Refining Your Vision
1 on1
Creative
Mentorship
The creative process is often a solitary one, and it can be difficult to gain perspective when you have spent so much time looking at the same images. Sometimes, a fresh and objective set of eyes can help clarify direction and reveal new possibilities.
Whether you are seeking thoughtful feedback on individual photographs or a larger body of work, support with technical challenges in Photoshop or in-camera techniques, or guidance in shaping a project toward completion, mentoring sessions provide a dedicated space to refine both technique and artistic vision.
Potential Areas of Focus:
Portfolio Reviews: Thoughtful feedback on individual images or larger bodies of work, with an eye toward recurring themes, emotional resonance, and visual cohesion.
Project Development: Guidance in moving beyond single images and toward more intentional, long-term projects with depth and continuity.
Sequencing & Flow: Exploring how images speak to one another and how thoughtful sequencing can shape rhythm, mood, and narrative.
Artistic Voice and Vision: Conversations around creative direction, personal vision, and discovering the deeper “why” behind the work you make.
Technique: Support with Photoshop, post-processing, and in-camera techniques to help strengthen both technical skills and creative expression.
Writing: Guidance with artist statements and writing about your work in a way that feels honest, clear, and authentic to your voice.
The Session:
Booking: You can pay for your session below. Shortly after, I will email you and we will set a date and time.
Context: Before we meet, you can share your questions, topics of interest, or specific files with me, so I can prepare accordingly
Meeting Link: A Zoom link for our video call will be sent to you the day before.
Follow-up: You will receive a summary of actionable steps after our meeting.
What others are saying
My one-on-one mentoring session with Manuela Thames was exactly what I needed to move my work forward. She has an instinctive feel for diptychs and immediately opened my eyes to new ways of constructing them. She took my nascent ideas and challenged me to build them in ways far beyond my original conception. I’m still working with the concepts she planted and feel fortunate to have learned from her vision and experience.
- Kelly C.
“I had the privilege of taking Manuela Thames’s on line workshop, Diptychs, Triptychs and Beyond. Because the class was so inspiring and creatively energizing, I subsequently signed up to work with her as a private mentor.
As a teacher and a mentor, Manuela was both utterly supportive and at the same time able to give helpful, specific feedback. She asked the right questions to enable me to evaluate my own work and move forward with her guiding hand. In our discussions, she helped me identify what resonated and how the work could be improved. Her perspective has been invaluable.
I am grateful to be mentored by such a skilled artist, insightful teacher, and wonderful human.”
- Suzanne B.