EDUCATION:Online Intensive Course in Visual Storytelling

This three-week Online Intensive Course in Visual Storytelling (July 13–31, 2020), organized by International Center of Photography (ICP) and CAMERA-Centro Italiano per la Fotografia, challenges photographers to address the social, cultural or emotional space of people and the places they inhabit while providing the tools necessary to make evocative and compelling visual stories.

This course will provide a unique opportunity to share diverse perspectives from various geographic locations while offering photographers support on how best to make visual stories. The global pandemic has made us think differently about how we see community, our everyday life and the culture that surrounds us. While some participants may be documenting within a restricted landscape, others may have the opportunity to explore a newly opened world. By supporting these unique personal viewpoints during this unprecedented time, the stories developed together promise to be of value and significance.

Through independent assignments, critiques and the honing of editorial skills, this intensive course encourages a collaborative environment where participants engage in meaningful dialogue to broaden their way of working and seeing. Students will consider various strategies for photographing while exploring how a group of photographs seen in concert with one another can create an effective narrative. Our aim is to produce content that has depth and substance and create a short essay that is most appropriate for a particular story.

Students will be asked to define what “sense of place” means in a photograph, and delve into what it takes to tell stories about the social landscape. They will gain a deeper understanding of their individual motivation and unique perspectives, be they personal, political or metaphoric, and build compelling visual stories about this unusual time in which we live in. Lectures on content, trends in visual storytelling, and the ethics of storytelling will support the picture-making.

The three-week intensive course will culminate with a virtual showcase of participants’ completed work.

Schedule
Students will meet for three live online classes per week on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from 3:30 to 6pm CEST (9:30am to 12pm EST). In addition, the Monday schedule will include additional programming, including orientation on the first day and a guest lecture. On Friday, July 31, there will be a final virtual showcase and celebration.

Coursework
Students will be given daily assignments and should plan to be photographing daily throughout the three weeks. Live social media events will take place during the intensive course.

Faculty
Classes will be taught by Karen Marshall, chair of the International Center of Photography’s One-Year Certificate Program in Documentary Practice and Visual Journalism, and ICP faculty member Andrew Lichtenstein. ICP faculty member and alum Gaia Squarci will give a master lecture.

Participants in the Intensive Course are automatically accepted into the next in-person Masterclass in Visual Storytelling in Turin (in 2021) as advanced image-makers, where they will be encouraged to play with the collaborative tools of audio, video and digital platforms while considering how best to construct a particular story. Graduates of this masterclass receive automatic acceptance to ICP’s One-Year Certificate Programs.

More info: www.camera.to / mariacristina.araimo@camera.to