Let me tell you my story . . .

I’ve been photographing and writing stories since high school. I was a journalism student at BU, then a Navy photojournalist in Vietnam in 1967. When I returned from my tour in ‘Nam, I became a small town newspaper editor in Vermont, then photographer-writer-editor for a ski magazine.

     Early in my career, I was just 32, I felt it was time I learned something about what it was I was doing.  I took a photojournalism workshop with Bob Gilka, Director of Photographer at the National Geographic. I went expecting he'd hire me after seeing my brilliant work. He didn't. That workshop in Aspen, Colorado wasn't what I expected, but it was what I needed. Those ten days changed my life.

     The next summer, 1973, I launched my own summer school--not because I had anything to teach, but precisely because I had a lot to learn.   I located my school  in Rockport, Maine an called it The Maine Photographic Workshops. I invited some of the most creative photographers and  filmmakers to lead a one-week master classs. It worked. I lost money, but as Winsten Churchill said, "Success consists of going from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm."  Within a few years, The Maine Photographic Workshops had become a year-round international conservatory for creative photographers, filmmakers, journalists and writers. People came from around the world to be with other creatives, to share their work, learn from the Masters and in the process of just one-week became more creative. We changed lives, just as my first workshop had changed mine.

     What I thought would have been but a few summer, turned into a 35 year career as the Director this year-round conservatory for media professionals.  In 1996, the school became a college with an MFA degree. WEe set up programs in California, Provence, Tuscany,  Mexico, and Cuba. In my 35 years as The Workshops Director, I developed hundreds of workshops and master classes, and a Masters degree program all centered around “The Transformational Learning Experience.” What I built continues today as MaineMedia.edu.

     More recently I’ve been writing stories about my sailing adventures for Cruising World and Caribbean Compass magazines. I’ve written a few books, a series of memoirs and and a raft of stories for young adults. My memoir, Seabee 71 in Chu Lai, was published in 2019 by McFarland Publishing. It’s about the 14 months I spent as a Navy photojournalist with a construction battalion on deployment in Vietnam in 1967. Go to www.SeaBee71.com to see more.

     You can read more of my stories and view photos on this website and watch videos on Youtube at “Sailing with David Lyman.” You reach me at DHLyman@mac.com.