Workshops
An unparalleled opportunity to celebrate the river, learn about river photography, and spend time with other river enthusiasts
When we first arrive, we will spend time talking about the river and some aspects of its past, present, and future. Safi, Peter, and Fred will share suggestions for photographing it and Tilly will invite you to consider becoming an LA River X guest host. As you walk around making photographs the team will be with you to answer any questions. Peter and Safi can help you with any challenging shots you want to try. Whether you know the river intimately or will be visiting for the first time, these free workshops are an incredible opportunity, designed for people at all levels of photography skills and confidence. The Sepulveda Basin workshop is facilitated by Safi, Fred and Tilly, then the Glendale Narrows workshop is facilitated by Peter, Safi and Tilly.
At each workshop, we will walk along soft-bottomed sections of the river, where there is less concrete and more opportunity for nature to thrive. You'll see vegetation (native and invasive) and sometimes some good bird activity including great blue herons, egrets, cormorants, stilts, ducks, and Canada geese.
You can anticipate uneven surfaces, sloped banks, glary and hot sunlight, and quite a lot of walking and standing around. This is an urban landscape, so be prepared for trash and pollution (witnessing it may inspire you to become a champion of revitalizing the river!). Given LA's homelessness crisis, you may see people living by the river. Please treat any people or encampments you encounter with appropriate kindness and respect.
If you have accessibility needs, we'll do our very best to accommodate you or provide an alternative, so long as we have ample advance notice. Please provide details on the registration form.
The Sepulveda Basin and Glendale Narrows locations offer very different visual experiences and have different facilitators - so we invite you to consider attending both!
The online session is an opportunity for anyone who attended one or both workshops to share a few of their favorite photos created at the river, to see each other's work, and to have more time with Safi, Peter, Fred and Tilly for questions and discussion.
Meet Peter
Peter Bennett has been a successful travel and environmental photographer for over 25 years. In 2015 he formed Citizen of the Planet, LLC, devoted exclusively to the distribution of his stories and work that focus on a variety of environmental subjects. Over the years Peter has worked with numerous local environmental organizations including FoLAR, Heal the Bay, Tree People, Algalita, Communities for a Better Environment, and the LA Conservation Corps. Peter has been an instructor since 2010 at the Los Angeles Center of Photography (formally the Julia Dean Photo Workshops) and led the Los Angeles River Photo Adventure Workshop for many years. Peter’s photography emerges from his fascination with observing change. The LA River has proven an ideal petri dish for exploring and documenting, with its constant movement and flow. This has kept the River an engaging subject for Peter since 2008, capturing beautiful landscapes, majestic historic bridges, exquisite still lifes, and enticing glimpses of the river’s wildlife and many recreational activities. Through his blog, shows, workshops, and an upcoming book, Peter is a key player in transforming the perception of the river as a fenced-off concrete channel movie backdrop to the iconic and accessible centerpiece it is becoming for our precious city.
His LA River X takeover shares some of his intimate and iconic images of the river and its advocates and fans.
See Peter's takeover in the Western Water Archives.
Follow Peter on Instagram.
Meet Safi
Safi Alia Shabaik, known by her moniker flashbulbfloozy, is a Los Angeles based interdisciplinary artist working in photography, collage, sculpture, and experimental video. She discovered her visual voice at an early age and later attended UCLA, earning her B.A. in Fine Art with honors. Under the mentorship of Catherine Opie, she learned the art of large-scale color printing in Opie’s custom-built darkrooms. Upon moving to New York, Safi became fashion stylist, photographic documentarian, personal assistant, travel companion, and confidante to the legendary icon Ms. Grace Jones, in her personal and public lives. Safi’s photographic work explores identity, persona, transformation, daily life, and the humanity of all people. Her subject matter spans the self, family, street life, fringe culture, and counterculture – people who push their bodies to extremes and challenge societal norms. Safi exhibits her work nationally and has been featured in numerous publications including The New York Times, Black + White Photography, Lenscratch, Alta Journal, The Advocate, and in Grace Jones’s book: I’ll Never Write My Memoirs. Safi has been featured on The Candid Frame (episode 465). Her work has earned her recognition in PhotoLucida's Critical Mass Top 50 and as the first recipient of the Las Fotos Project Foto Award for Self-Expression, presented by the Photographic Arts Council Los Angeles. In collaboration with the Parkinson’s Foundation, Safi is the recipient of a Visual Arts grant from the National Endowment of the Arts. She is a founding member and the moderator of the Los Angeles Street Collective. A lover of the human form, the artist is also an award-winning mortician.
