Course Description
This Photo Journalism course is taught by award-winning photographer and writer Stuart Freedman.
Reportage photography, including photojournalist and documentary traditions, is one of the most challenging and demanding of the visual professions.
It requires technical ability, social skills, persistence and an instinct for a story.
You'll be creating your own photo journalistic portfolio of photos as you learn with Stuart.
Choose Expert option for personalised feedback on your photos from Stuart.
You'll learn:
- composition and framing devices
- equipment
- techniques
- best practice for photo journalists
- real-life scenarios and challenges for photographers
- story construction
Stuart will explain how to place reportage photography within an historical context whilst also examining contemporary practice and trends.
The course is clear about a documentary tradition that is allied to good journalism in print and film and is based around the construction of the classical photo essay rooted in the Humanist Documentary tradition.
The course covers equipment and technique but more importantly, the ballet of shooting reportage that concentrates on the ebb and flow of narrative, anticipation and the mechanics of actual story construction.
The course is heavy on best practice, ethics and using difficult real-life scenarios that examine the challenges facing working photographers. It tries to challenge the visual cliché of some photojournalistic work as well as some of the clichés about photographers themselves.
Stuart will show his work alongside great classics of the documentary tradition and at the end of each lesson he'll set an assignment that will push your practice forward.
You'll need:
- a camera
- 50mm lens
This photography course is aimed at keen amateur photographers and aspiring professionals.
Course outline
Lesson 1: The history of Photo Journalism
Lesson 2: What makes an engaging image?
Lesson 3: The Photo essay
Lesson 4: Professional practice in the field
Choose how you want to learn
Photography classroom - how it works
Start anytime
Watch video tutorials led by expert tutors
Test yourself
Practice what you learn with inspiring assignments
Personal tuition
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Share ideas
Collaborate and chat directly to classmates
Meet Stuart Freedman
I first worked with Stuart in Bangladesh when he gave workshop to photojournalism students for Pathshala Institute in 2010. His advice was clear and supportive and he encouraged me! We have kept in touch ever since and when I was in Cairo making my work about The Silent Wound he helped me on email and telephone to work out what was possible.
A member of Panos Pictures he has, over the last two decades, covered stories from Albania to Zambia. His work has appeared in, amongst many others, Life, Geo, Time, The Sunday Times magazine, Der Spiegel, Condé Nast Traveller and Smithsonian.
He has been exhibited widely and his work has received recognition from Amnesty International, POYi, World Sports Photo, The AOP, The RPS, UNICEF and the World Press Masterclass.
In 1999 he was invited to speak on Capitol Hill about the atrocities in Sierra Leone where his initial work on the Mutilated premiered and in 2004 addressed the Oxford Union about the continued suffering of that country. His work has been exhibited widely. Solo shows include Visa Pour l’Image at Perpignan, The Scoop Festival in Anjou, The Leica Gallery in Germany, The Foire du Livre (Brussels), The Museum of Ethnography (Stockholm) and the Association and the Spitz Galleries in London. His work on HIV/AIDS in Rwanda and from the post-conflict South of Lebanon has toured extensively internationally. He regularly judges awards and has twice been a judge for the Amnesty Media Awards. He has lectured to students in colleges across the UK, amongst others, Swansea Metropolitan University, Falmouth University, Regents University, Plymouth College of Art and The London College of Communication (LCC). He continues to write and photograph for a variety of editorial and commercial clients