Workshop High

After 10 days of labbieing (assisting) at WKU’s Mountain Workshops I definitely came home sick but the experience was totally worth it. Between the inspiration, new knowledge, life advice, seeing old friends and making new ones — I would do it all again in a heartbeat (though maybe I would use more hand sanitizer). It’s an incredible feeling to leave regular life behind for a week and simply live and breath visual storytelling - to be submersed in everything photojournalism. I call it the “workshop high” and I’m addicted.

The high is usually predictable. For a labbie it usually comes from watching participants and coaches improve on stories from day to day, from exclusive coffee talks with one of these coaches, sitting in on critiques and getting your own critique. I learned a lot about myself this year from critiques — new strengths, clear weaknesses. I was brought up and encouraged by some coaches, only to be immediately torn down by another. It was a sobering and humiliating experience that I want to forget, but at the same time I need to remember every word that was said to me. It’s a roller coaster ride, and I come away with a better idea of what I need to do to grow as a photographer, but it’s not the exact high, the inspiration I expect from Workshops.

This year inspiration took me by complete surprise. It came from the multimedia workshop.  Since I generally describe myself as a still photographer, I was slightly taken aback when I learned I would be a labbie in the multimedia workshop. “But I’m not interested in video,” I remember thinking to myself when I got the assignment, “and I suck at it.” Excitement for the week had faded and was replaced with bits of anxiety about being removed from my comfort zone. But I quietly took my assignment and reminded myself that working with any coach is a privilege and I should be grateful.

As it turns out I had nothing to be concerned about. None of the coaches cared that I didn’t shoot video - something I considered to be a big elephant in the room that only existed in my mind. Shuttling them around quickly went from being a chore to the highlight of my day. To hear six extremely talented professionals discuss video was fascinating, especially since their backgrounds were all so different. To my surprise, my dislikes about multimedia were slowly dissolving away. 

I absorbed the difference of opinions, the arguing and how they learned from each other. The way they talked about storytelling, the way they explained how it was accomplished via video was slowly getting me hooked. I’ve taken the Web Narratives video class at WKU, but it had no change in my disinterest with multimedia (a term which the coaches stripped from our vocabularies by the end of the week). Now, after only a couple of days, I was seeing it in a different light. I wanted to give video another chance. I was inspired in a way I could not have predicted. Even two weeks later I’m still thinking about it.

I’m a senior now. I’ve been to Mountain Workshops three times now – twice as a labbie and once as a participant - and I hope the tradition doesn’t end here. I can’t imagine an October without my fix even when I’m out of school.

Perhaps I’ll have to attend the multimedia workshop next year.