Up Close: Photography as a Way of Seeing

Join our photography course Up Close in 2023!

The Jakopič Gallery is one of the central exhibition venues of the Museum and Galleries of Ljubljana (MGML). Its orientation includes promoting a wider social understanding of photography as one of the most expressive artistic, communicative and creative media.

Once again, in 2022, you are kindly invited to join our successful study group Up Close: Photography as a Way of Seeing. The year-long informal course accommodates 16 participants, whose view of the world includes the idea of photography. It will encourage them to face, up close and personal, as sensitive individuals, the missions that can be realised through photography. The course introduces various approaches to photography and its broad communicative value, based on the training of the photographer's eye and personality, rather than the technical perfection of their equipment.

Because photography is more than just pressing the shutter at the right moment. It is a way of viewing the world!

In 2023 we will also welcome 16 participants. You can contact us for more information or book your place in the Up Close programme in advance at galerija.jakopic@mgml.si

© Metod Blejec

© Metod Blejec

In the meantime, our mentors are busily planning next year's lectures topics, which will be linked to the regular gallery programme.

The dates for the group's meetings next year are already known:
20-21 January 2023
24-25 March 2023
26-27 May 2023
6-7 October 2023
1-2 December 2023

The Up Close: Photography as a Way of Seeing 2022 study group is just one meeting away. On Friday, 2 December 2022, at 6 p.m., we invite all of you who are interested in our study group and would like to learn more about our work to the Up Close Tea Room with our mentors and participants, who will present this year's projects and give you guidelines for the future.

In the Up Close programme our strong expert team leads the participants through the process which includes five two-day workshops and an additional session. A variety of themes are open in a dynamic dialogue between theory and practice. The participants are encouraged to find their original individual expression and engage in critical thinking about diverse narratives, artistic photographic genres and the ways of presenting photographic work. The programme offers knowledge, creative growth and meetings with internationally acclaimed photographers.

Also in 2023 the first workshop will be open to a wide circle of participants who, after this first experience, will be able to decide whether to enrol in the year-long course. 

Dates and workshop content in 2022:

18.–19. 2. 2022: A thinking eye: The necessity of visual literacy in the 21st Century. This basic level workshop will engage the participants in training their visual literacy, while sharpening not only their photographic but also their critical view of everything that goes on around us.

25.–26. 3. 2022: From natural beauty to social engagement. Drawing from, amongst others, the context of the Meltdown exhibition, the workshop will touch on the concepts of socially engaged practices and their visual narrative power to convey a deep message.

3.–4. 6. 2022: Activism through photography. We will research and question the power of photography in communicating ideas, as well as the individual's and community's standpoints, including the case of the exhibition by the engaged photographer Letizia Bataglia.

14.–15. 10. 2022: From an idea to photographic exhibition. This workshop will be devoted to the design and set-up of an exhibition, with the actual preparation of the Bojan Radovič Replica exhibition in The Jakopič Gallery.

2.–3. 12. 2022: Photography as a process. In our fifth class we will become immersed in the multi-layered and often lengthy process of a long-term photographic project.

Bonus summer Saturday afternoon: The World of Technical Challenges: pre- and postproduction in photography. This class will offer practical insight into the various ways and methods of successfully implementing a photographic project.

© Una Rebić

© Una Rebić

Expert team: Marija Skočir, Ph.D., curator for photography; Matevž Paternoster, photographer working in the intersection of architecture, museum and commercial photography; Saša Kralj, an experienced photojournalist who took a different path and works as an art photographer and a mentor; Metod Blejec, designer; and Janja Rebolj, expert in adult education.

Time and place of workshops: Year-long programme comprises of 5 workshops which will take place on Fridays (18:00–21:00) and Saturdays (9:00–18:00); the date of the bonus technical workshop will be set in agreement with the participants; they will take place in the Jakopič Gallery and other locations of the MGML; in the open air and in studios. 

The price of an individual workshop is €125 per person. We offer 10% prompt payment discount for all 5 workshops (€560 per person), the Friends of the Jakopič Gallery have a 15 % discount.

Paying for the first workshop in the amount of €125 per person and enrolling in the year-long programme you can:   
- get a 10% discount for a one-off payment for the remaining 4 workshops (€450 per person) or
- pay in 10-month instalments of €50; in the case of instalment payment, participants commit at enrolment to participate in and pay for the entire programme.

Up Close: Photography as a Way of Seeing, 2017/18 photographic study group
Up Close: Photography as a Way of Seeing, 2018/19 photographic study group

© Saša Kralj