Learning objectives
The goal of the course is to acquire an understanding of a conscious working method. This educational path aims to provide students with the appropriate tools to enable them to develop both structured photographic/photojournalistic projects and to cultivate their own narrative vision. In addition to the aspects already described, significant attention will be given to an in-depth study of the history of photography, with a particular focus on key contemporary works from recent decades. The purpose is to inspire and guide students toward a constant, personal search for references that will encourage the development of their own stylistic signature.
This point will be revisited and explored in all lessons, also touching upon brief correlations, exchanges, and mutual influences with other media, such as painting, art, and cinema. Understanding where to draw inspiration from, asking ourselves questions, and being able to paraphrase elements from other languages to create our own will be a recurring theme in all meetings.
The aim of this aspect is to build, throughout the course, an increasingly proactive exchange of mutual stimuli that becomes a bilateral dialogue with the instructor, ensuring that students are not just passive and receptive.
Prerequisites
The prerequisites are that the student is interested in what is happening around them, curious, engaged with their time and the contingencies of their own contemporaneity, and has already taken some photographs with their smartphone.
Course unit content
The course aims to identify a story, transform it into an idea, translate it into a concrete and structured photographic project, and add other cross-media languages based on the student's interests. The goal is to tell a story, make it attractive and engaging, develop and/or consolidate one's own authorial language, while analyzing the historical, professional, creative, theoretical, and technical aspects of photography.
During the lessons, the instructor will cover two types of topics: The first is more strictly technical. This is not a technical workshop. As for the technical aspects, students will be provided with the elementary technical foundations of photography, and during the workshop, specific topics aimed at developing their own language, finding their personal expression through interpreting a story, taking shots, using artificial and ambient light, editing, software, color correction, and color grading as added value, along with the ethical limits of photo retouching.
The second will be more related to interactions with newspapers, publishers, festivals, competitions, galleries, scholarships, and the various approaches photographers take to stories: from breaking news to long-term projects.
The two areas of the course aim to provide students with a comprehensive view of the professional world of photography, especially photojournalism.
The two topics covered in class, under the supervision of the instructor and through systematic and constant discussion, will lead to the identification of a story to be developed during the workshop period. This story will be addressed, analyzed, and shared in the classroom throughout the development and production phases and will be the subject of evaluation during the final exam.
Full programme
- - -
Bibliography
text:
Ryszard Kapuscinski, autoritratto di un reporter
Beaumont Newhall, Storia della fotografia, Einaudi, Torino, 1997 (1972). Roland Barthes, La camera chiara, Einaudi, Torino, 1982.
Susan Sontag, Sulla fotografia, Einaudi, Torino, 2004.
Roland Barthes, La camera chiara, Einaudi, Torino, 1982.
Susan Sontag, Davanti al dolore degli Altri, Trento, 2003.
Uliano Lucas, Tatiana Agliani, La realtà e lo sguardo, storia del fotogiornalismo in italia, Edizione Einaudi.
Italo Calvino, L'avventura di un fotografo
Susie Linfield, La luce crudele, Fotografia e violenza politica, Edizione Contrasto
Testo tecnico consigliato:
Michael Langford, Nuovo trattato di fotografia moderna, Il Castello, 2018.
Libri di fotografia consigliati:
Philip Jones Griffits, Vietnam Inc. Phaidon.
James Nachtwey - Inferno, Phaidon.
Richard Billingham, Rays a Laugh, Scalo.
Paolo Verzone, Cadets
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.
Cesare Zavattini, Paul Strand, Un Paese
Teaching methods
The course will consist of lectures, practical exercises, design, creation, analysis, and review of a photojournalistic reportage.
Assessment methods and criteria
The exam involves the development of a photographic or photojournalistic project agreed upon with the instructor, based on the chosen path. The student must demonstrate that they have learned the fundamental technical concepts and have achieved narrative awareness in the development of the agreed-upon project. While photographic storytelling will remain the core of the project, cross-media languages will also be accepted and, in fact, appreciated.
Other information
To participate in this workshop, basic equipment is recommended, but a smartphone is also sufficient.
2030 agenda goals for sustainable development
The course will cover various topics related to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, such as points: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 13. It will be up to the student to find interest and passion in these.
