Dawn of Photography

Our premier workshop from last year, Dawn of Photography was the first the Eastman House series to sell out. The experience was magical for all of us and the images made by participants were stunning. If you are interested in this workshop and/or the wet and dry collodion workshop that follows we suggest you secure your place as soon as possible.

Combine a vacation trip with a very special workshop in rural England this summer. Mark Osterman and France Scully Osterman collaborate with Curator Roger Watson and teach the process of photogenic drawing at the Fox Talbot Museum.

Located in Lacock, England, Wm. Henry Fox Talbot’s home, Lacock Abbey, is where the inventor made the world’s first photographic negatives in the mid-1830s and is generally considered the birthplace of negative/positive photography. The village of Lacock, in Wiltshire, and the Abbey are better known by a younger audience as the locations used in the Harry Potter movies. The entire village is protected by the National Trust and preserved with no visible trappings of the 21st century. 

All participants will be given wooden replica cameras based on Talbot’s originals to keep. They will also receive a wood-and-glass printing frame, a period style portfolio to preserve their images and a facsimile copy of Talbot’s original 1839 announcement of the process. After initial instruction on the process and its variants, everyone will have several days to make images of the village and the abbey. Contact prints of botanicals will be made from the same type flowers and leaves Talbot used that still grow on the grounds of the abbey. Discover that photography was very colorful in the days before brown became the standard. No photographic experience is necessary. The photogenic drawing process is simple and the results extraordinary.