Photography Workshop: Catherine Opie

In the seventh installment of The Photography Workshop Series, Catherine Opie—well known for dynamic portraits and landscapes that speak to identity and community—offers insight into creating photographs that navigate the contemporary landscape, as well as the landscape of the body and constructed identity.

Aperture Foundation works with the world’s top photographers to distill their creative approaches to, teachings on, and insights into photography—offering the workshop experience in a book. Our goal is to inspire photographers of all levels who wish to improve their work, as well as readers interested in deepening their understanding of the art of photography. Through images and words, in this volume Catherine Opie shares her creative process and discusses a wide range of issues, from representing subcultures and marginalized communities, to making confrontational work that reimagines and subverts expectations.

Catherine Opie (born in Sandusky, Ohio, 1961) is the Lynda and Stewart Resnick Endowed Chair in Art and professor of photography at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her work is held in over fifty major institutional collections throughout the world. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art Medal, and United States Artists Fellowship.