Since the early '90s, St. Paul photographer Douglas Beasley has spent a good part of every year leading Vision Quest photography workshops in exotic locales around the world — Guatemala, Hawaii, Indonesia, Ireland, the Badlands. Although he has made a name for himself as an accomplished commercial and fine-art photographer, Beasley doesn't intend these excursions to be merely technical exercises.

He says, "People at all levels of experience come along on these workshops, from burned-out pros to people who are new to photography, and they're all immersed in this experience together, bringing their own, unique perspectives into the mix. Even though I've visited many of these places every year, my students always show me something new, something that can only be seen through their eyes.

"For me, it's more than taking pictures of a subject," Beasley says. "I prefer to think of it as a collaborative process, which equally engages the model, the landscape and the person behind the camera."

Janell Vircks, co-founder of Umber Studios, is a curator of the gallery's new exhibition, "Figure in the Landscape: Badlands, South Dakota 2008," which features photographs taken during one of these workshops. In fact, Vircks is an alum of the program, herself; over the course of 10 years, she has participated as both a model and a photographer.

Vircks describes the sessions as transformational experiences. "You get to the Badlands, and, all of a sudden, there's this landscape that blows your mind. Then you throw a model in there. The juxtaposition of the soft textures of the human form against that harsh, beautiful landscape — it's almost too much to take in."

"Doug isn't trying to help you take a better snapshot," she says. "He wants to help you become vulnerable to what you're seeing. He takes the camera out of your hands, even if it's still literally in your hands, so you can really feel what it's like to be there, in that place, with the people in front of you."

"And we've tried to capture something of that artfulness in the photography selected for the show," she says. "The images chosen aren't just good shots; the best of them have some of the intimacy of the experience itself. I think that shared experience ties the work together in a way that can't be duplicated by a simple, themed group show with photographs of the human figure in a landscape."

She pauses a minute, then says, "This is a reunion as much as it is an exhibition."

Photographs from "Figure in the Landscape: Badlands, South Dakota 2008" will be on view from March 21 through April 6 at Minneapolis' Umber Studios, 3109 E. 42nd St. (Gallery hours are Saturdays and Sundays from noon to 5 p.m). A free opening reception for the exhibit will begin in the gallery at 8 p.m. Saturday.