International Photojournalism Grassroots Workshops

Images have the power to open eyes, evoke emotions and instigate change.

But there are more images —and photographers- than ever before and getting your work to stand out requires a new approach and strong point of view.

In this workshop, we will concentrate on groups of powerful images that tell stories. While we are working mainly with still photographs and some writing (important that photographers know how to write about their work), we will aim to create stories that ultimately could become multimedia pieces, so important in today’s new media landscape. Students will discover new and innovative ways to create and share stories through research and class discussion of ideas, daily shooting, and critiques of the work done at the workshop. We will also

Study the work of other photographers including innovative multimedia pieces. Students are highly encouraged to bring portfolios, bodies of work in progress, or recently finished projects, if possible. Maggie would like to see this work too. This workshop offers students a great opportunity to brainstorm about their past and future projects, especially if you are having trouble organizing and directing the work toward your final goal. Participants conclude this workshop with new compelling images and ideas that reflect original thinking and vision, as well as plans for how to present the work. This workshop is very good for re-igniting a photographer’s ideas and enthusiasm for their work.

This workshop will explore the multi-faceted approaches to international photojournalism and help guide you on your own path. Participants will learn what is required of a photojournalist, not just in the field but also when it comes to having work published and how to get your work out there. Developing a personal sensitivity and visual style will be emphasized and Haviv will encourage you to work using their instinct rather than formula.

Combining portfolio reviews, assignments, editing sessions, and dialogue, Haviv will also share his own work and experience as a photojournalist in conflict and crisis areas. Portfolio reviews will guide each person’s narrative direction and then be developed through assignments given during the workshop.
Throughout the week, Ron will help you understand the pulse of international journalism today and share his tips on what it takes to cover the world scene. You will leave with a clearer understanding of your next step and be well along the way to defining your personal path forward.

Don Hewitt, the late creator of “60 Minutes,” had a well-known mantra: “Tell me a story.” Getting to the soul of the subject is the goal of most photographers when setting out to tell a story, create an essay or explore a theme. This workshop is designed to help photographers meet those goals, create compelling stories and essays and pitch them to art buyers, editorial, advertising and corporate markets.

We will discuss approaches, what makes a good story, access issues, use of composition and varied lenses, tapping into moments and the intimacy to help elevate your photography to the next level. We can talk subject matter, what appeals to you and why and how it can be translated into a set of photographs. I want to push the envelope and explore all ways to tell the story: from the traditional to the avant-garde.

This will be an intense class. We will ask questions, look at some examples of your work and then you will go out and make great pictures. I will be available during the week to look at your story and find what is working and what is wanting. I expect classmates to join in the critiques and explain why they feel an image may or may not be communicating to them.

The workshop will be demanding of your attention and skill but together we will all come out improved photographers and storytellers by the end.

We invite you to join us at the Foundry Workshop this year.

Ashley Gilbertson covered conflict in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq for over a decade, working for clients including The New York Times and Time Magazine and publishing his first book, “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot”. In 2008, Gilbertson felt readers had become fatigued by a classic approach to photo journalism, and began turning to alternative approaches to depict the tragedy of war, creating essays including, amongst others, Bedrooms of The Fallen, which won a National Magazine Award and will be published in book form in 2012.

Participants in Ashley’s workshop will be invited to share their portfolios and examine their own approaches to photography. While in some cases a classic approach to a story best suits the subject matter, in many others, an alternative approach is necessary – from fighting in Afghanistan to the drug wars in Juarez. The workshop will focus on how to create powerful images that will connect with an audience that is weary of stories that they think they already know and that is increasingly skeptical about what the media offers.

Photojournalists spend most of their time in the pursuit of the story, yet very few know how to promote themselves to get the support they need. Getting your name out there amidst the thousands of other photographers working today can be an overwhelming task, even for established photographers. This lecture on marketing provides a very easy to use step-by-step approach to marketing your work; covering branding, promotional materials, utilizing modern technology and social media, finding your clients and how to approach them effectively. Whether you are looking for representation, editorial or commercial assignments, funding for special projects or gallery shows this lecture looks at the bigger picture and will give you a very concrete plan on how to market yourself today with the skills you need to have your work noticed.
This is a must for any emerging photojournalist.

This class will focus on how to  develop a photo essay and tell a visual story while working on assignment. Working fast, in the most unpredictable conditions, meeting deadlines and delivering  the photos that the editor is expecting while still maintaining your own personal style.

