3-Day Workshop Registration:
Cinco de Mayo
Friday, May 3rd – Sunday, May 5th, 2024
*1 Spot Left
Schedule:
*This is a tentative schedule. The workshop will be 2.5 days over a 3-day period.
The schedule below and the free time may change to take advantage of the best weather. A full schedule and workshop details will be emailed to participants closer to the workshop date.
Friday (May 3rd): Beginning around 1pm, we will meet for a 1.5-hour introductory street photography presentation. We will then grab a bite and take the subway to Sunset Park, Brooklyn. We will explore the Brooklyn industrial waterfront, then walk to Industry City, the most lively place in New York to spend a Friday evening (and even moreso on Cinco de Mayo), with an evening salsa dancing party in addition to a wide variety of other things. We will eat, shoot, and spend the evening together.
Saturday (May 4th): You will have the morning to yourself to rest, and then we will meet around 1:30 in Manhattan to take the subway out to Coney Island. We will get there around 2:30, have a quick bite, and then photograph into the evening. We will eat dinner on the boardwalk in the evening and head back together on the subway at the end of the night.
Sunday (May 5th): We will meet at 11am at Russ & Daughters for some bagels/bialys and cream cheese. We will then spend the rest of the day exploring the Lower East Side, Chinatown, and ending the day photographing SoHo.
Post-workshop: A few weeks to a month after the workshop, everyone will submit their favorite 10 photographs from the workshop and we will hold a zoom hangout where I will go through all of them and we will talk about them.
Notes:
Confirmation: Confirmation and payment info will be sent soon after registration. A registration is not confirmed until payment is complete.
Where: Unless noted otherwise, the seminar space is located at the Houston Street Center, University Settlement, 273 Bowery, New York, NY 10002. It is recommended to stay near the seminar space in SoHo, Nolita, Little Italy, East Village, Lower East Side, or Chinatown.
Equipment: As the workshop will include a lot of walking, comfortable shoes and traveling light is recommend whenever possible. Tripods and laptops are not necessary. Extra batteries are highly recommended.
Price: $950
Size: Up to 9 people.
Email James if you have any schedule or equipment-related questions.
Reviews:
“James is knowledgable, generous, conscientious, and warm. He is ready with a Plan A, B, and C, able to accommodate all individual needs and the weather’s moods. He shares his fascinating projects with the group and is invested in getting to know each person in the workshop. He has a way of explaining his approach to street photography that made me understand it differently after the weekend ended; I viewed the relationship with my camera differently. He strikes a balance between teaching big ideas and providing concrete tools to improve his students’ photography skills. I would recommend this workshop to anyone wanting to hone their skills, interact with visually interesting pockets of the city, and meet an authentic, kind life-long New Yorker who also happens to be an incredible expert in his field. Thank you to our wonderful teacher and guide, James.”
– Shenel Lambiro
“I’ve just finished a fabulous two-day street photography workshop in NYC with James Maher. Hard to beat the experience of following James on a shooting-walking tour of lower Manhattan through a dozen or so diverse neighborhoods, each with different visual stimuli, changing light, cultural histories — and countless possibilities for photographing people and architecture! James began Saturday morning with a 1 1/2 hour presentation on ethical and technical aspects of street photography. Wanting to normalize our fears about intruding into the space of our subjects, he described how he thinks and works, generally moving slowly with his camera chest-high and ready, taking pictures initially ‘with his eyes.’ At other times, he might pick an unobtrusive spot where he waits for the subject to enter his field of view.
Following this preparation, we hit the streets, going first to a busy intersection where we could not lack for stimulation. Throughout the day, as we moved slowly in and out of different areas of the city, James worked his way among us, responding to our varying degrees of experience with photography and with street photography in particular. Often, he encouraged us to find a good location where we, too, could wait for the subject to come to us. Occasionally, he gave particular challenges to those who were ready.
By the end of Saturday, I began to feel more comfortable putting people into my pictures and had some ideas about how and how not to do it. On Sunday morning, however, before we again went into the streets, James took us to another level of appreciation — artistry and composition — via a slide presentation of the work of the great street photographers (beginning with Cartier-Bresson).
Throughout, James was a generous and gentle instructor, comfortably smart about what he knows. His individualized instruction was just what I needed and to the point. I cannot wait for more! Meanwhile, I’ll dig more deeply into his thoughtfully written e-books, along with the books of street photographers he recommended.”
– Sandra Ullmann
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