This program is a sustained, private 1-on-1 project incubator led directly by Ephemere founder, curator, and publisher, Anne Murayama. Designed for photographers at any stage of the bookmaking journey, this program does not impose a generic syllabus or require a finished dummy on day one. Instead, Anne meets your body of work exactly where it stands—whether you are untangling a raw, sprawling archive, refining a complex visual narrative, or translating loose photographs into a cohesive book structure. Over your time together, the focus remains on the critical editorial, conceptual, and architectural decisions that give a photobook its voice.
All new participants begin with the 3-Month Incubation ($1,500.00 USD), providing 15 contact hours structured as two 2.5-hour sessions per month across six meetings. Meetings adapt dynamically to your project: devoting early sessions to conceptual distillation and radical culling, shifting into rhythmic sequencing, and progressing into layout drafting, typographic choices, and statement writing. Between video meetings, Anne assigns targeted practical tasks—such as printing proof sheets, cutting working paper mockups, or refining digital spreads—which are reviewed together on screen. For active mentees needing supplemental time, the trajectory optionally expands through a 1-Month Continuation ($500.00 USD / 2 sessions) or a targeted 1-Session Add-On ($275.00 USD / 2.5 hours) for pre-press checks, grant reviews, or urgent publisher deadlines.
To guarantee thorough offline review and deep curatorial investment between calls, enrollment is strictly capped at three active mentees at a time. Sessions are scheduled on Mondays, Wednesdays, or Fridays within daytime (11:00 AM – 4:00 PM JST) or evening (8:00 PM – 11:00 PM JST) windows. Admission is granted via application review to ensure your work aligns with Anne’s curatorial focus. While the program emphasizes independent artistic development, exceptional bodies of work that reach full conceptual and production readiness may be invited by Anne for publication consideration under Ephemere's collaborative 50/50 co-publishing imprint.
This program is a private, intensive working day in Tokyo created for visiting photographers and Japan-based artists seeking tactile, hands-on collaboration directly with Anne Murayama. While digital screens are practical for early drafting, a photobook is fundamentally a physical object experienced through weight, texture, scale, and pace. Working side by side with Anne in central Tokyo removes the screen barrier entirely, allowing you to lay out physical work prints across wide tables, step back to evaluate rhythm across space, and make immediate, instinctive editorial choices that cannot be replicated remotely.
Over six dedicated hours (typically 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM JST), the working day is customized around your project’s immediate needs. For early-stage work, the session can focus on tabletop print curation, pruning an archive to its narrative core, and testing sequence flows. If your edit is already established, time can shift toward tactile dummy engineering: folding paper signatures, testing scale, experimenting with cover mechanics, or troubleshooting layout pacing. Depending on your goals, Anne can also incorporate guided excursions—introducing you to Tokyo paper merchants, specialty binderies, or photobook hubs to source materials directly.
Sessions operate on rolling dates throughout the year and are hosted exclusively on Tuesdays and Thursdays to preserve calendar focus. The mentorship can be booked as a Single-Day Focus ($480 / 6 hrs), a Two-Day Intensive ($900 / 12 hrs), or a Three-Day Immersion ($1,300 / 18 hrs). The fee covers Anne’s private mentorship, custom roadmap planning, and private workspace coordination. Personal transit, meals, and specialized dummy papers remain the mentee's responsibility. Because each date is reserved exclusively, admission is by application only. Mature dummies may also be considered by Anne for release under the Ephemere imprint.
This online program offers 60 minutes of focused, dedicated time directly with Ephemere founder Anne Murayama. Serving as an accessible bridge into Ephemere's learning pathways, this standalone session is designed for artists who are not yet ready for a multi-month mentorship, those undecided about which format best fits their work, or anyone needing immediate answers on a specific challenge. With no long-term financial or production commitments, this private conversation creates a supportive, candid space to gain clarity, unblock creative paralysis, and identify your next steps.
