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Breaking Barriers Photography Workshops for Veterans

Breaking Barriers is an annual series of photography workshops provided free of charge to veterans in the USF and Tampa Bay Community. Each multi-week series of workshops is designed for veterans to explore the tools and processes for creating their own photographic imagery. Each series concludes with a personal project and portfolio review. A special showing of curated works from each workshop and participant is exhibited at USF Contemporary Art Museum.

 

 

Breaking Barriers - SUMMER 2022
Photography WorkshopS For Veterans

6-Week Artist-Led Online Workshop Series
July 8 - August 12, 2022 - Register by July 1!

Breaking Barriers is free to veterans. No previous experience is required for Section A (Beginning). Previous Breaking Barriers or photography experience is requested for Section B (Advanced).

SECTION A (BEGINNING)
SEEING LIKE A CAMERA,WORKING LIKE AN ARTIST
July 8 - August 12, 2022
Fridays, 8am-12pm
Join photographer Selina Román in a series of inventive online photography workshops designed for beginners. There’s an old saying that the best camera is the one you have with you. Never has this been truer since the advent of the cellphone camera. With the ability to take unlimited photographs, the exciting challenge becomes creating thoughtful, meaningful, and high-quality photographs with your cellphone camera. The powerful technology and effects continue to wow us with each new update. But even with all that technology, the camera itself can never “see” like an artist. This workshop is for photography enthusiasts who want to learn how to create beautiful, thoughtful and engaging photographs. Participants will expand their approach to picture making through various photography exercises and by looking at the work of historical and contemporary photographers. Participants will learn photography basics such as fundamentals of lighting, composition and color, as well as how to use their cameras and its special tools like a pro. NO PREVIOUS PHOTOGRAPHY EXPERIENCE REQUIRED.

SECTION B (ADVANCED)
OUT OF THE BOX — NEW WAYS OF SEEING & MAKING PHOTOGRAPHS
July 8 – August 12, 2022
Fridays, 1pm-5pm
Join photographers Selina Román and Christian Cortes in this advanced online series of photography workshops. In an age where we create and consume images daily, creating a beautiful photograph is one half of the equation. It is when we create thoughtful and compelling images, that the photographs have substance and allow for greater understanding and meaning. In this workshop, students, already armed with the skills to create technically sound cellphone images will go a step further and create photographs that give the viewer pause and offer new ways of seeing, understanding, and expression. Through exposure to various types of art photography, peer reviews, and practice, participants will mine their own lives, beliefs, experiences, and interests to create meaningful artwork and good photographs. This will be accomplished through hands-on exercises, visual experimentation, class reviews and in class and out of class practice. Students will learn advanced photo editing techniques, create engaging and technically sound photographs, primarily via cellphones, learn contemporary approaches to photography such as thematic, narrative, conceptual, staged and documentary approaches, how to create visually compelling photographs that have meaning and substance and learn to use writing as a means of inspiration and self-expression in order create a personal narrative. PREVIOUS BREAKING BARRIERS OR PHOTOGRAPHY EXPERIENCE IS REQUESTED.

Registration is open through July 1! To register, or for questions or more information, email Amy Allison at amyallison@usf.edu.

Download the 2022 Breaking Barriers PDF Flyer to Print or Share!

Accessibility: The University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum (USFCAM) strives to make all programming accessible to visitors with disabilities. Please email Amy Allison or amyallison@usf.edu five days in advance of programming to request accommodations and for accessibility questions. 

Breaking Barriers 2022 is a program by the USF Contemporary Art Museum, and is supported by the James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital, Love IV Lawrence, Hillsborough Arts Council, USF Office of Veterans Success, USF School of Art & Art History, and the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Arts and Culture and the Florida Council on Arts and Culture. The USF Contemporary Art Museum is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums.

 

 

Breaking Barriers: Still in Motion

December 9-10, 2021
USF Contemporary Art Museum and Online Presentation

USF Contemporary Art Museum is pleased to present the exhibition Breaking Barriers: Still in Motion as part of arts programming to military veterans. Breaking Barriers: Still in Motion brings together the art of seventeen U.S. veterans. As a result of two intensive artist-lead photography and video workshops, the exhibition includes a selection of thirty-seven photographs and nine videos. Through the artist’s lens, we are offered an intimate look at the quotidian, personal places and spaces, memories, and narratives by means of objects and landscapes. The artwork represents a vast range of photographic experience, from learning to use a camera, to professional photographers accomplished with film but starting fresh with digital technology or video, as well as those who have no prior art experience at all. Unique to this exhibition is the fact that all the photographs and videos were created and edited with the artists’ own cellphone cameras. 

