Brendalands!

Today is the last day for applicants to get a free place on our Photographic Immersion workshop with Brenda Ann Kenneally running in Devon from the 24th-29th June 2012 worth £850.

Thats free tuition, free accommodation, free food and the chance to take their work to the next level with an award winning documentary photographer.

You would literally have be crazy (or rich/bored/trapped in a door) to not apply!

The workshop will focus on expanding photographers storytelling efforts aiming to help with finished or on-going work to contextualise it, re-energise it and finsih the week with a positive direction with which to move forward. Participants will be staying in Mongolian yurts, lighting their log burners, breathing fresh air, eating wonderful food cooked by our chef from award winning Bristol restaurant Flinty Red, hearing from experienced professionals including Grant Scott, editor of the wonderful Hungry Eye magazine and veteran Magnum photographer David Hurn.

If you don't know who Brenda Ann Kenneally, David Hurn, Grant Scott and Flinty Red get on google and take a look at what they do. A damn talented bunch who are going to be making for a really special week not to be missed in Devon.

Anyone aged 25 and under who is a student or graduate can apply. Head to www.thehinterlands.co.uk to fill out an application form.

The Hinterlands - Day 5..

I have been having a wonderful time this week with 17, and occasionally 18 others down here on the edge of the Blackdown Hills in Devon at the second ever Hinterlands workshop. We are humbled to have participants that have travelled thousands of miles to get here to this little corner of rural Devon to make up our small community for a week and learn together in this really special way.

It's been a week of sunshine and in between training with duckrabbit our new found friends here at the Hinterlands have eaten wonderfully prepared fresh food out in the open to relive the everyday stresses of life. Tuesday saw teams head out across the county to visit all it has to offer and collect peoples valuable stories to treasure and turn into wonderful photofilms. From trams, to calves and horse drawn canal barges there was something for everyone and perhaps an eye opener into what this beautiful patch of green has to offer.

In the past few days we have has the pleasure of hosting a talk with Guardian multimedia editor Pascal Wyse who wowed us with his beautiful soundscapes from nature before getting almost three hours sleep in his cosy bell tent to get up and capture the dawn chorus. On top of that we were happy to welcome back past Hinterlands student Alice Carfrae - alicecarfrae.com - to talk about her current work Tin Girls and her experimentation with multimedia. John MacPherson - john-macpherson-photography.com - finished wrapped our evening last night with tales of people, places and generally enthused us to become more excited about just taking pictures and enjoying it for what it is.

It's the last full day today and after cooking a whole host of fry-ups this morning I am looking forward to our finale this evening. We invite the local community, those that have helped and participated in our photofilms to come along and view the work made here at The Hinterlands. It's a really special part of what we do here and it's my favourite. It makes you really consider what you put into your work and to make it as honest and as true as possible, and there really is nothing like seeing that look of genuine happiness on the face of someone whose story you have told when they watch a film about themselves.

24 hours left here at the yurts and I'm sure it will be great!

Brenda Ann Kenneally!

Nuff said? (is this still acceptable outside of the 90's..)

Brenda's a fantastic photographer and she's making the trip from bustling Brooklyn, NYC to bumbling Blackborough in the beautiful Devon hills to mentor 10 participants in this close and intimate residential workshop. There is loads more information about the workshop at www.thehinterlands.co.uk or feel free to email me with any questions at mike[at]thehinterlands[dot]co[dot]uk.

The lovely Gill Chattey designed this flyer for us and we hope you can find a place to make it shine. Maybe print it out and stick it on your fridge, your window or at your place of work or you could email it facebook it post it on twitter - or just generally "social media it".

New updated Hinterlands for 2012!

I've spent the morning outside of my flat, outside of the office and outside of the screen on my computer. With the beautiful spring weather we've been having it's been really hard to have been sat inside tapping away working on the new Hinterlands website although now it's done I think it was well worth the effort.

Take a look at www.thehinterlands.co.uk and let us know what you think...

Last years Hinterlands workshop celebrated the great outdoors, photography, photofilms, tasty food, a sense of community, yurts, having a drink around the fire and storytelling in equal measures and was a big success. Fifteen happy people walked away from their time in Devon with the skills to make a photofilm after a week of learning in the big barn with duckrabbit.

