The left photo is from the book Saving Body & Soul, The Mission of Mary Jo Copeland. Photographs by Keri Pickett with essays and interviews by Margaret Nelson (Random House, 2004). Right photo by Michal Daniel.

Renowned photographers, book artist to present at symposium, conduct workshop

Photographers Michal Daniel and Keri Pickett, with book artist Paulette Myers-Rich, will give presentations at the Documentary Photography Symposium at the College of St. Catherine. Daniel and Myers-Rich will conduct the Knife River Weekend Workshop at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts.

Documentary Photography Symposium

This year's ninth annual Documentary Photography Symposium theme is "The BOOK." Featured presenters will be Michal Daniel and Keri Pickett, photographers, and Paulette Myers-Rich, book artist. The moderator will be Hilary Reeves, managing director of Milkweed Editions,

Free and open to the public, the symposium will be held at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 17, in Room 102, Visual Arts Building Lecture Hall, at the College of St. Catherine, 2004 Randolph Ave., St. Paul. (See St. Catherine's campus map.)

The symposium's sponsors are: College of St. Catherine Department of Art and Art History, Knife River Photography Workshops, University of St. Thomas O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library Center and the UST departments of Art History, Journalism and Mass Communication, College of Arts and Sciences Office of the Dean, and University Relations.

Knife River Photography Weekend Workshop

"Making Photo Books," a Knife River Photography Weekend Workshop held in conjunction with the Documentary Photography Symposium, will take place from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, April 19, and from noon to 5 p.m. Sunday, April 20, at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, located in the Open Book Building, 1011 Washington Ave. S., Suite 100, downtown Minneapolis. Workshop instructors are photographer, Michal Daniel, and book artist, Paulette Myers-Rich.

Cost of the workshop is $175; cost for students is $100.

To register, contact Mark Jensen, (612) 824-7621.

This workshop covers the issues involved in creating a book from start to finish. The focus will be on the process, including parameters of editing and sequencing a series of photographs to use in the book layout.

Whether created as a mock-up for editorial review, for use in on-demand printing, or creating the book as an original work of art in itself, participants will gain an insight into the considerations of preparing a body of work for various book formats, printing and publication. Participants are asked to bring paper copies of their images to use in workshop exercises.

More about Daniel, Myers-Rich, Pickett and Reeves

Daniel: Well known for his theater photography, Daniel is a street photographer and makes his living creating entertainment images. His books are available on the Blurb Web Web site, an on-demand publishing site. Proofsheet.com is Daniel's growing online archive, now one of the largest individual collections of theater images on the Web.

Myers-Rich is the proprietor of Traffic Street Press and she has been making fine press artists' photo book works for 20 years. Meyers-Rich was given the Minnesota Book Award for Fine Press in 2000 and 2006 and a Minnesota State Arts Board fellowship for photography in 2006. She teaches classes and workshops at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts and the College of Visual Arts and is a graduate program mentor at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Her work is collected nationally and internationally. She lives and works in St. Paul.

Pickett: Widely published, Pickett's photography appears in the books: Saving Body and Soul: The Mission of Mary Jo Copeland, photographs by Pickett, essays and interviews by Margaret Nelson (WaterBrook/Random House, 2004); Faeries: Visions, Voices and Pretty Dresses (Aperture Books, 2000); and Love in the 90s: B.B. and Jo – The Story of a Lifelong Love, A Granddaughter's Portrait (Warner Books, 1995). Pickett has received numerous grants and fellowships for her photography, including the Bush Foundation Artist Fellowship, two Jerome Foundation Grants, and three McKnight Foundation Photography Fellowships. See her photo gallery on Pickett's Web site.

Reeves is managing director of Milkweed Editions. Milkweed's mission statement says that it "publishes with the intention of making a humane impact on society, in the belief that literature is a transformative art uniquely able to convey the essential experiences of the human heart and spirit." To that end, Milkweed publishes distinctive voices of literary merit in handsomely designed, visually dynamic books, exploring the ethical, cultural, and esthetic issues that free societies need continually to address. Visit the Milkweed Editions Web site.

Questions? Contact Mark Jensen, (612) 824-7621.