BMET 27A67 - Photojournalism. Understanding the images that shape our history, present and past.

OBJECTIFS DU COURS / COURSE GOALS This workshop of 24 hours (2 hours per week) aims at understanding how photojournalism contributes to the news landscape and how images shape our comprehension of current affairs and history. The course will look at images from contemporary events as well as studying the history of photojournalism and its different fields of engagement in order to give context for its role today. Using case studies from news events and a methodological approach, the course will examine the circumstances in which images are created and the issues which define their provenance. The aim is to help students acquire a rich understanding of the many elements of photojournalism, enabling them to decipher the images which shape today's news. Descriptif du cours / Course description Session 1 : An overall introduction to photojournalism, discussing how it has developed since its beginnings in the 19th century to the present day. Overall, we will take a deep look at the culture of photojournalism and its role as a visual portal of news. Major themes that will be examined are how photojournalism has evolved up to the present day, examining changes due to technology, how large format to 35mm to digital cameras have altered photojournalism as well as the changes in the news business itself, and the development of magazines, newspapers, websites and blogs. There will be an examination of the manner in which news events are covered and the way in which the public views these images. Session 2 : The world of the photojournalist – an examination and discussion of the ethical and practical dilemmas of working as a photojournalist. The lecture will focus on the ‘rules of engagement' of photographers when they work. There will be a discussion of the place of photojournalists within the world of news gathering, and the relationship with editors and newspapers/magazines. How a story with 1000 images shot is edited to 10. Discussion of modern photojournalism and how the roles of wires/agencies, magazines, newspapers have changed. There will also be a look at the important issue of photo manipulation, both current and past, and the serious problems that it poses today. Also there will be a look at more practical issues of photojournalists – choices of black and white versus color, 35mm versus medium format and the changes of perception that can bring and how photographers are funded and how that affects their work. Session 3 : 30 Iconic images – A lecture looking at 30 iconic images and discussing how those images were created, a study of the photographer, and what those images tell us and have affected the communal memory of a moment in History. This lecture will require class discussion and participation. The principal aim will be to help students decipher images and to widen their mental visual library. Session 4 : A look at the history of war photography, following how the visual manner of images have changed over 150+ years, and how photographers have physically covered conflict, including working with the military. There will be a discussion of the compromises of working embedded or unembedded and the bias, seen or unseen, of working from one side of a conflict. We will examine the shock power of images – and if some images are too shocking. We will discuss the path of how images are diffused and the editorial process -how choices are made at different points by the photographer in the field and in the editorial process. Session 5 : A look at the images from the conflict in Ukraine. The lecture will take a survey of a large number of images taken during the current conflict. It will discuss the balance of coverage between the Ukrainian and Russian sides and also the source of the images. There will be a discussion about the issues of access for journalists in the conflict. We will examine the different sources of images and how we can gauge the aspect issue of impartiality. There will be a class discussion about the impact of these images and how they shape our own impressions and political actions and discourse. Session 6 : Oral presentation of class work on a theme covered during the initial lectures. Session 7 : Feature photography: We will look at how photojournalism is not simply about covering news and how a large part of what is termed ‘photojournalism' is feature photography, stories about the people surrounding us, across the world. Discussion of how photographers take an idea and turn that into a story. A look at photographers such as Sebastião Salgado whose work on workers of the world and the Amazon is an example of this. We will examine and discuss how long-term projects such as these change public perception and influence our understanding of important social and political issues. Session 8 : Portrait photography : A look at some of the most important portraits of historical figures, both current and past, and a discussion about the power of images to shape public impressions and perception of a public figure. Taking a wider approach, we will examine the work photographers from the past, such as August Sander (subject of vast show this year the Pompidou) who used portraits to document German society and also look at images of widely photographed contemporary figures, such as Queen Elizabeth II, and discuss how to read different images and portraits. The talk will focus on approaches by different photographers to document society and the way in which photographs have become crucial in forming the public perception of a person and how they influence our own opinions. Session 9 : Photojournalism in the era of social media: Given the vast role of social media in everyday lives there will be the issues of filtering and verifying sources which often provide the first point of contact with news images. We will look at how to navigate the vast sea of images on the web and how social media is changing the way we view images. We will discuss the fundamental issue of fake news on social media as well as press freedoms and issues that social media plays in the dissemination of images in our daily lives. Session 10 : Presentation by each student of photographs that they have taken on their phones (or cameras) that will be assigned specifically for the session. A discussion of what they see in those images, why they take those images and what significance they see in them and how they shape their memories of events and places. This is to generate a discussion based on the idea that anyone carrying a mobile phone is, in effect, a photojournalist capturing the world around them. But it is important to develop one's own awareness of seeing to understand better how others see. We will examine the complications of capturing representations of the world and to what extent they are ‘true' or not. Session 11 : A presentation of work by James Hill – covering the course of his career, using images from news stories that he has photographed to illustrate the central issues brought up over the course. Session 12 : A review of all the overall course and a look at the latest images of the day for students to discuss how they view the images and react to them. A final discussion and examination of the themes covered in the course. Biographie enseignant / Biography James Hill is a contract photographer for The New York Times and his images have won many of photography's most important prizes including World Press Photo, the Pulitzer Prize and the Visa d'Or at Perpignan's Visa Pour l'Image, Originally a war photographer, with many years spent in conflict zones in the former USSR, the Middle East and Afghanistan, he is now based in Paris from where he covers events across Europe. He has published six books.

James HILL

Atelier

English

Spring 2023-2024

Grading will be based on three pieces of work, two of which will be written and one of which will be oral. The oral task will be based around a presentation of images by each student in session 10 (see description of session.) The first written task, consisting of a text of between 200-300 words, will be given at session 3 and will need to be handed in at session 6. The second written task, to be of a similar length, will be given at session 7 and will need to be handed in at session 10. The oral task will represent 40% of the overall grade and the written tasks will each represent 30%.