Fascinating Africa

612 Ocean Street,Santa Cruz CA 95060

01 June, 2023

Description

Join safari leader and conservation photographer Shem Compion and local image maker Mark Overgaard, in their presentations for photographers on using the power of photography to nurture Africa's natural world and empower Africa's peoples. [12:00pm] Meet & Greet w/ lunch: meet the speakers and your fellow attendees, while enjoying a light lunch. Shem's Talk 1 and Talk 2 aim to enable a photographer's images to become more powerful conservation and educational tools. There will be a 15 minute break between these two talks, with coffee, tea and snacks. [12:45pm] Talk 1: Composing for Feel. Often we compose images to "rules". In this talk, Shem explores how we can compose images to evoke emotion and feel. [01:15pm] Talk 2: Constructing an Image with Words. In a portrait of a person or animal, that subject can be considered the verb. In this talk, Shem discusse how to create images that add further "words" to create a more powerful "sentence". [02:00pm] Talk 3: In this presentation about his 2nd generation Eloquent Suri of Ethiopia project, Mark will give special emphasis to the recently launched Suri mother tongue education and literacy initiative, its importance to the Suri, current status, future plans and crucial needs. [03:00pm] Image Review: For each of up to 20 participants, Shem will accept an image and provide comments and suggestions, with live editing in Lightroom, all with the entire audience welcome to observe, enjoy and learn. [05:00pm] Concluding Remarks. About the speakersShem Compion has been photographing for over 23 years. His adventurous life has led him up numerous volcanos, he’s lived in a Landrover for 7 months and built specialised photographic hides, all in pursuit of images of relevance. He shares his passion and experiences with his guests, whom he guides to remote corners of Africa via C4 Photo Safaris. His images have been recognised and published globally and he co-produced an acclaimed documentary, “Zero to Zero”. To date, he has published 7 photography education and conservation books. A native of Africa, Shem is a Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society. For more about Shem and his work, visit his website. Mark Overgaard is a retired technology executive who was born in Thailand of missionary parents, spoke Thai before English, and attended fifteen schools in five countries before college. After those peripatetic early years, Mark settled in California for his professional career. With retirement, he has resumed traveling the world, aiming to experience and record cultural and natural beauty, finding reverence within and beyond, envisioning our shared humanity and fragile natural world. For more about Mark and his work, visit his website, which covers his 1st generation Eloquent Suri project and previews his 2nd generation Eloquent Suri project, starting with the 9-minute short film about the project, which was co-produced by Mark and Shem.