I discovered the truly breathing-taking work of Dave Nitsche through the course he is offering at The Picture Perfect School of Photography, which is titled Conceptual Photography.

The course Dave is offering is precisely the sort of subject matter which I feel does not get taught in traditional art colleges. While most courses focus on “nuts and bolts,” there is a dearth of much-needed courses on what I think of as “hammers and wrenches.” I taught myself many of the fundamentals of picture-taking long before I started actively pursuing a career and education in photography, and have always been surprised at how little attention is given to image designing in these curricula.

While it’s always been troubling to me that so few art schools focus on the business of being an artist, I understand the dynamics which cause that lack. Less comprehensible to me, with my background in technical theater, why art schools never focus on the design and pre-design stages of art making. When I made this argument to a friend of mine, he pointed out a series of DVDs by Ian McCaig, published by Gnomon Workshop. The four discs in the Visual Storytelling series are truly amazing, and incredibly useful teach-by-example lectures which focus entirely on how to flesh out stories in your head, and can easily be generalized to almost any visual field.

I recently had the good fortune of catching a talk by Doug Menuez, a photojournalist currently touring to promote his new book, Transcendent Spirit: The Orphans of Uganda.

I was already familiar with two of his previous works. Heaven, Earth, Tequila documents his quest to discover the history and fables of Tequila, while simultaneously coming to gripes with a recent discovery about his own partially shrouded self. Pictures from the Revolution, sadly now out of print, documents nearly 20 years of progress in the Silicon Valley.

Transcendent Spirit focuses on the story of a dance troupe that comes from Uganda. The members of the troupe are all from the same orphanage. Most members of the Spirit of Uganda are AIDS orphans. Through dance, these children simultaneously raise awareness and funds for AIDS relief in Africa, as well as empowering themselves in a country were few are in control of their own lives.

“There’s something truly powerful about watching [them] dance,” Doug says. “They are literally dancing for their lives.”

Doug has teamed up with Macy’s to produce the book. In celebration of the 25th anniversary of Passport, a fashion show which raises funds for AIDS relief, Macy’s is completely underwriting the book — 100% of profits (if you purchase through Macy’s or through the link above) goes directly to Empower African Children, an educational outreach program which aims to build an internationally-funded school system in Uganda.

In addition to the deeply moving story of Doug’s journey, from first seeing the dance troupe perform, to convincing the Spirit of Uganda troupe to give him access, and then on to his experiences with them, there is another deeply moving story captured in the book. One of the children in the troupe felt the need to find his father’s grave. His father was buried deep inside a war zone, and Doug’s photographs of their journey through this dangerous land, first to find the grave, and then following rumors of the boy’s still-living siblings, is the sort of deeply personal story which most perfectly expresses the widespread conditions of the entire area.

I really, really encourage you to pick up this book. Not only is the cause just, and the photography good, but the book really connected me to the world I live in.

Although I’ve never heard of it before, the Charlie Rose show features interviews with several impressive photographers, and they’re all available for $1 download at Google Video.

tvshow:Charlie_Rose photographer – Google Video