“During the last five years as work­ing as a free­lance pho­to­jour­nal­ist, I have attend­ed a wide vari­ety of work­shops and class­es try­ing to improve my abil­i­ties as a visu­al sto­ry­teller. One thing I have learned is that being an out­stand­ing pho­tog­ra­ph­er has no direct cor­re­la­tion to one’s abil­i­ty to teach this skill to oth­ers. Some of the best cre­ators in the world are also some of the most dif­fi­cult to learn from.

Not so with Ed Kashi, who is as gift­ed an edu­ca­tor as he is a doc­u­men­tar­i­an. Patient, approach­able, and warm, learn­ing from Ed is more like being men­tored by a tal­ent­ed friend. While some work­shop envi­ron­ments can lead to stress and anx­i­ety over one’s future, Ed finds a way to bring out the best in his stu­dents in a sup­port­ive way.

Make no mis­take – a work­shop with Ed is not a time to be lazy or self-congratulatory. He will push you to pro­duce the best work that you’re capa­ble of, and makes no illu­sions about the dif­fi­cult nature of pro­fes­sion­al work as a pho­tog­ra­ph­er. Getting in a class­room with Ed will not be a walk in the park by any stretch of the imag­i­na­tion, but the chal­lenge will be one that you can leave feel­ing good about.”

— Luc Forsyth

“While it is no mys­tery that Ed can cap­ture inspir­ing moments through his lens, it is his immense heart, gen­tle soul and sup­port­ive spir­it that make him such an amaz­ing teacher.  He tru­ly gets to know indi­vid­u­als he men­tors and offers a per­fect bal­ance of real, con­struc­tive feed­back, but also guid­ance to help his stu­dents reach their full poten­tial, even when it is beyond what they can see for them­selves.”

— Amy Smith

“Ed Kashi is an inspir­ing pho­tog­ra­ph­er and teacher, he stands out because of his human val­ues and sen­si­bil­i­ty which I con­sid­er the most impor­tant fac­tors for a doc­u­men­tary pho­tog­ra­ph­er.”

— André Novais

“I have tak­en two work­shops with Ed Kashi.  Not only is he an inspir­ing pho­tog­ra­ph­er and great teacher, but he is an excep­tion­al human being who makes you want to get out there with your cam­era and do good things for oth­ers in this world.  As he has done.  And so nec­es­sary in these times…”

— Rudi Dundas

“Thank you [Ed] for being an inspi­ra­tional leader/teacher/artist and a sen­si­tive, car­ing, and hum­ble per­son. Thank you for your hon­est, truth­ful, pos­i­tive and encour­ag­ing teach­ing skills, com­ments and feed­back which empow­ered me both as a per­son and as an artist! Big thank you for shar­ing your ideas, per­cep­tions and your work and meth­ods with us. I am tru­ly grate­ful that I had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to attend and par­tic­i­pate in your work­shop!”

— Student, Visual Storytelling, July 2019 work­shop in Paris

“I must say, I was blessed to attend Ilvy’s speech as part of the “Holland meets Bangalore” pro­gram held in Bangalore, India. Her speech was crisp but it was very infor­ma­tive and full of pos­i­tive vibes which moti­vat­ed me to think dif­fer­ent­ly. Since then I start­ed fol­low­ing her work and every post on social media and tak­ing her help to get my work reviewed. Most impor­tant­ly she is very hum­ble, down to earth soul and ready to help oth­ers who want to learn the art of sto­ry­telling.”

— Sayan Hazra