This three-day intensive workshop with artist and bookmaker Christian Patterson invites photographers with developing projects to explore the book form as a site of experimentation, structure, and meaning. Participants will bring bodies of work in progress, not finished book projects, and will engage in exercises that expand how images relate, sequence, and accumulate narrative and rhythm across pages.

Through illustrated presentations, group discussions, and hands-on work, Patterson will share his own process of translating photographic ideas into material form. Drawing from his acclaimed publications Redheaded Peckerwood, Bottom of the Lake, and Gong Co., he will guide participants through strategies for editing, sequencing, pacing, and designing images into a coherent visual language. Attention will also be given to the physical and conceptual qualities of materials, how size, proportion, and design decisions shape the emotional and narrative flow of a book.

The workshop prioritizes process over product. Participants will work directly with prints, paper, tape, and glue to create rudimentary dummies that test possibilities for their projects. The goal is to develop a deeper understanding of structure and to leave with a clearer sense of how one’s work might evolve toward book form.

Schedule:

January 30 (3–8 pm): Introductions, presentation on methodology, and group discussion of participant projects. Dinner included.

January 31 (10 am–6 pm): Hands-on editing and sequencing exercises using printed images. Lunch included.

February 1 (10 am–6 pm): Layout and dummy-building session; concluding critique and discussion of next steps. Lunch included.

Christian Patterson is considered one of the most influential photographic bookmakers of the past 15 years. His books include Redheaded Peckerwood (2012 Recontres d’Arles Author Book Award), Bottom of the Lake (2015 Paris Photo/Aperture Photobook Award Shortlist), and Gong Co. (2025 Recontres d’Arles Author Book Award Shortlist). 

Patterson is a 2013 Guggenheim Fellow, winner of the 2015 Vevey International Photography Award, and a 2025 Pollock-Krasner Foundation grantee. He is represented by Rose Gallery in Santa Monica and Robert Morat in Berlin.