Silver Eye

This workshop invites participants into a slow photographic practice shaped by sustained looking, ritual, and return. Framed around the idea of attention as devotion, the workshop asks what it means to remain with a place or subject over time.

Participants will explore slowness as a method of seeing. Through repetition, simple constraints, and rhythmic engagement, attention becomes an active practice shaped by intention and duration. Rather than seeking decisive moments or singular images, the workshop emphasizes continuity, subtle change, and the quiet transformations that unfold through long-term engagement.

Repetition and ritual offers gentle structures throughout the workshop. Participants may return to the same site, work at the same hour, or follow a repeated gesture or path. These practices invite intuition to deepen, allowing familiarity to open new perceptions. Group meetings center on selected readings, artist references, and discussion. Individual feedback sessions will focus on conversation around participant work.

Skill/Experience Level

Participants should have a good understanding of photographic production and be prepared to engage with specific lines of inquiry within their practice. No specific background in art theory or photographic history is required.

Schedule

Week 1: Tuesday July 14, 6.30-8.30pm ET
Introduction to Attention as Devotion
Instructor presentation
Reading assignment 1

Week 2: Tuesday July 21, 6.30-8.30pm ET
Group Discussion
Breakout sessions - Reading discussion
Project assignment
Reading assignment 2

Week 3: Tuesday July 28, 6.30-8.30pm ET
Writing
Participants present project ideas
Group discussion

Week 4: Tuesday August 4, 6.30-8.30pm ET
Individual meetings

Week 5: Tuesday August 11, 6.30-8.30pm ET
Participant final work presentations + Discussion

Register

The five week course registration fee is $300.00.

If you would like to take this workshop and need financial assistance please contact info@silvereye.org. A limited number of bursary seats are available.

Participating Artist

1. Sobia Ahmad’s interdisciplinary practice explores the transcendental power of everyday experiences, objects, and rituals through photography, time-based media, and social engagement.

   Ahmad earned an MFA from Carnegie Mellon University (2024) and a BA in Studio Art and a BS in Community Health from the University of Maryland, College Park (2016, 2015). Her work has been exhibited internationally at institutions and festivals including the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Silver Eye Center for Photography, Craft Contemporary, and Beijing International Short Film Festival.

   Ahmad’s work has been supported by Washington Project for the Arts’ Wherewithal Project and Research Grants (2026, 2025) and The Pittsburgh Foundation’s Exposure Artist Grant (2024–2025). She is a recipient of Silver Eye Center for Photography’s 2025 Keystone Award, has attended SOMA Summer in Mexico City (2024) and Halcyon Arts Lab (2019–2020), and is a current Hamiltonian Artists Fellow in Washington, DC (2024–2026).