Rodney Lough Jr.

[Lilly of the Nile]

Lilly,

Some questions:

What do you hope to gain from the workshop experience?
Where are you "at" in your work now?
Where do you want to move your work to?
What style of photography to you admire and want to master?
Who are some photographers you admire and do they teach workshops?

Other than the article you read on Clyde Butcher (whose work I am very familiar with) and Rodney Lough Jr. (whose work I am not familiar with), what drives you to want to take a workshop from one of them?

Have you checked out places like the Ansel Adams Gallery, Maine Photographic Workshops, Anderson Ranch Arts Center and others to look at their workshop offerings? They offer many, many workshops to fit all levels of ability and are generally taught by well known and well regarded professionals.

Hello Eric,

i checked out your website, very nice b&w images btw.

thank you for the Q's, gives me more to go on.

i noticed from your site, at least it looks like to me, that you do primarily b&w? is that why you know about Clyde Butcher but not Rodney Lough Jr.? As Clyde is considered the current b&w master, while Lough the current color master? also, from your site, i noticed that you've done a bit of publishing yourself! fabulous!

i will look into the other sites, as you've suggested as well. but i guess to answer your question i think that i just really like the guys work....he's dang good. the thing i like about it is, he doesn't seem to follow any conventional rules, it doesn't look like anyone else's work - that i've ever seen before (making it unique imho), that his compositions just work and that i can't seem to pinpoint why they work, it's a bit of a mystery, it's like the beauty of chaos theory, can't explain why the patterns are there (because it's chaos after all) but they're there & i like them....i just do. it's odd, i know.

lilly

[Peter Lewin]

Lilly, I probably shouldn't be responding, since like everyone else who has so far, I've never taken one of Rodney Lough's workshops, in fact had never heard of him before now. But I did take a look at his website, and his photography is certainly competent (personally I don't see anything that different from many other landscape photographers, but that is only a personal reaction), and I took a look at his "Slot Canyon Workshop Package." I've taken three workshops over many years: Fred Picker's (infamous?) one when I was pretty new to LF, Sally Mann's workshop with the Maine Photo Workshops when I was competent, but loved her work, in particular people with an LF camera (at the time she wasn't doing landscapes like "Deep South" etc., those came later in her career), and finally one on printing with one of George Tice's assistants. So each had a purpose. From what you've posted, Lough meets at least one "requirement:" you love his work. Secondly, he says he will use an 8x10 and predominantly Fuji Astia himself, so if your goal is LF/color, its a good fit. The final question to ask yourself (beyond cost) is whether any of the locations he teaches at call out to you. If so, his curriculum looks similar to most multi-day on-site workshops, so you should enjoy the experience if you choose to try it.

[Lilly of the Nile]

I did take a look at his website, and his photography is certainly competent (personally I don't see anything that different from many other landscape photographers, but that is only a personal reaction), and I took a look at his "Slot Canyon Workshop Package."

So each had a purpose. From what you've posted, Lough meets at least one "requirement:" you love his work. Secondly, he says he will use an 8x10 and predominantly Fuji Astia himself, so if your goal is LF/color, its a good fit.

If so, his curriculum looks similar to most multi-day on-site workshops, so you should enjoy the experience if you choose to try it.

Peter,

thanks for the advice, it's free after all, and i always at least 'listen'. this would be my first workshop, ever. he says that the groups size, being 12, is small. i've seen others have as many as 25-30 (with an 'assistant'), but does 12 seem about the right size to you? given that you've taken more than me?

lilly

[Peter Lewin]

i've seen others have as many as 25-30 (with an 'assistant'), but does 12 seem about the right size to you? given that you've taken more than me?

I'd say smaller is always better, since you get more interaction with the "named teacher" (in this case Mr. Lough Jr.) rather than with an assistant. I thought a bit after my post, and the only "negative" I saw to this workshop (assuming you will be shooting LF) is that since it is on-site, you won't be able to get a critique of your pictures, while the digital types can at least replay their images (either on camera, or to a laptop). In the Picker workshops we all developed film and made contacts every day, and in Maine their lab staff did this for us, and gave us contacts the next day, which Sally could critique. Both of these workshops were on "campus-like" settings. This isn't a shortcoming specific to the workshop you're looking at, but applies to all on-site workshops, unless they have a lab nearby.

[Justin Black]

All I can say is, beware of "master" photographers who refer to themselves as such, particularly if they don't cite such designation by reputable, knowledgeable and respected sources. Inclusion on the Yahoo "Masters of Photography" list, in my opinion, is not suitable. Master photographers do not pop up out of nowhere. They are eventually recognized after years of exhibition and publication. In other words, the work must be selected as masterful over time.

[Justin Black]

Here's an interesting thread:

http://photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=005EcN

Look for the post by "leanna normine." It is the only post by that user on Photo.net. It appears that LeeAnna Lough is Rodney's wife:

http://portland.ohsohandy.com/a/1202...aphic-designer

She is also his contact at their Oregon gallery. A Google search for LeeAnna Normine
Lough produces a contact in Portland, Oregon. It appears that something fishy went on here. I wonder who Lilly of the Nile is?

[Lilly of the Nile]

All I can say is, beware of "master" photographers who refer to themselves as such, particularly if they don't cite such designation by reputable, knowledgeable and respected sources. Inclusion on the Yahoo "Masters of Photography" list, in my opinion, is not suitable. Master photographers do not pop up out of nowhere. They are eventually recognized after years of exhibition and publication. In other words, the work must be selected as masterful over time.

