Light and Line: A Photo–Poetry Workshop
Class - Photography | Registration opens 5/12/2026 9:00 AM EDT
This five-week course invites photographers and writers into a creative dialogue between image and word. Through the pairing of original photographs with original poetry, we will explore how seeing and language can inform and deepen one another. A photograph may reveal something a poem cannot, and a poem may give voice to what an image only suggests. Together, they open a richer field of expression.
Using a contemplative, Miksang-inspired approach to image-making, students will create photographs grounded in presence, clarity, and direct perception, while also exploring poetic forms that arise from those same moments of awareness. In-class prompts and out-of-class explorations will support both intuitive image-making and authentic poetic expression, allowing images and words to meet—sometimes in harmony, sometimes in tension—to create something new.
Open to beginners and experienced photographers and writers alike, this course welcomes any camera and any level of familiarity with poetry. What matters most is a willingness to look closely, listen deeply, and trust your own creative voice as it emerges across both mediums.
Timothy Auman
I am an ordained lay Buddhist, certified mindfulness teacher, and former university chaplain dedicated to the application of Taoist and Zen thought to the issues of everyday life. As a visual artist, my approach to photography focuses on learning (or perhaps we could say re-learning) how to see. My work is influenced by the Miksang (the Tibetan word for “good eye”) movement, having studied with John McQuade and Miriam Hall for many years. In contemplative photography, we focus on taking the time to actually see, to become aware of and present with what is actually happening in the phenomenal world, and then create an equivalent image with our camera. The main difference between Miksang Contemplative Photography and other forms of photography is that Miksang is based on clear perception before an overlay of thoughts, interpretations, preferences, story lines, likes and dislikes, what we think might make a good image and so forth arise. Meditation, dharma teachings and contemplation are woven into all I teach. If you want to know more about contemplative photography, please sign up for a class.