First Saturdays, October 4 – March 7, 2025
This six-month intensive critique group is designed to support individual photographic projects while building community among artists. Monthly sessions provide reflective spaces of inquiry, free from the hierarchy of traditional critiques. Facilitated by Lesly Deschler Canossi, whose extensive teaching experience brings clarity and depth to the creative process, the group invites participants to explore new directions in their work within a supportive environment.
A key ethos is inclusivity: respecting all viewpoints while fostering connection around each participant’s artistic journey. Through shared critical observation and discussion, participants will refine their work, build deeper dialogue within their practice, and gain valuable feedback on projects such as portfolios, books, or exhibitions. This space welcomes anyone actively engaged in artistic practice or working toward a creative goal. In March 2026, critique participants will be invited to hang work in progress on the community wall space on the second floor as a celebration of our collective experience.
DURATION: October 4, 2025 – March 7, 2026.
Meets on the first Saturday of every month, totaling 6 sessions.
TIME: 2-5 pm
MEETING DATES:
October 4
November 1
December 6
January 3
February 7
March 7
WHERE: 2nd floor at 25 Dederick Street in Kingston, NY.
MAXIMUM ENROLLMENT: 12
CPW MEMBER TUITION: $240
NON-MEMBER TUITION: $300
This class is now sold out. Please email nicole@cpw.org if you’d like to be added to a waiting list.
Want to become a CPW Member? Learn more here.
About Lesly Deschler Canossi:
Lesly Deschler Canossi is a photography educator, writer, and cultural producer. For over 14 years, she was a lead faculty member at International Center of Photography and currently leads long-term critique groups for La Luz, CPW, and her independent project, Widening the Lens Photo Community. Her extensive teaching experience, combined with 14+ years of technical expertise running Fiber Ink Studio—specializing in silver gelatin, analog Type-C, and wide-format pigment printing—provides the foundation that allows her to focus on supporting artists articulating their personal vision.
Lesly co-founded Women Picturing Revolution (2016-2022), an organization dedicated to women-identifying photographers who have documented conflicts and crises in private realms and public spaces. In 2022, she co-edited Black Matrilineage, Photography, and Representation: Another Way of Knowing (Leuven University Press). Her personal artists practice centers on themes of care and grief, and her research centers on recovering the contributions of women and marginalized practitioners who have been relegated to footnotes or rendered anonymous in photography’s traditional narrative, bringing this inclusive historical perspective into her teaching.
Lesly lives in Beacon, New York with her family on a micro homestead with honeybees, embodying the values of care, community and sustainability that inform her teaching practice.