Portrait of Courageous Beauty

Photography participants are partnered with breast cancer survivors to create images that communicate individual journeys of these courageous women and men. This class will give you the opportunity to unveil the fear, uncertainty, and mystery associated with breast cancer in an effort to empower and restore hope. The resulting student images will be published in a book titled after the class, Portraits of Courageous Beauty.

Portraits of Courageous Beauty is a portraiture class designed for the intermediate to advance photography student with a desire to take their creative portraiture style to a new level by participating in a photographic mentorship experience where they will chronicle the lives of unique women and men as breast cancer survivors.

Image © Andrea Braun

Class:

This weekend class will encourage you to make sensitive portraits that empower the individuals you will be photographing. Each student will be paired with several breast cancer survivors during which you will have the opportunity to get to k now them, discuss portrait ideas and then schedule your shoots. Technical skills covered are:

• Posing techniques/working with models
• Studio and natural lighting
• Image critique and selection for exhibition + book publishing

Final images will be selected by the class and instructor for the exhibition which opens October 1st at the Denver Public Library and will run through the month. The images will also be published in a self produced book printed by Blurb. The book will be  available for purchase at WWA and at other locations throughout the Denver Metro area.

Skill Requirements:
As an intermediate to advanced student you should be familiar with your cameras functions prior to taking this class. Although many aspects of portrait photography will be covered during class time, it would be beneficial for prospective students to have some experience photographing people before registering for the class.

WWA is proud to offer and the following classes to enhance your photographic skills in preparation for the Portraits of Courageous Beauty workshop. We recommend the following classes as prerequisites (or their equivalents): Beginning Creative Digital Photography, Continuing Digital Photography: The Artist's Eye, and a portrait class (Natural Light Portraiture, Studio Lighting & Portraiture, or any class working with models).

Instructors:
The instructors for the Portraits of Courageous Beauty class are Working with Artists’ Executive Director, Greg Cradick and long time instructor/portrait artist, Randy Brown. The instructors will create an environment where participants can enhance their creative vision and sensitivity needed to produce powerful pictorial images through group classes and one-on-one critiques, and their awareness of breast cancer and how it affects the lives of breast cancers survivors. They will also assist the photographers with discovering new depth in innovative portraiture by studying a diverse group of portrait photographers and perspectives for taking unique photographs.

Greg brings a multitude of experience to this class. He is one of the primary instructors for WWA’s core classes including our newly added Contemplative Photography class, which explores how and the way we choose to express ourselves through a photograph. Greg earned his BFA in photography, Summa Cum Laude, from Savannah College of Art and Design where he also studied printmaking with an emphasis on traditional photogravure. He has exhibited works in over 30 groups and solo shows both regionally and nationally. He has many bodies of work including a documentary project on people living with Multiple Sclerosis, as well as a street photography series photographed in Ethiopia.

Randy Brown is a Denver based artist and passionate arts activist who has been participating in the Colorado arts community for the last twenty years. Working in photographic, paint, and print media, his abstract figurative work has at its core an examination of balance, the balance that each of us seeks in our efforts to create harmony in our lives. Using himself and those with whom he interacts as his source for narratives, Randy's images explore emotional and physical processes to reveal that we are more alike than different.

Breast Cancer Survivors:
As a model you will collaborate with intermediate to advanced photography students to capture your story of courage and inspiration through portraiture. Portraits of Courageous Beauty will give you the opportunity to use the power of visual imagery to convey the reality of breast cancer through imagery that reflect your courageous journey. After completion of the workshop you will receive a CD of your portraits. You and your photographer will also be honored at a special reception where the community can meet the courageous participants in person and hear your stories of courage and hope. Information regarding the reception will be distributed throughout the seven counties of Denver through WWA’s email base of over 5500.