An Encounter with Photography

Private Workshops & Mentorship

On Art and the Soul

If you go somewhere and come back with a photograph that looks like everyone else's — that photograph has surface and no soul. You will feel a kind of emptiness when you look at it. That emptiness is not a technical problem. It is a problem of the soul. Most teachers only show you how to reproduce what they have already made with a camera. What you learn is the technique of reproduction. It has nothing to do with art.

You came back with that photograph because you were never truly present. You stood there, but you were not seized by the moment. And to be seized requires not a better camera, not better technique — it requires a soul that has been opened.

What matters in a photograph is never the technique. It is the state of the person who made it. Whether they were truly present. Whether they allowed themselves to be seized. Whether something in them was awake enough to recognize the moment when it arrived.

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Eastern thought holds that a true encounter — between people, in a particular place, under particular conditions — can never be reconstructed. Time and space dissolve together. What remains is a trace: irreproducible, irreplaceable.

I understand photography through this same lens. What matters is not the act of photographing, but the quality of mind from which the photograph emerges: your attention, your way of looking, your state of presence in the world.

To work with me is therefore not simply to acquire technique. It is to enter a shared moment of attention — a form of encounter with art, with time, and with life itself. One that may quietly change how you see, how you think, and how you move through the world.

"Each encounter exists only once — in time, in light, in life. The moment you pressed the shutter can never be revisited. That instant is both eternal and already gone."

IN-PERSON INTENSIVE

Five-Day Private Workshop

$2,500 per person

A full five days of uninterrupted focus — in the studio, on location, and in conversation. A minimum of eight hours per day. Every workshop is built entirely around you: your work, your ambitions, your blindspots.

We begin with a pre-workshop consultation to establish direction. A follow-up session one month later ensures the work continues long after we part.

  • Location: Dallas–Fort Worth, or your location

  • Duration: 5 days · 8+ hours per day

  • Additional participants: $300 per person

  • Travel & accommodation outside DFW at client's expense

  • Models available for additional fee

Includes: Pre-workshop consultation · Post-workshop follow-up

ONLINE · ZOOM

Forty-Hour Online Workshop

$2,000 per person

The full depth of the in-person experience, conducted online. Schedule your sessions at your convenience — spread across one to ten weeks according to your own rhythm.

Available worldwide. Small groups of two or more are welcome.

  • Platform: Zoom

  • Duration: 40 hours · Flexible scheduling over 1–10 weeks

Includes: Pre-workshop consultation · Post-workshop follow-up

ONLINE · ZOOM

Twenty-Hour Online Workshop

$1,000 per person

A focused, concentrated engagement for those who want substantial depth in a shorter timeframe. Flexible scheduling over one to ten weeks.

  • Platform: Zoom

  • Duration: 20 hours · Flexible scheduling over 1–10 weeks

Includes: Pre-workshop consultation · Post-workshop follow-up

Your Workshop Is Entirely Custom

Every workshop is shaped by your needs and goals. The following represents the full range of what we can explore together — not a fixed agenda, but a palette from which your experience is drawn.

  • Artistic direction & creative vision

  • Review of past bodies of work

  • Portfolio building & critique

  • Guided studio & on-location shoots

  • Editing & sequencing of images

  • Lightroom & Photoshop workflow

  • Submitting work for publication

  • Preparing work for gallery submission

  • On-demand photobook design & editing

  • Camera systems & technical refinement

  • Studio lighting technique

  • Darkroom & fine digital printing

  • Goal-setting & action planning

  • Finding your place in the market

  • Personal & artistic identity exercises

  • Vision plan for long-term direction

MENTORSHIP PROGRAM

A Long-Term Investment in Your Artistic Life

A mentorship is not a workshop with a longer duration. It is a sustained, evolving relationship built around your growth over months — with the continuity, accountability, and depth that genuine artistic development requires.

We begin with a comprehensive assessment: where you are, where you have been, and where you are headed. From there, we meet every one to two weeks — in person, by phone, or by video — exploring every dimension of your creative and professional practice.

Photo assignments, writing exercises, ongoing image reviews, and constructive critique are woven throughout. Each mentorship is entirely custom-designed, and can be paused for travel or other commitments, then resumed when you are ready.

6-MONTH MENTORSHIP

$5,000

Six months of focused one-on-one engagement. Regular sessions, ongoing critique, custom assignments, and consistent support to move your photographic and artistic vision forward.

✦ Includes Private Workshop

12-MONTH MENTORSHIP

$9,000

A full year of sustained artistic development — the deepest and most transformative engagement available. For those committed to meaningful, lasting change in their creative practice.

✦ Includes Private Workshop

Currently enrolled students are welcome to apply for a 50% reduced rate on all workshop formats. Please mention your enrollment status when you reach out.

Every Encounter Begins with a Conversation

Before any workshop or mentorship, we meet — by phone or video — to understand where you are, what you are working toward, and how best to structure our time together.