Whether you need a quick curatorial gut check on a selection of images, guidance on structuring your first publication, or practical advice on navigating the Tokyo gallery and publishing ecosystem based on Anne’s background of over ten years as an independent curator and publisher, the hour is entirely yours. There is no rigid syllabus; Anne tailors her analysis directly to the portfolio materials, project statements, and questions submitted prior to your session. It functions equally well as a project diagnostic, an industry advisory, or a preliminary check-in before committing to a longer program.
Sessions are open to artists worldwide at any experience level, conducted via Google Meet, and scheduled according to Japan Standard Time (JST). Consultations are hosted exclusively on Wednesdays, allowing Anne to prepare thorough notes for each participant. To book a session, artists select their preferred time window and propose three Wednesday dates at least one week in advance. Following direct checkout and registration form submission, an official calendar invitation is issued with your confirmed date and video link, followed by a written summary of key action points after the call.
Immerse yourself in tactile print culture, experimental photo processes, intuitive image editing, and zine creation at Ephemere Photo Fest 2026.
This year’s workshop series brings together seven exceptional artist-facilitators—visiting Tokyo from Denmark, Portugal, Norway, United States, Germany, India, and local talent—for seven intimate, 90-minute hands-on sessions.
Venue: +BASE (Asakusabashi, Tokyo — 1 minute walk from main fest venue)
Dates: Sunday, October 18 & Saturday, October 24, 2026
Capacity: Strictly capped at 10 participants per workshop for personalized instruction.
Workshop Fee & Inclusions: $30 USD per session. This covers all basic studio materials, specialized tools, printing supplies, venue rental overhead, and administrative festival setup.
Multi-Workshop Booking: You are welcome to join more than one session! Simply select your desired workshop variants one by one and add them to your cart to check out all at once in a single transaction.
Materials: Basic workshop tools and materials are provided on-site unless noted.
Descriptions for each session can be reviewed on our Festival Page.
13:30 – 15:00 | Cyanotype: An Alternative Printing Process with Karina Saputri
15:30 – 17:00 | Mordançage Process Workshop with Sky Stevens
11:30 – 13:00 | Images in Dialogue with Katarzyna Serwatka
13:30 – 15:00 | The Intentional Image: Slowing Down to Engage with Photography Through Intuition with Ratika Singh
15:30 – 17:00 | Before the Image Disappears: Another Way of Seeing with Sara Bensaltana
🔗 HOW TO REGISTER:
Select Workshop: Choose your preferred workshop title and time slot from the dropdown menu below.
Book Multiple (Optional): To register for multiple workshops, add your first choice to the cart, select your next workshop from the dropdown, and add it to the cart before checking out.
Fill Out Form & Checkout: Complete the registration details once at checkout to lock in your spots.
Confirmation: You will receive an automated confirmation email immediately after purchase (please check your spam/promotions folder if it does not appear).
This workshop is designed to help you explore the boundaries of what a photograph can be. Departing from traditional representational image-making, this session, led by visual artist Andie Riekstina, will focus on photography as a mutable medium—one that can be bent, broken, corrupted, glitched, and recontextualized.
You will be challenged to rethink the nature of a photographic image and discover new ways of working with visual data. Through hands-on experiments with analog and digital tools, we will explore both making xerocopies, data bending files, and re-photographing physical prints over and over.
This workshop is about prioritizing the creative process over a predictable outcome. By actively questioning traditional notions of image-making, you will be empowered to discover new conceptual and visual possibilities within your own work.
Deadline of Applications: September 30, 2025
This workshop is designed to help photographers find an appropriate language to build relationships between photographs in their sequence, whether for a book, a portfolio, or an exhibition. It focuses on the relation between images in proximity and will encourage participants to practice associative thinking to link photos together. By moving beyond traditional notions of linear storytelling, you will begin to discover the innate connections that can elevate a project from a series of individual images into a cohesive visual narrative.
