Visual Storytelling: Advanced Documentary Projects J213 Blurb Book Photo Project 3 units
Graduate School of Journalism/ Fall 2019
Ken Light/ lecture & critique [email protected] 642-4825 www.kenlight.com office hours Room 122 - Monday 1-3PM or Wednesday 2-4 or by appointment
BRIEF COURSE DESCRIPTION You will work throughout the term on one in-depth group photo documentary project in class and we will produce a bound Blurb photo book. This course will focus on developing a personal photographic style, photo editing, sequencing and publication as well as concentrating on visual storytelling focused on a single subject. Class will include critiques, historical overviews and writing text to accompany photographic work.
UC Journalism graduate students only. By portfolio review for others.
Documentary Photography: an in-depth documentary project class where students will create a blurb book. The class will explore how to tell visual stories with photographs through shooting, critique, historical overview, and editing.
You will be exposed to the work of a number of great documentary photographers and photojournalists, as well as to writings about the documentary tradition.
The class meets for two hours once a week. Class will be divided between a discussion of issues, ideas, and readings, slide and video presentations. During the semester a group critique and discussion of each of your projects will take place on a mutually agreed upon evening.
Attendance is a must. Two absences may result in a lower final grade. If absences are unavoidable please arrange with me for makeup assignments. The value of the class also depends on focus, and distractions undermine focus. Hence, no screens in class: no mobile devices, laptops, nothing. People who want to take notes should take them longhand.
------BLURB BOOK & iPAD Display: Blurb.com, a self-publishing startup. "Increasingly, content is becoming structured," Distribution in the publishing industry is becoming all about making a book discoverable across the web, increasing its visibility to potential readers."
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Project: An American horse racing track
Golden Gate Fields is an American horse racing track straddling both Albany, California and Berkeley, California along the shoreline of San Francisco Bay adjacent to the Eastshore Freeway in the San Francisco Bay Area. With the closing of the Bay Meadows racetrack on May 11, 2008, it became the only major throughbred racetrack in Northern California.
The track is set on 140 acres of land in the cities of Albany and Berkeley. Golden Gate Fields' facilities currently include a one-mile synthetic track and a turf course measuring 9/10 of a mile, or 7 furlongs plus 132 feet stalls for 1,420 horses, a main grandstand with seating for approximately 8,000 customers, a clubhouse with seating for approximately 5,200 customers, a Turf Club with seating for approximately 1,500 customers and parking for over 8,500 cars. The synthetic track is called Tapeta, and was installed in the summer of 2007. Our Contact: Ryan Hilton Marketing & Publicity Manager Pacific Racing Association 1100 Eastshore Highway Berkeley, CA 94710 510.559.7331 (office) 510.990.5021 (cell) www.GoldenGateFields.com Facebook | Golden Gate Fields Twitter | @GGFRacing Instagram | @GoldenGateFields
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Required Events: The Battle for People Park- opening & lecture September 13nd 6-7 reception (Library) 7-9 lecture (Room 105)
In eyewitness testimonies and hundreds of remarkable photographs, The Battle for People’s Park, Berkeley 1969 commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of one of the most searing conflicts that closed out the tumultuous 1960s: the Battle for People’s Park. In April 1969, a few Berkeley activists planted the first tree on a University of California- owned, abandoned city block on Telegraph Avenue. Hundreds of people from all over the city helped build the park as an expression of a politics of joy. The University was appalled, and warned that unauthorized use of the land would not be tolerated; and on May 15, which would soon be known as Bloody Thursday, a violent struggle erupted, involving thousands of people. Hundreds were arrested, martial law was declared, and the National Guard was ordered by then- Governor Ronald Reagan to crush the uprising and to occupy the entire city. The police fired shotguns against unarmed students. A military helicopter gassed the campus indiscriminately, causing schoolchildren miles away to vomit. One man died from his wounds. Another was blinded. The vicious overreaction by Reagan helped catapult him into national prominence. Fifty years on, the question still lingers: Who owns the Park?
------1. Definition of a Photojournalist/Documentary Photographer Sept 9th 1.The Activist Photographer/ slides 2. Documentary Photo Levitt-Salgado 3. Discussion of class project & pitch Look at Books- Boom/Telegraph/ etc. Photo project pitch
Discuss and assign photo shoots and racing events
2. Pitch 9/16 Start shooting/ Confirm dates of races & shooting schedule
3. The History of the Photo Book 9/23
Visit to the Bancroft Library Reva & David Logan Photo Book collection
The Logan Collection encompasses books dating from the mid-19th century through the 20th century, and comprises all manner of publications on photography. Its scope reflects the Logans' love of classic European and American photography and their singular interests in the history of photography in print. The highlights of the Collection include major milestone publications such as Izaak Walton’s The Compleat Angler, with photogravures by Peter Henry Emerson, and a full run of Alfred Stieglitz’s Camera Work, replete with superb photographic reproductions, considered the most influential early 20th-century periodical for the arts in America.
4. Development and implementation of point of view 9/30 1. Story line- informants- 2. Course of the Empire 3. The documentary essay/ DELTA TIME Project/Publication/Book 4. Valley of Shadows and Dream ppt
Images/Book/DVD/web Privileges and restrictions on the documentary/photojournalist 1. Property and personality (where you can and cannot shoot) 2. Invasion of privacy and other laws
6. Critique of Photo Project 10/7
Assignment- Each student should select one of the videos at http://photographychannel.tv and preview the video and next week we will view it together. You should present to the class a critique of the work and your thoughts on the strategy of the photographers.