This year we are adding another workshop to the roster so we thought it was time for an upgrade to our presence on the web. duckrabbit are back for 2012 and will be playing host to 15 trainees at The Hinterlands. Be prepared to be immersed in a world of photofilms and storytelling and ready to increase your potential to use multimedia as part of your work.

'Dana`s sister, Jessica, on her 22d birthday. A friend gave her pellet guns.' - Part of the series Upstate Girls - © Brenda Ann Kenneally.

On top of this we have, all the way from New York city the wonderful Brenda Ann Kenneally. Brenda is a skilled storyteller and has many comprehensive bodies of work under her belt. Ten lucky participants will be taken under her wing for a week to thoroughly look at their working practice and to build upon their skills using a multi-layered approach to documentary storytelling. Brenda also

We are so pleased to be working with such talented people like Brenda and duckrabbit and will also be getting in some great speakers to keep the trainees evenings jam packed with interesting talks and screenings. On top of all of that we are chuffed to be welcoming back the wonderful Olivia in the kitchen who will again be cooking up a storm of wonderful food to feed those creative appetites.

The best thing about The Hinterlands this year is the fact that it is still a small workshop that holds true to it's values. We source local food and drink and all of the trainees will work on stories in the local environment, stories that we hope the subjects will come and view later for themselves over a beer. The participants share yurts with solar lights, compost loos and warming wood burning stoves and get to know each other enhancing their learning experience. Our workshops aren't up on a pedestal and all of the people involved are normal people who enjoy sharing their knowledge and skills. If you come down to The Hinterlands this year you will eat, drink and relax with the trainers, our cook, Rebecca and myself (that would be us the organisers..) and generally be part of the whole experience. This is really important to us, it's how a workshop should be and it's how The Hinterlands is and we are so happy to be running it.

Jonathan Worth from the online photography class #phonar, a speaker at the 2011 Hinterlands workshop.

Obviously I am slightly biased as I am part of the workshop but I really do believe it's a great experience and that we offer something truly individual. So biased or not - get on the website and have a read about what we do, look at some of the testimonials or watch our photofilm featuring last years trainees. I think you'll like it and I hope you will want to come down and become part of it this summer.

Oh and I had an idea. I need to clear it with Olivia but I was thinking of making fresh sourdough loaves every morning. There really is nothing better than a hunk of fresh sourdough, a bit of butter and a spoon of marmalade coupled with a fresh cup of coffee to start a creative day in the countryside....sounds good to me!

Right well I think I'm going to have another cup of tea and then wonder what to do with all of the veg that I foraged this morning. I have wild garlic which will definetly end up as a wild garlic pesto, nettles which I am slightly less well versed in and primroses which are great in salads all to look forward to....yum!

OMG - It's Brenda Ann Kenneally!

The Hinterlands is sooo darn excited to say that The Hinterlands will be hosting acclaimed American photographer Brenda Ann Kenneally for a brand new workshop this summer. Details to follow but expect to be bowled over by Brenda's enthusiasm, tenacity and immersive style of working. Also expect plenty of great food, yurts, open fire's and large mugs of coffee!

For more details follow @the_hinterlands

Brenda Ann Kenneally is a mother, activist, and visual journalist who lives in Brooklyn, New York. Her long-term projects are intimate portraits of social issues that intersect where the personal is political. Brenda's own involvement in the criminal justice system when she was a child has given her an insight and commitment to projects that reveal the human cost of misguided public policies in The United States.

The result of a decade of reporting, Kenneally’s book and web publication MONEY, POWER, RESPECT; Pictures of My Neighborhood have received numerous awards: The W. Eugene Smith Award for Humanistic Photography, a Soros Criminal Justice Fellowship, The Mother Jones Documentary Photography Award, and The International Prize for Photojournalism in Gijon Spain. Kenneally was among the earliest to embrace multi -platform media. Her independent collective pioneered in making and distributing serialized reporting via the web. In 2006 the multimedia component of Money, Power, Respect, won the Best of Photojournalism Award for overall Best Use of the Web by the National Press Photographers Association. Kenneally is working to push the boundaries of the social document, using the web as a tool to expand and contextualize her Gonzo-immersion style of reporting.