Each student is expected to do an assignment and work the field. Stories/general theme may be assigned or the student can choose to work on his own topic. (It is highly advised to prepare beforehand!)

Everyday we will meet in the classroom to go over the work and discuss problems, approaches, technical difficulties, ethical dilemas, etc.

All work will be edited down to twelve images to be presented on the final evening to the whole workshop.

As a long time teacher at the International Center of Photography, I find there are two problems photographers always have: editing and telling a story sequentially. During this workshop students will be given two assignments to go out and photograph a story that we will then edit in class. Through presentations on great photo essays and editing exercises, students will develop an articulate and coherent presentation that is distinctly their own. Topics include approaching people with a camera, where and when to take pictures, researching and finding stories, how to begin the editing process, basic workflow methodologies and final sequencing of a story. Students should bring a laptop computer.

This workshop is oriented towards those photographers and photojournalists who want to produce better photo reportages and improve the story telling.

From the moment of choosing a subject to documenting through the whole process until finishing the reportage.

English

It is dangerous and thankless. Very few news organizations want to publish the photos and even fewer people want to actually look at them. Some people call the war in Iraq “the story of our generation.” It is important, without a doubt.  As is Afghanistan. AIDS in Africa. The Israeli/Palestinian conflict. But they are stories people don’t want to see. Maybe they have seen the same images too often. Or maybe they are frustrated by the hopelessness of the situations. We will explore ways to help our photos reach our audience and make them want to pay attention.

Tewfic El-Sawy will teach a multimedia class that allows its participants to concentrate on their stories, rather than on the application. The purpose and aim of the class is to show photojournalists how to make quick work of slide show production, using their own images and audio generated in the field, to produce a cogent photo stories under the simulation of publishing deadlines. Most of the class’s time will be spent photographing in the field, while indoors time will be devoted to weaving the material into photo stories.
This class will require participants to produce two short (about 3 minutes -or less- each) photo stories: one of human interest (narrative and preferably in monochrome), and the other thematic ( travel-documentary for example, and in color)

This class will require use of Soundslides software and Audacity for audio. Participants will need to have Digital Audio Recorders (such as the Zoom H1). Soundslides can be downloaded in its trial format, while Audacity is a free sound editor.

Here’s a sample of a SoundSlides produced by Mike Hutmacher (who attended Tewfic’s class in Mexico) for The Wichita Eagle newspaper:

Dwayne’s Photo, Parsons, Kansas: The Last Lab to Process Kodachrome Film

Dhiraj Singh’s award-winning multimedia piece, My Name is Dechen, was produced at Foundry India 2009.
My Name is Dechen

Have you ever watched an important photojournalistic documentary on the internet?
Have you ever clicked away before it was finished?

Of course you have! But did you ever wonder why?

This class is about creating strong, visual driven stories that will be watched.

It’s a workshop, that taps right into the core of why we became photojournalists in the first place and it’s about telling the stories of those less fortunate on the only platform accessible in the most remote corners of the earth: the Internet.

Available outside the rigid formats of print and exhibitions, the web documentary is a cross format in it’s infancy, fit for the newsroom of the 21st century. This workshop will provide you with the tools to create stories of human interest yourself, and it will provide you with a viable strategy to sell your ‘packaged’ story for multiple formats.

In a combination between classroom sessions, assignments and portfolio reviews you will be coached throughout the week into crafting your own three minute pitch for a larger web documentary. Expect long hours!

10 students maximum.
This class requires you to bring an audio recorder and we will be editing in video software, ie Final Cut Pro/Express, iMovie and the likes.

The challenge for every reportage photographer should be to find your own path and develop your own unique way of visual storytelling; in short, to stand apart. In this workshop, we will offer personalized instruction on how to create a project and bring it to fruition. Participants will propose a story idea, go out and shoot it daily, receive daily critiques and editing advice individually, and through class discussions.

To work on a global level, photographers need to develop their skills and understand current trends in international journalism. We will discuss global trends in the industry, share personal projects and back stories behind the making of a photo essay and the challenge of full immersion in diverse cultures. We will talk about the different process when producing a successful multimedia project. The emphasis will be to offer participants strategies for creating photo essays that stand apart from the masses of images bombarding viewers every day. Your documentary style can be instantly recognizable.

