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.

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.

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