Artists in the exhibition are James Alexander, Roxi Cato, Wildalys Class, Agustin Collazo Jr., Michael Congdon, Giovanna Delacruz, Amanda Dodd, Dwight English, Loretta Fields, Dawn S. Hargrett, Evan Fountain, Mark Freeman, Robert Kidney, Mikko Maki, Matias, Alicia Morales, and RaeAnne Swanson. We are deeply grateful to all the veterans who were courageous and persistent enough to engage in the workshops and create their own photographic images. Their artwork creates a visual platform that changes the culture of the “silent veteran,” into a storyteller, a witness, and amplifies the veteran voice within a larger community. 

Breaking Barriers is a project by USFCAM in collaboration with the USF School of Art and Art History, with Support from the USF Office of Veterans Success, Community Arts Impact Grant Program of the Arts Council of Hillsborough County, Love IV Lawrence 2020 Waves of Change Grant, and additional support from the ACE Arts for Community Engagement Fund and the Florida Department of State. 

 

 

Breaking Barriers: Me, Myself and Eye

2020 Online Presentation

Me, Myself and Eye is an online presentation of sixty-seven photographs created by twenty-three military veterans who participated in the Breaking Barriers 2020 photography workshop. The educational workshop, led by artist Selina Román and assisted by artist Christian Cortés, focused on memory and personal experiences that were expressed through a broad interpretation of self-portraiture. Artists include: Michael Ball, TC Bryant, Larry Busby, David Canaday, Michael Congdon, Brandie Dziegiel, Loretta Fields, Jeaniel Image, Douglas Eric Jordan, Valerie Larson, John Leduc, Jason Lind, Mikko Maki, Alex Martinez, Matias, Noemys McConnell, Megan O’Connell, Robert Ortega, Adaina Plaza, Pat Randall, Heather Rivera, RaeAnne Swanson, and Michael Webb. 

Breaking Barriers 2020 is supported by the James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital, Love IV Lawrence, Hillsborough Arts Council, and the Florida Department of State.

 

 

Breaking Barriers: Photography & Memory

December 11–12, 2019
USF Contemporary Art Museum

Breaking Barriers: Photography & Memory presents a selection of artworks created by USF and Tampa Bay military veterans in a workshop led by photographer Forrest MacDonald. The photographs present reflections on the essence of memory, people, and place through their orchestration of light, creation of small sets, and use of a variety of lens-based and digital techniques. Artists include Larry Busby, Chris Camplin, Michael Congdon, Loretta Fields, Evan Fountain, Isabella Guevara, Chris Hardin, Jason Lind, RaeAnne Swanson, Andres Villa Hurtado, and Rachel Westphal.

Breaking Barriers is a project by USFCAM in collaboration with the USF School of Art and Art History, with the Support of the Arts Council of Hillsborough County and the Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners, and sponsored by Sue Mayo and Andy and Bea Shultz.

 

 

Breaking Barriers: Selected Work

December 12-13, 2018
USF Contemporary Art Musuem

USF Contemporary Art Museum is pleased to present the exhibition Breaking Barriers: Selected Work as part of arts programming for military veterans. Breaking Barriers: Selected Work brings together the art of thirteen U.S. veterans and creates a visual platform that changes the culture of the “silent veteran” into that of a story teller and a witness, and which serves to amplify the veteran voice within a larger community. The twenty-six photographs focus on themes of portraiture and personal identity. They were created in an intensive photography workshop led by artist James Reiman (see below), and represent a vast range of photographic experience–from beginners learning to use a camera, to professional photographers accomplished with film but starting fresh with digital technology. Artists in the exhibition are Amy Bagley, Deighton Saint-Cyr, James Alexander, Jayme Williams, John Enderton, Kayla Smart, Larry Busby, Mark Freeman, Mark Giddarie, Marty Kledzik, Matt Dawson, Michael Congdon, and Travis Pendergrass.

Breaking Barriers: Selected Work was a partnership with USF School of Art and Art History and is part of a statewide initiative of museums, Museums on Call, to develop and present arts based experiences for military veterans and their families. Museums on Call is supported, in part, by State of Florida Division of Cultural Affairs, National Endowment of the Arts and University of Florida’s Art in Medicine program.