TOUCHING THE DIVINE: A Spiritual Approach to Photography
Online e-Course
with Douglas Beasley
8 weeks starting week of Sunday March 10 – week of April 28, 2024
Pre-class readings and Media List sent Sunday March 3
(next class starts March 2025)
This 8 week e-course explores the intersection of spiritual expression and our photography and can be participated in on your own timetable. Blending both a spiritual and practical approach to not just making better photographs but becoming a better, more insightful photographer.
Help find ways to integrate your spiritual practice (or even develop one) with your creative life. If you’ve attended one of Doug’s Zen & the Art of Photography or Emotional Landscape workshops and are looking to revisit or continue that experience then this is the class for you!
Any and all spiritual practices welcome. And you are even more welcome if you don’t have a spiritual practice, or have left one and not found another, or even just spiritual-curious on how or if that has anything too do with your artistic or photographic process.
We will explore our connection to the divine from a non-denominational approach that encompasses many points of view. There can be a big difference between spirituality and religion. This class is about exploring and developing our inner connection to spirituality and how that can lead to more meaningful self-expression rather than promoting any particular religion.
New content will be available at the start of each week. There will be a weekly short video specially created by Doug for this class, readings on creativity and spirituality to contemplate, photo exercises to stimulate visual and creative growth, photo assignments that explore the intersection of art and spirit to complete with a portal to upload assignment images to share with the group and receive feedback. All content will be accessed online so you can participate and revisit class content at you own pace and on your own timetable. Links will be sent out each week to new content.
Upon sign-up you will be sent a link to download a recommended reading list for our class.
There will be three optional Zoom meetings to meet each other, share and ask questions, held at 6:30 pm CST on Tuesday of the first and last weeks of class and once in-between (see exact dats below). Zoom links will be sent. The session will be recorded and made available only to registered students and attendance is completely non-mandatory.
All class content will remain up and accessible for at least six months. If you fall behind or even have to drop out for any reason you can resume at any time. You will also be able to go back and review or even redo past lessons and assignments.
Finding community in these times is essential and often missing from our creative lives. We will always work towards creating community through connection and shared experience, rather than competition. Art and photography is not a competitive sport!
Critiques are important too. It is part of how we learn and grow. Honest, constructive feedback will be provided by both Doug and our fellow participants. Please also remember all criticism is opinion not fact, but hopefully informed opinion that you can choose how you react to and incorporate. Alas, yet another growth opportunity…
This is the only time this class will be offered this year. It will not be repeated until next year!
Each week you will receive:
• Readings on photography and the creative process
• A video by Doug or by Doug interviewing a special guest
• Suggestions of both historical & contemporary photographers to explore
• A photo exercise to experience and share results
• A writing exercise, for you personally, not to be shared with the group
• A Photo Assignment for you to complete and share
• Examples of photos by Doug or others that fit our weekly assignment
• Group feedback and Doug’s comments on assignment photos uploaded
B&W or Color? Yes, my photographs are in usually black and white with a sepia-tone color added after. That is my personal choice for what suits my vision for the kind of images I want to make, but it certainly not a requirement, or even a recommendation, that students or others do the same. Color photography is always welcome in my classes and workshops and it is what most participants use. All of the photographic exercises and assignments are made for working in either. Although I love and appreciate color photography, B&W remains my personal choice but I would never impose that choice on others. You are always free to choose what suits your taste and image making best. Or try something new…
Type of camera and format recommended? I use medium format cameras with film but again that is my choice for the kind of images I want to make and the way I want to interact with the physical aspects of the image making process. All formats, digital and film, large format and small, including iPhones are welcome. It’s more about your vision and visual voice and not the equipment! I recognize the importance of initial equipment choices that suit our needs yet good photos can come from any camera. Great photos come from strong vision and effective execution (and sometimes a little luck but remember that chance favors the prepared); our choice of cameras and lenses, even editing software, are just the tools we use to support our vision.
DATES: 8 weeks starting the week of March 10 – week of April 28
• Pre-class readings available Sunday March 3
• First week class materials available Sunday March 10
• Last week class materials available Sunday April 28
• Class runs until Sunday May 5
• All class materials, responses and image posts will remain up and accessible for at least 6 months after the last class!
THREE OPTIONAL GROUP ZOOM MEETINGS:
1) Tuesday March 12, 6:30 – 8 pm CST
2) Tuesday April 2, 6:30 – 8 pm CST
3) Tuesday April 30, 6:30 – 8 pm CST
Zoom link will be provided
COST: $395 (new lower price with more content!)
INFO: at Ruzuku (our class platform)
REGISTER: thru Ruzuku then click ‘Register’ on upper right corner
TESTIMONIALS:
“The beauty of this course is that, unlike a time limited workshop, you don’t have to come out of the gate at full speed.” -Tony Gonda
“The course has meant the world to me, and I love being able to start from the beginning again and work my way through slowly, and as with the second read of a good book, I derive more nuance and at times the actual meaning of what you are wanting us to think about. Thanks for your patience. I learned a lot about myself.” – Mark Dolan
“I absolutely enjoyed your class and value everything I learned from it.”
– Rene Barron
“Thank you for your spirit and helping us find ours.” – Gail Farber
“I am learning a lot, enjoying every minute.” – Pegie Stark
“I am enjoying the course immensely.” – Joan Zachary
“This has been an amazing experience! thank you.” – Debbie Ross
“You and the group have been very inspiring in my way of thinking and feeling about photography.” – Honey Sharp
“This is such a great course. I got a lot out of it and am considering taking it again. Doug, you are so supportive and thoughtful in your feedback.”
– Jeanne Procell
“Thank you for this class. You and the other students make the experience for me.” – Beth Garst
“The assignments come up for me again and again. I encountered the fragility, uncertainty, growth and evolution of life.” – Glynis Valenti
“What a pleasure to think deliberately about my practice and reclaim meditative time and space.” -Thom Blackstone
“I appreciate the course and have gained a great amount of insight.”
-Benjamin Foulk
“Doug just created an online course! I’m signed up. I’m hoping some of my FB friends will join the adventure with me. I’m not sure what I will create, but I know I will have fun, and I’m sure I will stretch and grow, due to Doug’s unique, helpful, eye-opening, and very Zen style of teaching. So c’mon. Join me. You know you want to.” – Diana Nicollette Jeon
“I want you to know that these weeks have opened my mind, my heart and my creative spirit. It has been wonderful and I thank you.”
-Eleanor Gorman
“Thank you so much for this course. It’s been perfect for where I am in my life right now. I appreciate your encouraging and directing comments, the helpful, challenging writing assignments, listening-looking assignments and of course the challenging photo assignments.” –Martie Peterson
“Thank you for the opportunity to work through the course again. It has been enlightening, and revealing in ways that were unexpected.” -Dee Beard
“I find your workshops to be more focused and interesting (than other on-line classes) and I prefer the way yours are set up.” -Tony Gonda
