Note on Covid-19

This course is still running. We will find creative ways of making our shahai, even if participants are unable to photograph outdoors, or leave home. We look forward to working with you with a dash of necessary innovation as we create our pieces.

The prompts for this Shahai course will be all new, and will reflect the realities of the way we are currently all having to live. Karen and Alan.

Start Date: Enrolment is still open.

End Date: Monday 3rd June 2020

Level: This course is suitable for any level of experience in photography, from beginners upwards, but it would help to get the most out of the course if you already have some experience in writing haiku or tanka.

No. of Assignments and Feedback: 3

Group Size: up to 5  places still available on this course.

Tutors: Alan Summers (haiku and tanka) and Penney Ellis (photography).

Course Description: Shahai is a less familiar term than haiga – the traditional pairing of a haiku with a picture. Shahai is a haiga where the picture is a photographic image.

In the Call of the Page shahai online course, participants are given prompts and ideas as to how to create shahai of their own. If you are repeating this course, you will find that the prompts given are new, and different from last time you took the class.  Our in-house haiku expert Alan Summers will give feedback on the poetry element, and feedback on the image comes from Penney Ellis, an experienced photographic tutor and artist.

The course format consists of three sessions over two months. Participants send in two shahai each time, and the dual feedback from the tutors is accessed by all the class, in an especially created online gallery.

On this course, some of our students prefer to explore shahai through classic photography subjects, but there is also scope to experiment with different forms of photography, and styling of your shots.

Participants may choose to make their shahai with tanka instead of haiku or senryu.

Full Cost: £175 (approx US$228) 

By booking you agree to accept our Terms and Conditions. Thank you!

I've done this course before. Will it be exactly the same?

The course format is the same, but you will find that the prompts for your shahai are new.

Do I need to be able to log on at a particular time?

No, the sessions run in participants’ own time, and they are notified when there is new feedback or a new assignment to view.

Can I use my phone camera for this course?

We have had people use smartphone cameras for this course previously, but a separate camera is recommended. One immediate advantage is that you can frame the picture more easily and flexibly on a dedicated camera with a zoom.

I don’t have any experience of adding text to photographs, does this matter?

There are ways of adding text without any special software, and we can advise you on this at the outset of the course.