Lessons sixteen to twenty, live on Zoom
Fine Art Photography Masterclass
The last five lessons, where a run of strong images becomes a portfolio prepared for exhibition. You finish with a body of work you could hang, and the techniques to keep making more of it.
- Course fee
- $2,500
- Dates
- 15 April to 1 July 2027
- When
- Thursdays, 3pm to 5.30pm
South African time, GMT+2 - Class size
- Eight places
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Martin's students, now established photographic artists
Every one of them came up this path, and every one of them finished the Masterclass. Their work has been exhibited, and they now help mentor the photographers coming up behind them.
You will be taken to artphotographyacademy.com
What you learn
Five lessons, then four weeks alone with the work
Each lesson is a live Zoom session with time to work, and an assignment to carry out before the next one. The breaks are deliberate. These processes need bench time and they cannot be rushed through in consecutive weeks.
Deconstructed photo collage and storyboards
Cut a photograph apart and build a story out of the pieces, working to a storyboard so the sequence carries meaning rather than just filling a frame.
Surreal art with still life and 3D elements
Front projection and constructed still life, where objects you place yourself start arguing with the photograph behind them.
Pop art
Flat colour, repetition and hard edges, used deliberately rather than as an effect.
Flow art and graphic thread art
Fluid mediums and line work drawn back into the surface, so the picture holds a movement the camera never saw.
Advanced image transfer and metallic leafing
Lifting an image off its paper and laying it onto another surface, then gold and metal leaf worked into the result.
Four weeks to build the final portfolio
From 3 June the teaching stops and the making begins. Four clear weeks to shoot, print, sequence and live with the work before anybody else sees it.
Final Portfolio Evaluation and Debrief, Thursday 1 July
Everyone's portfolio goes up on screen and we work out, out loud, what holds together as a body of work and what is a lovely picture from a different story. You leave knowing exactly what you have and what it still needs.
What you leave with
A fine art photography portfolio, prepared for exhibition
A gallery does not exhibit a photograph. It exhibits a body of work. So does a curator, and so does every competition worth entering. This is the course where you stop having good individual images and start having a portfolio that argues one thing.
Selection
Choosing the three to seven images that belong together, and being honest about the strong picture that belongs to a different story.
Sequence
The order work is hung in changes what it says. We work out the run, and where it opens and closes.
Print and presentation
Paper, size, framing and finish, because a photograph printed and framed is an object somebody can want, and a file is not.
Saying what it is
An artist statement that sounds like you and not like a catalogue, and the words to talk about your own work in a room.
How to exhibit your photography, in seven steps. Free on YouTube, no sign up, nothing gated.
Jump straight to the part you came for.
Featured artist, and a Masterclass graduate
Thuan Anh Nguyen
Maryland, United States
A photographer who works the way a painter works, in veils. Light arrives as revelation and as concealment at the same time, and what she leaves out of a picture matters as much as what she keeps in. She came all the way up this path and graduated from the Masterclass, and A Veil of Colour is exactly what this page means by a body of work, four pieces that argue one thing.
You will be taken to artphotographyacademy.com
Where this path leads
Every Creative Advisor at the Academy finished this course
The Creative Advisors are the artists who came through this programme, exhibited their work, and now mentor the people coming up behind them. They are not a marketing panel. The Art Photography Academy defines the title plainly, and the definition is the point.
Our creative advisors are accomplished members of the Art Photography Academy who completed the Masterclass programme with Martin Osner, and who are currently producing work of a genuine exhibition standard.
Painters, embroiderers, wax workers, collagists. Every one of them started at Getting Started in Art Photography and came up this same ladder, and every one is now in the community answering questions for the people coming up behind them.
Examples from the Masterclass
Some of the work completed on this course
Twelve examples of the kind of work achieved on the Masterclass. Every one of these pieces has been exhibited. Click any one to see it a little larger.
In their own words
Two of them, talking about what changed
No script and no prompting. Both had been photographing for years before they came, and both went all the way through to Masterclass level.
David Schlosser
Essex Fells, United States
I recently started selling. From the techniques I learned in the course, which I was not expecting to do.
5 minutes
Tara Crossley
Rome, Italy
Maybe the most surprising thing was that I can do it too. That I can make beautiful art as well.
9 minutes
Where this sits
This is the fourth step of four
The Masterclass picks up at lesson sixteen. It is not a standalone course and it is not meant to be. Every Creative Advisor on the Academy came up in this order.
Step one
Get Started in Art Photography
The first five lessons. Where photography stops being a record and starts being a medium.
$690, self paced, begins today
Step two
Going Further in Art Photography
Lessons six to ten. Eight techniques in abstraction, texture and distortion.
$690, self paced
Step three
Next Level Fine Art
Lessons eleven to fifteen, live with Martin, ending in a themed portfolio.
$2,500 live on Zoom, January to March 2027
Step four, you are here
Fine Art Photography Masterclass
Lessons sixteen to twenty, where the portfolio is prepared to leave the house.
$2,500 live on Zoom, April to July 2027
You will be taken to artphotographyacademy.com
Martin Osner teaches every session himself Forty years behind the camera and twenty five of them teaching. No assistant, no guest tutor. Every critique comes from him, on your own pictures.
Within the next two years this course is going to the Art Photography Academy as a self paced online option, and it will cost a fraction of this. We would rather you knew that up front. What a recording cannot do is watch you get a process wrong on a Thursday afternoon and tell you why, or put your half finished portfolio on screen in front of seven other people making the same decisions. While it runs live, it is $2,500 per person.
Dates and booking
Eight places, April to July 2027
All sessions 3pm to 5.30pm South African time, GMT+2. Assignment breaks on 29 April, 20 May and 27 May, and four clear weeks from 3 June to build the final portfolio.
$2,500
per person, for the whole programme
- A recording of every session, kept in your course library
- Separate step by step technique videos for each process
- Feedback on your assignment work every week, on your own images
- Lifetime access to everything in the library
- A class of eight, so your work comes up every single week
Opens the booking form in a new tab. Deposit or full payment, by transfer, card or PayPal.
Before you pay, please read our cancellation policy. It sets out the deposit, what comes back if you need to cancel, and the three ways round it.
Questions
The things people ask before they book
Do I need to have done Next Level first?
Yes. This starts at lesson sixteen and it assumes lessons one to fifteen are behind you. The techniques build directly on them and the portfolio work assumes you already have a body of images to select from.
How long does it run?
Eleven weeks of teaching, from 15 April to 3 June 2027, with two assignment breaks built in. Then four weeks with no class at all, to make the final portfolio work. The evaluation and debrief is on 1 July.
How many people are in the class?
Eight. Small enough that your work goes up on screen every week and gets talked about properly.
What if I miss a session?
Every session is recorded and goes into your course library, usually the same day. There are separate technique videos for each process as well, so nothing depends on catching it live.
Will this course be available online?
Yes, in time. Within the next two years it is going to the Art Photography Academy as a self paced course. Until then it only runs live, and while it runs live it is $2,500 per person.
What do I actually walk away with?
A portfolio prepared for exhibition, and the five techniques that made it. From there, most people are showing work. Every Creative Advisor at the Academy came out of this course.
If your question is not here, write to learnphotography@martinosner.com and a person will answer it.
Before you go
There is an artist in everyone
That is not a slogan, it is what nineteen people proved by finishing this programme. If you are not ready to book, say what you have done so far and send a few pictures, and we will tell you honestly whether this is your next step or whether it is not yet.