MJ Sharp Open Studio Tour

RCWMS Artist in Residence MJ Sharp will lead a hands-on demonstration of a variety of vintage cameras and share the role they have each played in her artistic journey over the past decades. Photography is an art form in which, increasingly, you can make a picture when you didn’t mean to — accidentally pressing a button on your phone, for example. While serendipity is also part of the most affecting images from stand-alone cameras, preparedness and skill and a spirit of technical exploration are also required. Older cameras, due to their technical complexity, provide the photographer useful constraints to either embrace or press against, and without question, the successful picture will still be a surprise of the combination of the photographer’s intent and the camera’s nature.

Pictured: Dark Dill, from an 8×10 bellows camera

Leader: A photographic artist and educator based in Durham, North Carolina, MJ was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Exeter, UK, for the 2021–2022 academic year pursuing the art/science collaboration Our Disappearing Darkness and Recreating True Night with nocturnal ecologist Dr. Kevin Gaston. Learn more about MJ and her work here.

Cost: $10. Space limited. Proceeds to benefit RCWMS

Register  below.