Photography is to me the best medium to pass on and record what is as much anecdotal as historical. Yet we are saturated by information, provided increasingly randomly to our eyes and ears. Everyone can take photos and put them online, fading the primary intention and purpose.
What does make a strong essay nowadays? I share the conviction the more personal a story is, the more universal it is. In the end, generic visions say so little. Photography is always personal; you cannot take photographs without putting yourself in everything, even when the work isn’t even about you.
This obviously applies to what the industry names the personal projects, but we will also see how this can be used for stories that you may shoot as assignments.
I highly encourage you to bring your portfolios, bodies of work in progress, or recently finished projects.
Within this course, we will look at examples of your work, how to powerfully present it. You will shoot a story in Chiang Mai and/or its surroundings. From these basis, we will brainstorm all together and in a one to one discussion, how to make it the most impacting: focus on the personality of the edit and the curation of your story, reveal to yourself your intention and work onto building your story: your own voice.

In the media world, photojournalism is one of the driving forces. Southeast Asia, with a century of newspapers and magazines, made its way to the present day World Wide Web. The standards and attitudes of photojournalism have not changed much since the early days. Photographers in SE Asian newspaper didn’t care much about quality and their responsibility to society. Often choosing to act as middle man or messenger, they bias to one side.

We believe the quality of journalism work can change and impact society. We want the media organizations free from political influence. Giving photographers education is one way to achieve this. However, it seems journalism courses in Thai universities are not up to that level yet. This may be because of the culture and behavior of the Thai media market. Therefore, SE Asia has no real quality photojournalism or documentary photography. We could say it doesn’t exist.  Very little deep and quality work has been produced. And very few SE Asian photographers had been accepted by the international market. Why is this?

By acknowledging this dire situation; this workshop will buck this trend. It will be a long-term commitment project that could help to establish a new standard of photojournalism in SE Asia. This will in turn benefit society.

This class will focus on the heart of storytelling through the lens of a camera, be it still photos or video or even timelapse. How to approach to make untold story that local society ignored? Participants will go out each day to shoot and come back to discuss the work and difficulty with tutor. The tutor will try to find solution for each of them in the field and the way to approach their subject and find the new angle for story.

Futher more, participants will learn to order their photos, video and others to make a slideshow and write a simple essay to illustrate their stories.

This class will explore with students the fundamentals of formulating a photo essay. There will be a discussion about the social and political relevance of the students intended stories, and what aspects of them students will need to document to convey their chosen story to an audience. This discussion will focus on how they can achieve this practically, as well as photographically. Once students have embarked on their stories there will be daily editing sessions to discuss the direction their work is taking. The aim of the class will be to develop a visual narrative through both personal style and photographic techniques.

This class is designed for individuals interested in or just beginning their careers in photography.The focus of this class will be on strengthening your portfolio and helping you develop a personal style.

The objective will be to come away with a better understanding of yourself as an artist – how you view the world and how to communicate your vision to others. The synergy created by dialoguing with other photographers will help take you to the next level. We will discuss how to meet the objectives set forth by an art director or photo editor and at the same time maintain a personal style. We will review and establish a list of personal projects as a means of communicating your artistic vision. We will use the genre of street photography to create 2-3 powerful new images for your portfolio or for those ready to tackle more, they will be assigned a complete photo essay of a project of their choice.

Neal Jackson will teach a two-hour survey class in Legal and Business Aspects of Photojournalism. The class will include business and legal aspects of working as a photographer (freelance and staff), copyright issues including “fair use,” contract terms, licensing of images, rights of privacy and publicity, and negotiating approaches and tactics.
Neal is a US lawyer and formerly Vice President and General Counsel of NPR, the distinguished US nonprofit multimedia news program producer and Web content distributor (www.npr.org). In addition to working as a photographer, he consults on business issues in the photojournalism industry, including serving as chairman of the board of the VII Photo Agency.

Photojournalists spend most of their time in the pursuit of the story, yet very few know how to promote themselves to get the support they need.  Getting your name out there amidst the thousands of other photographers working today can be an overwhelming task, even for established photographers.  This lecture on marketing provides a very easy to use step-by-step approach to marketing your work; covering branding, promotional materials, utilizing modern technology and social media, finding your clients and how to approach them effectively.  Whether you are looking for representation, editorial or commercial assignments, funding for special projects or gallery shows this lecture looks at the bigger picture and will give you a very concrete plan on how to market yourself today with the skills you need to have your work noticed.