Justin,

couldn't agree with you more. but....PopPhoto called him that. they also called Clyde Butcher that too. should we ignore what they have to say?

from what i can gather, he's been at it for nearly 15 years full time and is in several museum collections, has done museum shows and has a host of galleries across the country.

no offense, but a search on your name shows that you are the gallery manager for the galen rowell gallery. and galen is listed on that same masters list on Yahoo that you mention; does that mean that galen (IYHO) isn't a master? come on, give the guy some credit will you. you can't have it both ways dude.

as for your second post.....

Here's an interesting thread:

http://photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=005EcN

Look for the post by "leanna normine." It is the only post by that user on Photo.net. It appears that LeeAnna Lough is Rodney's wife:

http://portland.ohsohandy.com/a/1202...aphic-designer

She is also his contact at their Oregon gallery. A Google search for LeeAnna Normine
Lough produces a contact in Portland, Oregon. It appears that something fishy went on here. I wonder who Lilly of the Nile is?

I don't know about this. but i will say your google search is a bit dubious ..... since the reference is from reunion.com???? aren't we reaching here just a bit.

as for me, let me state it once more for those of you who haven't read the prior posts. My name is Lilly Nile, I live in Atlanta - I am no relation to either Clyde Butcher or Rodney Lough Jr.

man, what a group of cynics!

xoxox
lilly

[Justin Black]

Justin,

couldn't agree with you more. but....PopPhoto called him that. they also called Clyde Butcher that too. should we ignore what they have to say?

from what i can gather, he's been at it for nearly 15 years full time and is in several museum collections, has done museum shows and has a host of galleries across the country.

no offense, but a search on your name shows that you are the gallery manager for the galen rowell gallery. and galen is listed on that same masters list on Yahoo that you mention; does that mean that galen (IYHO) isn't a master? come on, give the guy some credit will you. you can't have it both ways dude.

No offense taken in the slightest. My point is that inclusion in the Yahoo "masters" list isn't necessarily a reason to be impressed. Yahoo is not held to any particular standards in terms of who is included. What criteria were used to select the photographers therein? For all we know, a single employee or small group at Yahoo could have cobbled the list together from other existing lists of well-known photographers, adding in photographers whose work they happened to stumble across and personally liked. We also have no idea if it is possible to pay for inclusion on the list. There are many photographers on that list, ranging from acknowledged greats to relatively young photographers. It isn't terribly selective.

Galen's presence on the same list is irrelevant. He had earned his reputation long before Yahoo was even a figment of its founders' imaginations.

as for your second post.....

I don't know about this. but i will say your google search is a bit dubious ..... since the reference is from reunion.com???? aren't we reaching here just a bit.

I don't think so. It seems to me pretty likely that either Rodney or his wife wrote that Photo.net post as a promotional tool, and given the tone of your posts, I think those of us who questioned the authenticty of them have reason to wonder. One person's cynicism can be another's common sense.

[Louie Powell]

Lilly -

Please have a little patience with this crowd - at times it can be a bit cynical. But part of that is justified by the fact that there have been too many instances of stealth postings with hidden agendas.

Your original question was whether anyone had participated in a Rodney Lough workshop, and I don't think anyone here has. I'm sure that there are folks here who have participated in lots of other workshops (in my case, I've done LF workshops with both Tillman Crane and Chip Forelli, and I can enthusiastically recommend both of these guys).

But perhaps we could help you more if you could describe where you are coming from (experience level, etc) and what you are looking for in a workshop. Certainly, if what you want is to be able to emulate Rodney Lough, then taking his workshop might be just fine. But if you are interested in developing your own style and vision, and are searching for a workshop that will help you develop the technical skills at the same time that you try to identify what that vision is, then Lough's program may not be right for you. Also, its quite a trek from Atlanta to where Lough does his work - would you be attracted to something closer to home? For example, Tillman is doing a workshop with Bruce Barnbaum in the Smokey's this summer - that would be more convenient, and working with two different photographers in a single workshop means that you would be less tempted to try to be a clone of one or the other.

You questioned the size of Lough's workshop. In workshops, smaller is always better. Frankly, 12 is a pretty large group and doesn't provide a lot of the individual, one-on-one instruction that makes a workshop really effective.

A question that should always be asked in thinking about a workshop - will the instructor also be photographing? In a LF workshop, there is nothing wrong with having the instructor do demos, but if the instructor is concentrating on his own photography, he is likely to not devote enough time to looking over the shoulders of the students.

Another important question - how is the workshop conducted? Will the instructor give specific assignments? How will the feedback process work? Will you develop your negatives and make proof prints to show to the instructor, or will the instructor go with you to examine how you frame potential subjects and discuss how you decide on exposure on the basis that the negatives will be processed after the workshop?

Final point: you said that Butcher is "considered the B&W master" while Lough is "the color master". These are highly judgmental statements and the person who wrote the PopPhoto article was clearly editorializing. I don't think you will ever get agreement on who is "the master". Surely, both guys are great photographers, but there are lots of others who are just as good - and perhaps even better. Try not to get hung up on who is "the best".

[Lilly of the Nile]

Galen's presence on the same list is irrelevant. He had earned his reputation long before Yahoo was even a figment of its founders' imaginations.

I don't believe this to be true, otherwise it suggests a very real level of duplicity. I still argue that you can't have it both ways. I'm not taking anything away from Galen at all.

One person's cynicism can be another's common sense.

it certainly can.

lilly