7. Student discussion of selected videos 10/ 14
ASSIGN BOOK JOBS- managing editor/copy editors/designers/ Photoshop team for final production
8. Three masters of the document and documentary style 10/21 Walker Evans –video & Robert Frank- power point Gordon Parks-power point & Maggie Steber
9. Critique Photos (student critique session) each student will critique a classmates Photographs, suggest possible images, and sequence 10/28
10. Critique Photos 11-4
11. Dorothea Lange (DVD) and FSA images 11/11 FS
“Objectivity – Myth, Reality, or Ultimate Goal” “Do Photographs Tell The Truth?” –support or refute the argument that a photograph, which captures only a single instant in time, can never present an accurate, honest, representation of an event or situation;
12. Critique of Photo Project-11/18
13. Final Edit- Sequence 11/25 & other class meeting if needed
14. Critique of Photo Project- (Mon & TBA 12/2
Book to Blurb Publishing – date TBA
15. 12/9 DESIGN- COPY EDIT-PRODUCTION
LAST CLASS
FINAL ASSIGNMENT: Final images to be selected during group edit session participate in some part of the book publication: Edit/Select and maximize in photo shop for publication in blurb book Each student will be expected to have a role in the book production
DOC PHOTO WEB PAGES
Here are some great pages that display documentary photo essays. Well worth saving in your Favorites folder and looking at often. Also to get an idea of what your own website could look like. The Agencies
VII http://www.viiphoto.com
Magnum http://www.magnumphotos.com
Contact Press Images http://www.contactpressimages.com/
French Agence VU http://www.agencevu.com/en/
The Magazines (limited access only)
Eight http://foto8.com/
National Geographic http://www.nationalgeographic.com/
PDN (Photo District News) http://www.pdnonline.com/photodistrictnews/index.jsp also, most compelling portfolios chosen by PDN editors http://www.photoserve.com/photoserve/index.jsp
The Group Sites
World Press Photo (award winning photographs from around the world) http://www.worldpressphoto.nl/
Pictures of the Year International http://poyi.org/61/winners.html
STREET PHOTOGRAPHY AND THE LAW: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
By Attorney Mickey H. Osterreicher
As the name implies, “Street Photography” usually is done in a public place such as a street, sidewalk or park involving candid images of people going about their daily lives. This type of photography is permitted in the U.S. under the legal premise established by the Supreme Court that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in a public place. It is why we may be photographed or recorded many times a day by surveillance equipment, police bodycams and anyone else with a camera. In France, by contrast, the law is different and obtaining permission to photograph someone in public is the general rule. But here in the U.S. the rules distinguish public from private, with the greatest expectation of privacy in one’s home (although that too may vary from state to state). While street photography itself may not be a crime or create a cause for a civil action, what a photographer does with those images may create legal consequences in several other areas. One of those is when a photograph is used commercially, such as for advertising or trade purposes. It is one thing for a visual journalist to take someone’s photo in a public place and use it for editorial purposes to illustrate a story or matter of public interest. It is quite another to use that same image on a box of cereal, or to promote another product or service.
In the first instance no permission or model release is usually needed, but for the commercial uses, model releases are essential. Model releases are contractual agreements and photographers must be very careful to include all the terms and conditions necessary to provide them with the rights to use and license the image. A photographer should also obtain signed releases from any recognizable person in the photograph, not just the main subject. It is also important to remember that when photographing a minor for which a model release is required, only their parent or legal guardian can grant such permission. The issue of street photography versus model releases was brought into sharper focus a few years ago when DKNY offered to license such images for display in their retail store windows. The photographer and the company could not agree on a price, but the photographer also had no model releases, which is usually the case in street photography. Unfortunately for DKNY, one of its stores in Bangkok used the images “inadvertently.” The photographer discovered that, then used social media to call attention to the incident. DKNY made a quick and very public settlement. An important point is this: Had the photographer licensed the images without the appropriate releases, he too may have been legally liable to the subjects in his pictures.
The use of a person’s likeness for commercial purposes without consent (i.e., without a model release) if they could reasonably be identified is called misappropriation. Other legal claims that may come into play in the use of photographs include defamation, false light, and right of publicity. A chilling example of false light occurred when a model’s photo was used to illustrate a poster regarding HIV awareness. Even though the photographer and photo agency presumably had a model release, the use of the model’s photo created the false impression that she was HIV positive, which would be considered highly offensive to a reasonable person. The lesson is that it can be risky to license a photograph to illustrate a sensitive or controversial subject, even if you have a model release.
The right of publicity, which protects a celebrity’s commercial interest in the exploitation of his or her likeness, is a developing field of law and varies from state to state. For those whose photography involves taking and using such images it is important to be aware of the current statutes.
Although not often encountered as part of street photography, the intended (commercial) use of the images might also require permission from property owners-in the form of property releases-for such use. Property can be real estate, buildings and land but it also can also be pets, cars, artwork, intellectual property (e.g. copyrighted works) or anything that is not a person. Whether you need a property release depends upon the specific use of an image, and how visible and identifiable someone’s property is in that image. Discuss the risks of a particular use with your attorney, and whenever you seek a property release, it is extremely important to ensure that the person giving permission possesses the rights they are granting.
Aside from the legal considerations, photographers should also be mindful that many people are highly suspicious of anyone with a camera, especially when children are being photographed. And while the candid spontaneity of a street scene nay be ruined by seeking permission of a subject or their parent, being sensitive to those considerations may go a long way in avoiding an uncomfortable confrontation or questioning by authorities.
Because so many of the laws mentioned above vary from state to state and the use of images is almost limitless, photographers should consult with their own attorney regarding the need for and precise language of their releases (model and property) and be familiar with some industry standards such as the NPPA Code of Ethics.