Four photographers want to make training more accessible for Vancouver Island residents.
Brad Powell, Dennis McMahon, Inge Riis-MacDonald and Sucha Ollek, who hail from Nanaimo and Ladysmith, founded Island Photography Workshops Society earlier this year with the goal of promoting photographic excellence and organizing webinars, workshops and seminars.
McMahon said cost is a barrier for some people to improve their photography skills as most photographers have to travel for training.
“Photographers on Vancouver Island, if they want to improve their photography, they have to go off Island to attend seminars or workshops and that increases the expense tremendously,” he said. “We thought we would form a society to bring these world class photographers to Nanaimo and so that the photographers on the Island can do it basically in a day’s trip or if it is a workshop in two or three days.”
McMahon said if the society can get Canadian photographers that are reasonably close they can keep costs down for participants.
To kick off training the society is hosting David duChemin who is leading a seminar May 20 from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at Beban Park auditorium.
The seminar costs $95 and people can register on the society’s website or at the door if space is available.
DuChemin is the founder of Nomad of Craft and Vision, editor in chief for Photograph magazine and a contributing columnist to Photolife. He is also a best-selling author of several photography books.
“I’ve got three books of David’s and he’s impressed me with his philosophy and his photography,” said McMahon. “This is a unique opportunity because he is probably not going to be doing this type of thing again. He usually does four to five day seminars in various countries around the world.”
People don’t have to join the society to take part in training opportunities. However, the society is seeking someone to come on board to handle social media for the group.
“One of the gaps we have at the moment is marketing, social media knowledge, none of us are very astute at that so we would certainly like to have somebody join us who is familiar with it to take on that responsibility for us,” said McMahon.
For more information or to register, please visit http://islandphotographyworkshops.com.
arts@nanaimobulletin.com