About This Event
A camera is designed to capture reality, but what happens when it begins to reveal something else? In this two-session workshop, artist Centa Schumacher will guide participants in creating custom handmade lens filters that open the door to abstraction, surprise, and new ways of seeing.
By building unique filters for your digital camera, and using them to make photographs, you will explore questions of perception, intuition, and attention. Reflect on how altering your camera’s lens can also transform the way we experience the world around us through experimentation, discussion, and writing.
The first session will introduce abstraction in photography, guide participants in building and testing custom filters using simple materials, and discuss strategies for creating photographs using these handmade tools. Between sessions, participants will complete a photographic assignment using their filters. In the second session, participants will share their images and reflect on what emerged through the process, considering how chance, intuition, and attention can open new ways of understanding and communicating experience.
Skill/Experience Level
Participants should be familiar with basic camera functions, have access to a digital camera (no phones), and feel comfortable downloading images from their camera to a computer.
Schedule
Thursday, August 6, 2026, 6:30-9:30 pm ET
The Lab @ Silver Eye
Introductions, discussion of abstraction in photography. Students build and test filters in class. Students are given an assignment to work on during the week in between classes.
Thursday, August 13 2026, 6:30-9:30 pm ET
The Lab @ Silver Eye
Students share images created with their filters. Through writing and reflection, discuss experiencing the unanticipated.
Register
The two-day workshop registration fee is $120.00.
Register by 5pm on Sunday, August 2!
If you would like to take this workshop and need financial assistance please contact sobia@silvereye.org. A limited number of bursary seats are available.
Instructor Bio:
Centa Schumacher (b. 1986, Fresno, California) is a lens-based artist based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Schumacher has had solo exhibitions at the 707 Gallery and Bunker Projects in Pittsburgh, PA. Her work has also been featured nationally in group exhibitions at Paradice Palase in Brooklyn, NY, Aggregate Space in Oakland, CA, and the Tomayko Foundation in Pittsburgh, PA. Schumacher was the director and co-founder of the art gallery Phosphor Project Space from 2018-2021. She received her MFA from San Francisco State University.
Image credit: Centa Schumacher, Asterisms (11), 2022. Courtesy of the artist
About This Event
A camera is designed to capture reality, but what happens when it begins to reveal something else? In this two-session workshop, artist Centa Schumacher will guide participants in creating custom handmade lens filters that open the door to abstraction, surprise, and new ways of seeing.
By building unique filters for your digital camera, and using them to make photographs, you will explore questions of perception, intuition, and attention. Reflect on how altering your camera’s lens can also transform the way we experience the world around us through experimentation, discussion, and writing.
The first session will introduce abstraction in photography, guide participants in building and testing custom filters using simple materials, and discuss strategies for creating photographs using these handmade tools. Between sessions, participants will complete a photographic assignment using their filters. In the second session, participants will share their images and reflect on what emerged through the process, considering how chance, intuition, and attention can open new ways of understanding and communicating experience.
Skill/Experience Level
Participants should be familiar with basic camera functions, have access to a digital camera (no phones), and feel comfortable downloading images from their camera to a computer.
Schedule
Thursday, August 6, 2026, 6:30-9:30 pm ET
The Lab @ Silver Eye
Introductions, discussion of abstraction in photography. Students build and test filters in class. Students are given an assignment to work on during the week in between classes.
Thursday, August 13 2026, 6:30-9:30 pm ET
The Lab @ Silver Eye
Students share images created with their filters. Through writing and reflection, discuss experiencing the unanticipated.
Register
The two-day workshop registration fee is $120.00.
Register by 5pm on Sunday, August 2!
If you would like to take this workshop and need financial assistance please contact sobia@silvereye.org. A limited number of bursary seats are available.
Instructor Bio:
Centa Schumacher (b. 1986, Fresno, California) is a lens-based artist based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Schumacher has had solo exhibitions at the 707 Gallery and Bunker Projects in Pittsburgh, PA. Her work has also been featured nationally in group exhibitions at Paradice Palase in Brooklyn, NY, Aggregate Space in Oakland, CA, and the Tomayko Foundation in Pittsburgh, PA. Schumacher was the director and co-founder of the art gallery Phosphor Project Space from 2018-2021. She received her MFA from San Francisco State University.
Image credit: Centa Schumacher, Asterisms (11), 2022. Courtesy of the artist