Led by photographer, filmmaker, and writer Clay Mills, this workshop will guide you in building your own means of expression by looking for what is already present in your photographs. You will learn to harness your artistic intuition, transforming your body of work into a compelling visual story. Through hands-on exercises and collaborative discussion, you will gain a deeper understanding of how pacing, rhythm, and visual language impact the emotional weight of your project.
Ultimately, this workshop is built to help photographers who have a body of work but need help figuring out how it all comes together, like a puzzle. By the end of the session, you will be empowered to solve this puzzle and prepare your project for a wide range of presentations, from self-published zines to professional exhibitions.
Deadline of Applications: September 30, 2025
The best teachers and critics know to analyze and foment understanding according to the fundamental ethos within each individual, artist, or work of art. As artists, we still often find ourselves courting validation through established hierarchies — but positive reception is never guaranteed, and a more sustainable practice is the one that banks on satisfying ourselves in the process.
There is no way to photograph correctly. You can take a bunch of pictures haphazardly and then triage/edit deeply. You can pre-plan, pre-diagnose a venture out to a specific space at a specific time with a specific film with a specific camera at a specific aperture to get the exact image you’d like. Both are completely valid and can make for thrilling work.
With this workshop, Jordan Reyes will begin with a seminar before venturing out into Tokyo to attempt photographing with our methodology in mind. We will discuss readings by critics and writers like John Berger, David Campany, Philip Guston, Samuel Delany, Susan Sontag, and Julia Kristeva to break open our notions of what is true and what is permitted, allowing us to photograph more honestly, more sustainably, and ideally have a great time while doing so.
Deadline of Applications: September 30, 2025
Ephemere Photo Fest Edition
Learn how to create a tangible publication using minimal materials! This quick, hands-on workshop is a fun introduction to zine-making, focusing on the highly effective one-page photo zine format. Led by Ephemere founder Anne Murayama, you will learn the fundamental folding techniques before immediately diving into making photo collages directly onto your zine structure.
This is an accessible way to bypass digital fatigue and discover the joy of physical, tactile publishing. You will transform your images into a complete, shareable publication in just two hours, mastering an essential DIY publishing skill.
Polaroid lift is an experimental photographic process that redefines what a photograph can be. In this workshop, you will learn to separate the delicate emulsion layer of an instant photo from its backing and transfer it onto a new surface—such as glass, seashells, wood, or stone. This tactile and unpredictable process allows you to embrace the beauty of transformation and create unique artworks that go beyond traditional printing.
This workshop is led by Chiara Salvi, the founder of Alternative Processes, whose practice prioritizes making, researching, and experimenting. She will challenge you to slow down and observe the subtle dialogues between light, chemistry, and surface, inviting you to engage with your images in a deeply physical way.
Ultimately, this session is about allowing the process itself to guide the outcome. You will be encouraged to embrace unpredictability, turning accidental transformations into an integral part of your creative vision, and taking home a work of art that is truly one-of-a-kind.
Deadline of Applications: September 25th, 2025
Ephemere Photo Fest Edition
This is an intensive, personalized one-hour review session designed to rapidly assess and refine one body of work for photographers aiming for publication. Led by Ephemere founder Anne Murayama, you will receive expert, focused guidance on editing, sequencing, and narrative coherence. This session prioritizes clarifying the core intention of your work to ensure it is publication-ready.
From Portfolio to Publication: Guided Photo Reviews is a personalized online workshop designed to help you transform your portfolio into a compelling photo book or zine.
Led by Ephemere founder Anne Murayama, a seasoned curator and publisher with a reputation for her evocative and intimate visual style, this workshop offers expert guidance to refine your vision, master sequencing, and explore innovative ways to present your work.
Through one-on-one sessions, you’ll receive tailored feedback and actionable insights aligned with your artistic goals.
Additionally, you’ll have the exclusive chance to collaborate with Anne and Ephemere for potential publication, elevating your project to a professional level.
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