2024 Workshops

I am teaching two printing workshops in 2024 with Maine Media Workshops, including one brand new one! In July I’m teaching my traditional printing course, The Craft and Art of the Fine Digital Print, and at the end of September/beginning of October, I’m teaching a brand new course called Mastering the Fine Digital Print. This new course is more advanced, covering many topics we do not have time to cover in the first workshop, and the first workshop (or equivalent experience) is thus required to take the advanced course. You can read more about the courses here.

New Online Printing Workshop and March 2021 Update

I hope all are safe and well out there! My operating procedures are still the same as my last post in October but hopefully things will start to change in the coming months. I have new online workshops scheduled with Maine Media, including The Craft and Art of the Fine Digital Print the week of June 7th (five days, via Zoom).

I also have a photography workshop coming up, too. Entitled The Sense of Wonder, it runs one day a week (on Mondays) via Zoom for five weeks - April 26th-May 24th.

"Our Maine" Zoom Artist Talk

Pale Fire, Canto One III

Pale Fire, Canto One III

I’m excited to participate in the Zoom-based artist talk for the “Our Maine” exhibition at Rockland’s Archipelago Gallery. Nickelson Edition clients Lisa Vietze and Olga Merrill will also be included in the talk. You can register for the free event here, and the talk will run from 2-3 pm on July 8th. Without in-person big events like openings on First Friday, this is a nice substitute! And, of course, the gallery is open to visitors and maintaining social distancing guidelines.

Pandemic Update on Workshops

As many of you know, Maine Media Workshops + College has cancelled all on-campus activities through the end of August, which hits a few of my printing workshops. I’ve restructured my class to be taught online (where the students use their own equipment, wherever they are) and will be teaching this new version July 20th-24th. You can read the new course description and schedule here. Hope to see you there, albeit virtually!

My in-person consulting on printing is currently on hiatus, too, because of the pandemic, but I’ve started doing them via Zoom calls now, too. WIth screen sharing available it actually works surprisingly well. If you are interested, please contact me and we’ll figure things out.

Stay safe out there!

Summer 2020 Workshop

My next printing workshop has been posted on Maine Media’s webpage. The weeklong workshop, entitled “The Craft and Art of the Fine Digital Print”, runs from July 19th-July 25th, 2020 (this is in addition to my spring workshop on May 18th-May 22nd, 2020). You can find out more and register at the link above, and please feel free to contact me with any questions.

2017 Workshop with Maine Media Workshops

I'm pleased to announce a week-long workshop of my popular The Craft and Art of the Fine Digital Print course in August. The workshop, offered through Maine Media Workshops, runs from August 20th-26th, 2017.  You can sign up at the Maine Media site, and the course description is below. Please let me know if you have any questions!

The Craft and Art of the Fine Digital Print
In this course, students learn a workflow for creating fine digital prints. The workflow includes digital capture, establishing an artistic intent, digital processing in Adobe Photoshop and/or Lightroom, printing on an inkjet printer, and handling the finished print. Digital processing and printing topics include maximizing image quality at capture, color management, sharpening and noise reduction, black & white printing, proofing, matching screen and print, and making local and global edits to color and tonality. Throughout the course, we will work through images as a class by making a print, evaluating the print, make modifications, to ultimately produce a final print.
We also discuss the qualities and characteristics of a fine print, many of the plethora of options for inks and papers available to today’s printers, and how best to produce a print to realize an artistic vision, including choosing the best paper for a particular project.
Students have the opportunity to examine the challenges of printing on a large scale and to learn a wide range of techniques for maximizing overall print quality and for creating and handling large prints.

Printing Workshop Next Week

I hope summer is treating everyone well! I just wanted to make a quick note that I'm teaching a week-long workshop next week (August 21-27) at Maine Media Workshops. The workshop is called The Craft and Art of the Fine Digital Print, and If you are curious you can find out more here. So, I'll be somewhat out of touch next week but I will try and return any messages as quickly as possible.

Upcoming 2016 Workshops

I'm pleased to announce four fine art printing workshops for 2016, all through Maine Media Workshops in Rockport, ME. My 2-day Advanced Digital Printing Course will run on March 19th-20th, 2016. My week-long course, The Craft and Art of the Fine Digital Print, will run twice also on May 15th-21st and August 21st-27th.

Please let me know if you have any questions about any of the workshops, and I hope to see you there!

Upcoming Workshops

I have four upcoming 2015 printing workshops at Maine Media Workshops in Rockport and since one was just added, I thought that I should update things. If you are interested in signing up, you can do so at their website, and feel free to ask me any questions about the courses.

I'm teaching the Introduction to Digital Printing weekend course on June 6th-7th and I'm teaching the Advanced Digital Printing course May 16th-17th.

I'm teaching the week-long course The Craft and Art of the Fine Digital Print on May 24-30th and August 23rd-29th.

Fine Art Printing Presentation Thursday Night in Topsham

Copyright Jim Nickelson. All Rights Reserved.

Copyright Jim Nickelson. All Rights Reserved.

Thursday night, at 6:30 in Topsham, I’ll be giving a presentation at the First Light Camera Club in Topsham. I hope to see some of you there!

Here’s the press release:

TOPSHAM — First Light Camera Club will host Midcoast fine art photographer Jim Nickelson speaking about The Craft and Art of the Digital Fine Print Thursday, April 10, from 6:30 to 9 p.m. at the Topsham Medical Building, 8 Horton Place.

Nickelson’s presentation will cover a wide variety of considerations when making fine art digital prints of work. Admission to the program is $10, free to FLCC members; membership costs $35 a year and can be purchased at the door.

Nickelson’s talk will focus on several aspects of digital printing including color calibration, paper choice, maximum print size and image preparation. Nickelson will present his philosophies on printing and offer an overview of the steps necessary to make prints match artistic intent. The program also will cover image editing and image interpretation to maximize the potential of final prints. Selecting a home printer and working with custom and online printers will also be covered.

“I consider the fine print to be the whole purpose of photography, even in a world where digital dissemination of images is becoming more and more prevalent,” said Nickelson, proprietor of Nickelson Editions in Camden, a fine art digital printmaking studio that provides custom fine art digital prints for scores of photographers and other artists.

Nickelson works as a full-time fine art photographer and educator specializing in square format landscape, nature and night photography. His photography has received numerous awards and has been exhibited widely in museums and galleries across the United States. His photographic work also resides in several corporate, public and private collections.

Founded in 1990, First Light Camera Club hosts meetings three times per month from September through May, as well as photographic workshops and field trips all year long. Programs include technical nights, image critiques, photo outings, mentoring and guest speakers. Future speakers will focus on Astrophotography, April 24; Digital Image Critiques, May 1; and Paul Cunningham, official photographer for the Freeport Fire Department and other nearby towns, May 8. For more information, visit firstlightcc.com; email info@firstlightcc.com; or call 729-6607.