In this spirit Kenneally and independent producer Laura Lo Forti founded The Raw File, a digital theatre dedicated to providing a space for provocative open-ended media.

In 2004, Kenneally began reporting on the lives of an extended family of teenagers who would come of age in the iconic post- industrial City of Troy, New York. The ongoing project Upstate Girls; Unraveling Collar City aims deep into the emotional and psychological cycle of poverty from a women’s eye view. The project has been supported to date, by a Nikon Sabbatical Grant, The Alicia Patterson Foundation, and The Cannon Female Photojournalism Grant. Getty Grant for Editorial Photography and an Open Society Distribution Grant, A New York State Council for The Arts Individual Artist Grant and a print acquisition form The United States Library of Congress. The project was awarded The Pictures of The Year International Community Awareness Award and First Place for Daily Life Stories at World Press International. The project is ongoing and has been exhibited through out the United States, Europe and Latin America.

Photofilms and Yurts..

As winter approaches at a steady rate of knots and that inner cold sets in, I think it's good to have something to look forward to. Christmas holidays I suppose would do...maybe your new years celebrations....yeh did that last year..how about next years Hinterlands workshop..

If you have no idea what i'm waffling about then I'll get straight to the point. We (that's me, Rebecca Harley and the duckrabbit team) are running our second Hinterlands photofilm workshop on what I think is the best possible course in the UK. A five day residential workshop staying in mongolian yurts with log burners and eating wonderful food, you will break bread with other keen participants whilst learning all there is to know about photofilms. It's a very peaceful relaxing place to learn in but we still pack in lots of stuff to keep you busy. Last year we had cyclist, adventurer and photofilm creator Nick Hand talk about his work and where photofilms have taken his career, and Coventry University pioneer and creator of #phonar, Jonathan Worth talking about how to get ahead by giving your work away.

Last years participants were an awesome bunch and we really really had a great time working with them. This year we have another 15 places...actually 14 because I just took a booking..and I hope we can fill it with a similarly inspiring group.

If your still wondering what the hell I'm waffling about watch this photofilm with last years participants talking about their experiences.

For more info or to book a place head to www.thehinterlands.co.uk

Multimedia at Fotopub

As the weather repeats it's ever changing rain and sun game in the run up to the Glastonbury festival and you continue on regardless, although getting more use out of your waterproof trousers than you thought necessary in June. Maybe you should be thinking about what to do this summer? A trip abroad.. perhaps Europe.. hmmm been to France sooo many times, maybe further east. How about Slovenia, it's next door to italy, on the adriatic, you could swim in the beautiful lake Bled, visit the stunning Julian Alps, take in the capital Ljubljana, visit Maribor for the world downhill mountain bike racing or perhaps visit the small town of Novo Mesto for this years Fotopub festival.

If you hadn't guessed already I am excited about the Fotopub photo festival happening in Slovenia, 25th-30th July 2011. Not just because it's the 11th year this wonderful events been happening, and because I have heard and seen so many great things about it but also because this year I finally get to go. This years Fotopub has a great lineup of mentors and events with talent such as Ed Ou, Brenda Ann Kenneally, Epsen Rasmussen and more attending and I have been looking at the site with some excitement. So I guess being asked to be a mentor and to teach the multimedia workshop has only one downside - I won't have time to go and the see all these other great talents speak. I'm sure we will be able to catch up over a beer..

It's been a long week what with us not having a kitchen (long story), a photofilm commission on the go, another in the pipeline and with Fotopub asking Rebecca and I to come and teach. It all came about through our wonderful Hinterlands workshop in Devon that we (Rebecca and I that is) ran in collaboration with duckrabbit in May of this year. It went great, so great that duckrabbit felt happy to recommend us to the Fotopub team, and I am really happy they did.

So.. If your twiddling your thumbs at home and are wondering what to do in July - head to Fotopub. And if your interested in multimedia, slideshows, photofilms or whatever you call them then come and signup for the multimedia workshop. It's going to be a great place to produce a short multimedia piece and to have a stunning week all at the same time.