July 20-25th 2026
Held in Kyoto, Japan
Early Bird Fee: $1600 / Attendee
Photography Workshop: Responding Meaningfully
To The Current World State
With Instructors:
MOISES SAMAN
FOSTER MICKLEY
ULYSSES AOKI
PHOTO BY ULYSSES AOKIWHAT TO EXPECT
Why do you photograph? Who are your images for? What does it mean to bear witness in a place shaped by ritual, history, and performance? And what responsibility does an image carry once it enters the world?
Set in Kyoto during the Gion Matsuri, one of Japan’s most important and centuries-old festivals, this workshop brings together Moises Saman, Foster Mickley, and Ulysses Aoki. Their practices differ widely in form, geography, and approach, yet they share a common question: how can photography respond meaningfully to the world today?
Rather than promoting a single aesthetic or genre, the workshop is built around productive tension—between documentary and conceptual work, between long-term immersion and formal experimentation, and between witness, interpretation, and authorship. Participants are invited into a space where photography is understood not only as image-making, but as a way of thinking, researching, and engaging ethically with the world.
Photo by MOISES SAMAN
MOISES SAMAN
Moises Saman brings a long-form documentary perspective rooted in sustained engagement with conflict, displacement, and historical memory. His approach emphasizes commitment over immediacy, ethical responsibility, and the construction of narratives that resist simplification or spectacle. In the workshop, Moises will work closely with participants on questions of authorship, access, and narrative framing—examining how power, proximity, and time shape what is seen and what remains outside the frame.
FOSTER MICKLEY
Foster Mickley brings a grounded approach to documentary practice rooted in long-term engagement, ethics, and visual clarity. His work emphasizes sustained presence, trust-building, and the discipline of returning to the same place and people over time, while also engaging deeply with conceptual frameworks that shape how documentary work is edited, structured, and presented.
Drawing from approaches to bookmaking and exhibition design, he will help participants think beyond individual images toward the construction of books and installations as narrative spaces, where sequencing, pacing, and material choices become integral to how a project is experienced.
ULYSSES AOKI
Ulysses brings a hybrid, genre-defying approach that moves fluidly between documentary, portraiture, fashion, performance, abstract, and the visual languages of social media. His work aims to transform the ordinary and overlooked with the common thread being visceral, dense, and lush imagery.
Ulysses will help participants with their shooting during the workshop through his experience of photographing locally in Japan for over a decade. In addition, he will be open to navigating dialogue such as working on creative projects with brands, and the relationship between social media usage and photography through his experience of utilizing Instagram and Youtube as a platform to communicate, perform, and recontextualize work.
❋ Practical Shooting
The workshop is anchored by a strong practical shooting component centered around the Gion Matsuri, one of Kyoto’s most significant and ancient folklore festivals. Participants and instructors will work side by side in the field, engaging in real-time discussions around access, ethics, presence, and decision-making. The festival’s layered histories, rituals, and performances provide a shared site for experimentation, allowing participants to test different approaches to storytelling, form, and collaboration within a living cultural context.
❋ A Rich Experience With Planned Activities
Through lectures, image critiques, field assignments, and group discussions, the workshop offers photographers the tools to develop work that is intellectually grounded, formally ambitious, and ethically aware, reflecting the complexity of contemporary photography today.
❋ Expert Critiques
Shooting exercises will culminate in group critiques, conducted collaboratively by students and instructors. Together, they will open up discussions centered on the editing process, sequencing, and storytelling, encouraging participants to reflect critically on how meaning is constructed, shaped, and transformed from individual images into coherent bodies of work.
❋ Local Experience
In addition to shooting the Gion Matsuri— a local festival that has over 1150 years of tradition, the workshop will take place at a traditional artist residence with a signature Kyoto style. We are also planning additional events such as artist talks, rooted in local artist communities.
❋ DEEP DIALOGUES AROUND CRAFT
Our three Instructors’ diverse approaches create a workshop environment that is plural, demanding, and expansive. Participants are encouraged not to imitate styles, but to interrogate their own assumptions: Why do you photograph? For whom? Under what conditions? And what responsibility does an image carry once it enters the world?
❋ COMMUNITY BUILDING
In a contemporary image world that is fragmented, accelerated, and saturated, where photographs move instantly across political, cultural, and algorithmic systems, this workshop equips participants with the tools to develop practices that are intellectually grounded, formally ambitious, and ethically aware. Over its duration, the workshop also fosters a temporary community: a shared, supportive space in which participants learn from one another’s risks, failures, and successes.
SCHEDULE & AGENDA
Photo by FOSTER MICKLEY[SUBJECT TO CHANGE]DAY 1: INTRO
As everyone arrives, we take time to settle in, get comfortable with each other and do a round of introductions. Presentations will take place by our instructors, then portfolio reviews will take place.
Check-In9:30am
Introductions10:00am
Presentations11:30am
LUNCH12:30pm
START of PORTFOLIO REviews13:30pm
Photo by FOSTER MICKLEY[SUBJECT TO CHANGE]DAY 2-5: Shooting, reviews, and artist talks
From day 2 onwards, we will continue any portfolio reviews that are left, while having exciting and exclusive events during the daytime such sd guest artist talks. From the afternoon participants will have time for individual shooting while the Gion Matsuri goes on in Kyoto.
Check-In10:00am
Portfolio Reviews / Artist Talks10:30am
12:30pm
LUNCH1 on 1 time13:30pm
individual shooting time and coaching15:00pm
Photo by FOSTER MICKLEY[SUBJECT TO CHANGE]Final Day: Project Review
The final day will be packed with welcomed tension. All participants will have time dedicated to present their projects that were taken in Kyoto, with critiques and collaborative edits done by our three instructors. We will have final remarks, then you never know— we can end up in a local restaurant for a final goodbye.
Check-In9:30am
Project REviews10:00am
LUNCH12:30pm
Project Reviews (Cont'd)13:30pm
Wrap-up by Instructors18:00pm