This Documentary Photography and Visual Storytelling course will introduce you to the skills needed to produce a picture story. Delivered through a series of practical workshops, visual presentations and critical discussion of photographers’ work, along with technical advice and one-to-one critical feedback on work you have produced, this course aims to introduce practical and theoretical skills needed for visual storytelling.

This is an intensive course of five sessions requiring the commitment to build upon the teaching sessions by shooting photos between sessions to present at the next. However, you will not be using a camera during the teaching sessions. The course will lead students through the basics of visual storytelling by developing and shooting a series of images between sessions that will be finally produced as an edited, sequenced and captioned picture story.

There will also be a critical learning element to the course. Each session will be introduced with a presentation of two practitioners of documentary photography. These will be both well-known and lesser known photographers on a variety of subjects and formats. The purpose of these sessions is to get the students to begin to critically consider different ideas and photographic styles. You will look at how a story progresses, what the important elements of a story are, and begin to look at where your interests in photography might lie in order to develop skills, ideas and direction.

The Documentary Photography and Visual Storytelling course is aimed at those who wish to develop their photography skills and produce picture stories creatively. It will be of interest to those who wish to extend their practice and personal direction or who wish to build up a portfolio for further study and to present it as a completed project. Students will be supported through the course to complete a body of work for an online-exhibition on the Camera Club’s website.

The course will be run by Alison Locke. Alison completed postgraduate studies in Documentary Photography and Photojournalism at LCC in 1999 and has since worked mainly on long-term documentary projects. She is interested issues of identity and her work has been exhibited in the UK and internationally.

The course will consist of 5 workshops on 8 June, 22 June, 6 July, 20 July and 3 August, from 7.00-9.30pm at the Camera Club. The cost for the course will be £120 for members, and £130 for non-members.

For more information please contact Andrew Mason at am@live.co.uk or at www.36exp.co.uk