Learning objectives
The aim of the course is to learn a conscious working method.
This training course aims to provide students with the appropriate tools to enable them to develop both structured photographic / photo-journalistic projects, and to develop their own narrative vision. Moreover ample space will be given to a vertical reading of the history of photography, with particular attention to contemporary pivotal works of the last decades, with the aim of intriguing and accompanying the student towards a constant and personal search for references, which are incentive for the achievement of one's own style.
This point will be taken up and deepened in all the lessons - also with brief hints of correlation, exchange and mutual influences with other media such as painting, art and cinema. Constant attention will be devoted to understand where to be inspired, ho to ask questions, ho to puzzle pieces of other “languages” in order to create your own.
The intent is to build, during this process, an increasingly proactive confrontation of mutual stimuli to become a bilateral exchange with the teacher and not only supine and passive for the students.
Prerequisites
- - -
Course unit content
The course is addressed at those who want to transform an idea into a concrete and articulated photographic project, with the aim of developing and / or consolidating their own authorial language, analyzing the historical, professional, creative, theoretical and technical aspects of photography.
During the lessons two types of topics will be dealt with the first is more technical. It is assumed that the student already has elementary technical bases of photography, and during the laboratory topics will be explored regarding the use of artificial light and ambient light, editing, software, color correction and color grading as an added value and ethical limits of photo-retouching; the second will be more linked to the relationship with newspapers, publishers, festivals, competitions, galleries, grants, and the photographer approach to stories: from breaking news to long-term projects.
The two areas of the course aim to provide the student with a heterogeneous vision of the professional world of photography and in particular of photo-journalism.
In addition to the topics covered in the classroom, the participants, with the supervision of the teacher and a methodical and constant confrontation, will identify a story to be realized during the period of the workshop. Stories will be addressed, analyzed and shared in the classroom from time to time throughout the development and production phase; these stories will be subject to evaluation at the examination.
Full programme
- - -
Bibliography
Testi di riferimento Reference bibliography:
Theoretical texts:
Beaumont Newhall, Storia della fotografia, Einaudi, Torino, 1997 (1972). Roland Barthes, La camera chiara, Einaudi, Torino, 1982.
Susan Sontag, Sulla fotografia, Einaudi, Torino, 2004. Susan Sontag, Davanti al dolore degli Altri, Trento, 2003.
Recommended technical text:
Michael Langford, Nuovo trattato di fotografia moderna, Il Castello, 2018.
Recommended photography books:
Philip Jones Griffits, Vietnam Inc. Phaidon. James Nachtwey - Inferno, Phaidon.
Richard Billingham, Rays a Laugh, Scalo. Antonin Kratochvil, Incognito, Arena.
Robert Franck, The Americans, Pantheon. Jérôme Sessini, The Wrong Side, Contrasto.
Paolo Pellegrin, If I was dying, Dewi Lewis Publishing. Giulio Di Sturco, Ganga Ma, Gost.
Teaching methods
The course will consist of lectures, practical exercises, design, creation, analysis and review of a photo-journalistic reportage and, if possible, meetings with guests from the sector.
Assessment methods and criteria
The exam consists in the discussion of a thesis on a photographic or photo-journalistic project agreed with the teacher and based on the chosen path. The student will have to demonstrate that he/she has learned the fundamental technical notions and that has reached a narrative awareness in the development of the agreed project.
Other information
To participate to this workshop, basic equipment is required, consisting of a camera and a computer.
