe that when we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change, to hear and to see; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not ready. The challenge will not wait.
And it was not only John Paul who taught, but each member of that group as teacher. Each offering their own individual gift to the other. Each part having their own unique attributes that bound us all together. Not just a whole community but a visual chorus.
I’ve also been fortunate that others have valued my input about their work and that curiosity has given me the courage to begin to teach on my own.
Artist’s Statement
The work I choose to show in a gallery is typically made while traveling. I usually just photograph whatever interests me. Documenting where I am or what my surrounding environs are. The resulting imagery inevitably ends up integrating my experience with the natural world. I seem to have an inner agenda, which is always seeking a harmony between the two, as well as a need to reconcile the inner, psychological world with the outer world of my everyday experiences. Each of my images has it’s own story. I may not have known the story when I released the shutter. But, the journey home and the time taken to suss out the images I have created, each stories unfolds. They are perhaps an afterthought – a way to make sense of a fleeting moment or a memory.
In the naming of my images I try to give a bit of meaning to the moment I’ve tired to render. I try to find a way to finish the image as a final piece and to bind the group as a whole. Each image has it’s own place and it’s own narrative. While I have my own story for each, I hope that the viewer find his own stories within them.
See more of Jim Graham’s work here.
See the Next Step Exhibit at the Maine Media Workshops July 7 – 30.
Stay tuned for individual and group Next Step Blurb books.
Find out more about my workshops here.
Read More