FRAGMENT & FLOW: ON PHOTOGRAPHY & NARRATIVE
with Kristine Potter
Date: September 17th, 2025
Time: 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM CT
Early Bird Pricing: $275
Location: Columbia College Chicago Student Center 754 S Wabash Ave
Registration opens May 21st for Filter Photo Members, and May 28th for the general public.
Date: September 17th, 2025
Time: 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM CT
Early Bird Pricing: $275
Location: Columbia College Chicago Student Center 754 S Wabash Ave
Registration opens May 21st for Filter Photo Members, and May 28th for the general public.
Photographs exist as singular moments, but meaning emerges through relationships—between images, between sequences, and between what is seen and what is suggested. This one-day intensive workshop is designed for photographers looking to refine their narrative instincts and strengthen the way their images function in a series. Through critique, discussion, and hands-on sequencing exercises, this workshop will explore how to build rhythm, tension, and meaning within a body of work.
What to Expect:
Critique & Conversation
Participants will bring a selection of images—either from a work in progress or a completed series—for group discussion. Through focused critique, participants will analyze visual and conceptual choices, considering how images interact and what they reveal (or withhold) in sequence.
Lecture: Photography as a Narrative Form
Through examples from Kristine Potter's own work and other artists, students will examine how photographic projects take shape—how meaning is layered through structure, juxtaposition, and omission. Kristine will discuss strategies for editing a series, balancing ambiguity with intent, and allowing images to carry resonance beyond their initial subject.
Hands-On Sequencing & Editing
Through guided exercises, students will explore different ways to organize and refine participants’ images—experimenting with order, pacing, and visual connections to see how meaning shifts in real time.
Considering Text & Context
Captions, titles, and accompanying text can expand, disrupt, or complicate an image’s meaning. Kristine will discuss different approaches to integrating or resisting text, thinking critically about how language interacts with photography.
This workshop is ideal for photographers looking to push their work beyond standalone images toward something more fluid, dynamic, and intentional—whether building a cohesive series, preparing for exhibition, or working toward a book. Participants should bring a set of images suitable for tabletop work. If text is being considered, it should also be available in tabletop-size bits for easy integration into the sequencing process.
About the Instructor
Kristine Potter is an artist whose work explores masculine archetypes, the American landscape, and the cultural tendency to mythologize the past. Her first monograph, Manifest, was published by TBW Books in 2018. She has received numerous national and international awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship (2018), the Grand Prix Image Vevey (2019–2020), and the Hariban Prize (2023). Her second monograph, Dark Waters, was published by Aperture in 2023. Potter's work is included in numerous public and private collections, such as the High Museum of Art, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the Georgia Museum of Art, Light Work, the Swiss Camera Museum, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. She is an Assistant Professor of Photography at Middle Tennessee State University and is represented by Sasha Wolf Projects in New York and MiCamera in Milan.