*NEW* The Philosophy of Photography: Moving Beyond the Mastery of Technique
This five-week course invites photographers of all levels to explore photography as more than a technical skill. Drawing on the Nalanda Miksang approach, we will consider how awareness, perception, and presence shape the images we make. You can master your camera and still miss the photograph. Here, the emphasis shifts from controlling the image to truly seeing what is before you.
Location: 251 N Spruce St. Winston-Salem, NC 27101 United States
Room: Flex / Conference Room - 214
Level: Beginner to Advanced
Date: 7/6/2026-8/3/2026
Time: 6:30 PM-8:00 PM EDT on Mon
To Register: sawtooth.org
Fee $145.00
Member Fee $130.50
*NEW* Light and Line: A Photo–Poetry Workshop
This five-week course invites photographers and writers into a creative dialogue between image and word. Through the pairing of original photographs with original poetry, we will explore how seeing and language can inform and deepen one another. A photograph may reveal something a poem cannot, and a poem may give voice to what an image only suggests. Together, they open a richer field of expression.
Location: 251 N Spruce St. Winston-Salem, NC 27101 United States
Room: Flex / Conference Room - 214
Level: Beginner to Advanced
Date: 7/7/2026-8/4/2026
Time: 6:30 PM-8:00 PM EDT on Tue
To Register: sawtooth.org
Fee $145.00
Member Fee $130.50
Child's Play: Reclaiming Curiosity Through Photography
Class Description
This four-week course invites photographers of all levels to rediscover the spirit of child’s play through the camera. As children, we moved through the world with curiosity, spontaneity, and a natural delight in what we saw. We didn’t worry about getting it “right.” We simply looked, explored, and responded. Over time, that openness can give way to habit, judgment, and the pressure to produce something worthy. This course offers a return—to a way of seeing that is light, curious, and alive.
Location: 114 W 30th Street Ste 200 Winston-Salem, NC 27105 United States
Room: Generations Ctr. Conference Room - 602
Level: Beginner
Date: 8/13/2026-9/3/2026
Time: 10:00 AM-11:30 AM EDT on Th
To Register: sawtooth.org
Fee $120.00
Member Fee $108.00
Ten Breaths, Ten Ways of Seeing
Ten Breaths, Ten Ways of Seeing: A Contemplative Photography Course
6:30-8:00 PM
Intergenerational Center for Arts & Wellness
Course Description
This four-week contemplative photography course invites participants to slow down, rediscover everyday beauty, and recover a sense of childlike wonder, curiosity, and awe. Using Glen Schneider’s Ten Breaths to Happiness as a gentle guiding framework, the class explores how attention, gratitude, and presence can be cultivated through the simple act of seeing. Photography in this course is not about technique or “getting the shot.” It is about learning to receive images—about noticing what is already here and allowing ordinary moments to become quietly luminous. Any camera, including a smartphone, is welcome. No prior experience is needed
The Practice of Gratitude
The Practice of Gratitude: A Contemplative Photography Course
Sawtooth School for Visual Art
6:30-8:00 PM
Course Description
What we repeatedly notice, we strengthen. This contemplative photography course invites participants to use the camera as a daily practice of gratitude and attention. Through simple, gentle photographic assignments, students will create one image each day of something they are grateful for—something that nourishes, supports, or quietly holds their life. Research in psychology and neuroscience suggests that gratitude practices can help rewire the brain, softening habitual patterns of anxiety, worry, and negativity. This five-week course approaches that insight not as self-improvement, but as training in attention: learning to notice what is already here, what is already sustaining us. In contemplative photography, the camera becomes a form of meditation. The lens always looks in two directions—toward the world, and toward the one who is choosing to notice. Over time, these images become both a record of gratitude and a quiet portrait of what gives our lives meaning. A smartphone camera is more than sufficient. No prior photography experience is necessary.
Photographing What We Value
Sawtooth School for Visual Art 6:30-8:00 PM
Photographing What We Value: A Contemplative Photography Course
Course Description
What do we truly value—and how do our values shape what we see? This contemplative photography course invites participants to use the camera not as a tool for performance or self-expression, but as a practice of attention. In photography, the lens always looks in two directions: toward the world, and toward the one who is choosing, pausing, and saying this matters. In this sense, every photograph is also a kind of self-portrait—it reveals our patterns of attention, what we linger with, and what we cannot walk past. Rather than illustrating abstract ideas, participants will learn to notice how values quietly appear in ordinary moments, spaces, and relationships. A smartphone camera is more than sufficient. No prior experience is necessary.