INTRODUCTION TO PHOTOJOURNALISM
Course concept
and description
Photographs can change the world and how we see it. In this course, students will be introduced to the history of photojournalism, exploring the stories behind iconic images of critical moments in human history captured by various photographers.
Instruction will include the technical aspects of photojournalism, including understanding composition, using editing software, using different qualities of light and capturing decisive moments.
The course will also cover ethics in photojournalism, the importance of captions and learning to read human behaviour. Out-of-class assignments include researching a subject and shooting and editing a photo essay.
Other specifications
of the course
Instructor:
Farzana Vahidy
Farzana Wahidy is an award-winning Afghan documentary photographer best known for her photographs of women and girls from Afghanistan. She was the first female Afghan photographer to work with international media agencies.
Biography:
Wahidy has been documenting the lives of Afghan women for more than a decade, and she recently established the Afghanistan Photographers Association.
Wahidy was born in Kandahar and moved to Kabul with her family at the age of six. She attended school during the Afghan civil war and then an underground school after the Taliban took power in 1996. After their defeat in December 2001, Wahidy completed high school and enrolled in a two-year program with AINA Photojournalism Institute.
In 2004 she began working as a photographer for Agence-France Presse and later joined the Associated Press. She is a graduate of Photojournalism from Loyalist College in Canada.
Wahidy’s work has been widely published in international magazines and newspapers, and she has done assignments for numerous NGOs. In 2014 she created a project to train Afghan photographers, review copyright law, and research the history of photography in Afghanistan.
Wahidy’s photographs have been presented in solo and group exhibitions in Afghanistan, Canada, the United States, India, Pakistan, Germany, Italy, Norway, Switzerland, China, Finland, France, and recently Portugal.