Her LA River X takeover brimmed with unexpected moments: beautiful, poignant, instructive, curious, and attentive.
See Safi's takeover in the Western Water Archives.
Follow Safi on Instagram.
Meet Fred
Born in the grid lines of suburban Los Angeles, Fred Kaplan remembers the song that was playing when he was given his first camera by a friend. The song was Radar Love by Golden Earring. After studying at Art Center College of Design, Fred worked professionally as a still-life advertising photographer, visual effects editor and producer of documentaries. Drawn to the organic shapes within the grid, his photographs have been called narrative meditations. His documentary, “the River Under the City of Angels” was featured in numerous film festivals and with over 100,000 online views in over 80 countries. The Los Angeles River has maintained Fred’s photographic attention for decades, resulting in a catalog of almost a hundred thousand images of our favorite 51 miles. LA River X welcomed Fred as a guest host in 2020 and he returned for an encore takeover in 2024, and has been a featured artist at several LA River X events.
See Fred's takeover in the Western Water Archives.
Follow Fred on Instagram.
Meet Tilly
Tilly Hinton, Ph.D. is a cultural producer, public historian, nonprofit strategist, communicator, and facilitator, whose work in Australia and the United States is recognized for its strategic rigor, practicality, and kindness. Her humanities research focus and extensive experience in high-pressure cultural production give Tilly a powerful toolkit of practical and conceptual insights for communicating, organizing, reflecting, and improving communications, programs, events, exhibitions, activations, and educational opportunities. She is the founder and curator of LA River X – a community project that collects, amplifies and preserves contemporary river stories, she created and hosted Storytime for the Apocalypse throughout the first few years of the pandemic and is an alumni ambassador for the University of Technology, Sydney. With Tilly’s leadership, LA River X has created exhibitions and programming at the Los Angeles Public Library, the Autry, RiverFest, The Claremont Colleges, USC, and Frogtown Artwalk, and has achieved the permanent archiving of the now-bilingual LA River X collection into the Western Water Archives, thanks to partnerships with Pomona College and The Claremont Colleges Library. Tilly has a Masters and a PhD about the Los Angeles River’s recent social history, and she took Lewis MacAdams seriously when he told her that her job was articulating and protecting the river’s future mythology.
What You'll Bring
Fully charged cellphone.
Camera of choice, and remember this can be a cell phone. If you're shooting on film, make sure you can get the photos developed in time to share them at the online session on October 9!
Sunblock, sunglasses, and a hat. There will not be a lot of shade along our walk, so be prepared for sun and heat.
Comfortable clothing. It will get warmer as the day goes on, and it can get hot in the sun.
Good walking shoes with good grips. It can get slippery along some stretches, and we'll be walking down the angled banks of the river at points. There are no plans for getting our feet wet, so no need to consider options for that.
Water and snacks, in a bag that keeps your hands free for photography. Note that trash cans are not common, so be prepared to carry out any packaging, fruit peels etc.
A charging cable for your cellphone, and a power block if you have one (if not, we'll have a few available for you to get charged up).
Notes on Camera Gear
Remember, a cell phone is all the gear you need. If you're going all out, here are some tips on what to pack in your kit:
We of course cannot guarantee that we will see a lot of birds, but if we do you may want to have a long lens with you to get close-ups.
As for other lenses, bring your favorites. Peter and Safi suggest a wide-angle lens and a good mid-range zoom like 28-70mm.
Tripods can be heavy and bulky to carry, so consider what you want to carry for three hours.
A polarizing filter, if you have one, for photographing water.
Always, always, always bring extra batteries and cards.