Mother India School, in march offers again a workshop in the villages and the most famous beaches of Goa, a place of worship of the hippies from around the world in 60 years, when they slept in huts in the forest, after digging a hole in the sand to hide money and passport. The “flowered” around the world under the slogan “peace, love and freedom” spent their days in yoga, meditation and music, smoking chillum in the legendary “Full Moon Party” with songs, dances and concerts. Decades later, Goa has become an annual event for many tourists of all ages. Away from the tourist destinations, it is easy to meet young and old freaks who drive the historic Enfield, including rice fields, rivers and forests of palm trees.
Who are the new tourists in Goa? How has it changed? Who are the new freaks?

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Mother India Photography School , in February offers a workshop in Mumbai, inspired by reading the wonderful book Maximum City. Bombay lost and found by Suketu Mehta, renowned writer and journalist, New Yorker by birth and Indian by adoption, a strong and intense story of the city through the stories that intertwine in the streets of the metropolis. The value of Maximum City, which is recommended reading to get into the spirit of the workshop is to know how to turn an enormous mass of people, homes, money, roads, local transport, in human stories, full of poetry.

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“Palermo amore amaro” is Letizia Battaglia’s book title, published in the ’80 and also the new workshop directed by Shobha and Letizia Battaglia who were able to photograph Palermo and its contradictions over the years. Palermo gives several opportunities to take a pictures, from the alive districts to the numerous multi-ethnic markets, to the amazing and historical aristocratic palaces. The main historical districts are: Kalsa, Albergheria, Seralcadio and La Loggia, three historical markets: Vucciria, Ballarò and Capo, burst with colours, smells and taste.

For further information, please contact:
Soraya: +39 3470942890
mail: sorayamotherindia@gmail.com

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A photography workshop led by photojournalist SHOBHA, “Wine is the poetry of the land,” will be held in Vittoria, Sicily, from 2nd to 8th October 2011. The workshop is born from the special bond between Shobha and the famous Sicilian wine-producing company Planeta, a bond which is based on their shared love for art and nature.
Aimed for photography amateurs and professionals who are also lovers of good wine, the workshop will offer the opportunity to take a sensory journey through the world of grape harvesting and the poetry of the Sicilian landscape, among baroque vestiges and natural beauties, hosted by one of the Planeta estates, the Vittoria/Dorilli winery.
The program includes trips to Modica, with its splendid medieval castle, Cava Ispica, Ragusa and Scicli, whose architectural masterpieces have become UNESCO World Heritage sites. And then Sampieri, with its Fornace Penna, a former brickyard dating from the early-20th century which used to employ a hundred child laborers.

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This workshop besides being a professional and educational experience will offer the people attending it a chance to get into contact with a very special reality, Palazzolo Acreide and its wonderful feast of St. Sebastiano, the Saint to whom the town is strongly devoted to and whose veneration dates back to many centuries ago. The feast has a double date January 20th (only religious functions) and August 10th (religious functions plus a festival with an outdoor audience, shows of exceptional beauty. The summer date has replaced the “Madonna Odigitria” feast which celebrated the wheat harvest. For this reasons the same date was chosen to celebrate the outdoor feast of St. Sebastiano. Alongside the old tradition that mark the feast, new rituals and enterprises have been organized in order to enlarge its fame outside the border. It lasts 10 days and includes lots of moving and fantastic events such as St. Sebastiano’s Eve (August 9th),
you can see the Saints official going around of the town and the casting off of his veil.

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Workshop main issues
The photo reporting workshop leaded by phographers Giampiero Corelli and Shobha will take place between 11th and 17 of July 2011 in Ravenna town.
It aspires to focus on a photograph exploration through three specific areas of the town and its neighborhood: the dock, the industry suburb; the so called “piallassa”, a huge valley environment.
The dock is today a redevelopment area, situated east of the railway station and only one kilometre far from downtown. Many buildings of this environment were largely used in the past, but today are abandoned and have fallen into a decadent state.
The petrochemical industry represents one of the main driving force of the local economy and it is located in the suburb area towards the seaside and the natural environment.
Piallassa is a typical valley area of Romagna landscape, where water and earth mix. This is a really evocative and attractive zone, especially during the twilight, because of a rich variety of wildlife, i.e. birds. The valley is about the industrial environment and is part of the most beautiful and largest nature reserve of Europe, called Parco del Delta del Po.
These full of memory places give evidence to an interesting mix of natural and urban landscape. Moreover, participants will be carried on the appealing exploration of extraordinary edges of the old Ravenna centre, a treasure chest of art, history and culture; in its glorious past, it was capital three times between the 5th and 8th centuries and the magnificence of this period has left important remains that have come down to us today. Ravenna is the city of mosaic art which did not originate here but found its highest form of expression in a mixture of symbolism and realism, Roman and Byzantine influences and even today this ancient craft lives on in schools and workshops. Here, Basilica of San Vitale, Mausoleo of Galla Placidia and Dante Alighieri’s Tomb tower over. Nonetheless other examples of industrial architecture and archaelogy and street life will be investigated.

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Mother India again this year proposes a workshop in India to Saundatti in the state of Karnataka, “all to the goddess Yallama”.

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Magnificent adventure that will allow us to share with enthusiasm, once again with a camera, away from our life experiences. We will sail for three days along the banks of Mekgong, hours of navigation we have time to share our work with the computer. We will stop in the villages of Chnokfrue, Kompong Chhnang, Chnok Tru.

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