One-on-One Mentoring
Mary Beth Meehan
Dudley M. Brooks
Ed Kashi
Amber Bracken
SDN is now a one-on-one mentoring program to provide guidance, support, and critique over six hours with leading photography practitioners. Currently we are offering separate mentorships with Mary Beth Meehan, Dudley M. Brooks, Ed Kashi, and Amber Bracken
Cost of mentorship: $850
Fee covers six one-hour sessions with mentor as well as time mentor spends reviewing work in preparation for meetings.
Additional one-hour sessions available for $150 after initial mentorship.
Mary Beth Meehan
Getting to the Finish Line: One-on-One Mentorship on Your Long-Term Project
This one-on-one mentorship is designed to support photographers engaged in long-term projects who may be facing conceptual or creative challenges. Whether you're struggling to maintain focus, unsure how to translate your ideas into compelling images, or simply feeling disconnected from your own work, this mentorship offers a structured, supportive environment to get you back on track.
Mary Beth Meehan has spent the past thirty years producing photographic projects that have reflected the complexity of American life. From her native New England to the Deep South and Silicon Valley, she has conceptualized, produced, and brought her work into the world in innovative ways.
One of her passions is to help other photographers to do the same.
In this one-on-one mentorship opportunity, Mary Beth will meet with you to understand your project and goals, review the work you’ve done so far, identify strengths and potential new directions, and explore strategies for visualizing your ideas and deepening your visual narrative. She will help you edit your work into a coherent package for presentation for publication or exhibition.
Working together, through thoughtful dialogue and tailored guidance, this mentorship aims to help you reconnect with your original vision—or discover a new one—and move forward with renewed clarity and creative energy.
Bio
Mary Beth Meehan is a photographer, writer, and educator who uses images, text, exhibitions, and public installations to bring people together in the search for common ground. Her portraiture and community collaborations have challenged dominant narratives across racial, cultural, and social boundaries, addressing often fraught public dialogue with powerful imagery, personal backstories and tender archival material that lend an essential layer of humanity, insight, and care. Trained as a photojournalist, Meehan reckons with the limits of photography and yet continually sees the potential of visual art to help us uncover our social conditioning and unlock a path to greater understanding. Meehan has held artist residencies at Stanford University, Brown University, the University of West Georgia, and the University of Missouri School of Journalism, and has lectured at the School of Visual Arts, the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, and the Missouri Photo Workshop. Meehan’s work has been featured and reviewed in publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Los Angeles Review of Books and Le Monde. A native of Brockton, Massachusetts, Mary Beth received a Master of Arts Degree in photojournalism at the University of Missouri, Columbia. She lives in Providence, Rhode Island.
Major projects:
See more of Meehan’s work at www.marybethmeehan.com
Option to pay 25% deposit now with balance due one week before course starts.
Dudley M. Brooks
Perserverance and Planning: 1 on 1 Mentorship with Ed Kashi.
Powerful photography doesn’t just happen by accident and making a lasting statement with your work takes perseverance and planning. I’m very familiar with that journey and I am eager to help you succeed with yours. From photojournalism and social documentary projects to conceptual portraiture and illustrative magazine production, I’ve successfully covered a lot of ground as a photographer, producer, and editor. As a mentor, I will draw on this background to help develop your own voice as a visual artist and uncover your unique vision that you can offer this world. I enjoy being a supportive advisor and coach who can help raise the proficiency of your own visual endeavors and your confidence to create them. Let’s get started.
Bio
Dudley M. Brooks is the former Deputy Director of Photography for The Washington Post, where he forged the creative strategy and production of photography for the Features, Local and Sports departments. Before its discontinuance in December of 2022, he was also the Photo Editor of The Washington Post Magazine. Prior to this, he was the Director of Photography for the monthly magazine Ebony and Senior Photo Editor for its weekly sister periodical Jet - both formerly published by Johnson Publishing Company in Chicago. These iconic publications chronicled the African American experience for nearly eight decades and Brooks was a key member of the senior staff responsible for redefining their brand (2007-2014). His photojournalism career began in 1981 as a staff photographer for the Rockford Register Star newspaper in northern Illinois. Two years later, he joined the photography staff at The Washington Post, where he received numerous honors for his comprehensive and international work as a photographer. In 2005 he became the Assistant Managing Editor of Photography at The Baltimore Sun newspaper. Brooks was also the co-creator/director of the landmark international photo exhibition and best-selling book Songs of My People: African Americans – A Self-Portrait (sponsored by Time-Warner and published by Little-Brown, 1992).
Option to pay 25% deposit now with balance due one week before course starts.
Ed Kashi
Empowering Photographers: One-on-One Mentorship with Ed Kashi.
I take on issues that stir my passions about the state of humanity and our world, and I deeply believe in the power of still images to change people’s minds. I’m driven by this fact: that the work of photojournalists and documentary photographers can have a positive impact on the world. The access people give to their lives is precious as well as imperative for this important work to get done. Their openness brings with it a tremendous sense of responsibility to tell the truth but to also honor their stories.
—Ed Kashi
Ed will work on any issues that a photographer wants to bring to the table--except how to use your digital camera. Are you starting a new project and want help fine-tuning the concept and approach? Need feedback on your shooting and processing style? Want to focus on how to get your work out in the world? Develop your portfolio? Fine tune your professional practices? Ed has successfully navigated all of these issues and more during his 40 years as an editorial, documentary, and fine art photographer, and he is eager to work with emerging and established photographers to help them succeed.
Bio
Ed Kashi is a renowned photojournalist, filmmaker, speaker and educator who has been making images and telling stories for 40 years. His restless creativity has continually placed him at the forefront of new approaches to visual storytelling. Dedicated to documenting the social and political issues that define our times, a sensitive eye and an intimate and compassionate relationship to his subjects are signatures of his intense and unsparing work. As a member of VII Photo, Kashi has been recognized for his complex imagery and its compelling rendering of the human condition.
Along with numerous awards from World Press Photo, POYi, CommArts and American Photography, Kashi’s images have been published and exhibited worldwide. His editorial assignments and personal projects have generated fourteen books.
In 2002, Kashi in partnership with his wife, writer + filmmaker Julie Winokur, founded Talking Eyes Media. The non-profit company has produced numerous award-winning short films, exhibits, books, and multimedia pieces that explore significant social issues.
Learn more about Kashi at www.edkashi.com
Option to pay 25% deposit now with balance due one week before course starts.
Amber Bracken
Real World Tools for Documentary and Editorial Photographers
Bio
A lifelong Albertan, Amber Bracken photographs primarily across western North America to represent the global issues in her own backyard. Her work explores intersections of race, environment, culture and colonization. She specializes in invested relationship based and historically contextualized storytelling that centres people in their own stories. Recent work has focused on intergenerational trauma in Cree youth, Wet'suwet'en reoccupation and land rights fights, the overrepresentation of un-housed Indigenous people displaced in their historic territories, and interrogating the impact of race in her own family. Select clients include National Geographic, The Globe and Mail, The Wall Street Journal, BuzzFeed, Maclean's, ESPN, and The New York Times. Select recognition includes The World Press, The Marty Forscher Fellowship and an ICP Infinity Award. In 2022, Amber’s photo of the Kamloops Residential School in Canada won the World Press Photo Picture of the Year award. www.amberbracken.com
Learn more about Backen at www.amberbracken.com
Option to pay 25% deposit now with balance due one week before course starts.
Questions
Contact: info@socialdocumentary.net
Payment and Cancellation Policies
