Online Courses for January 2023
Contemporary Narratives: A Short Guide to History, Theory, and Practice
Begins Tuesday 17th January 2023
One Series: £160
This series of lectures is ideal for anybody who seeks to understand how images are made and understood. It will enrich your understanding of the multiple ways in which images can be read, and will also add layers to how you make images and how you communicate those images to a broader audience.
If you have never studied photography, these lectures will give you a fast track introduction to the history of photography and its theory. And if you have studied photography, it will present new possibilities that will refresh your understanding of what photography is and what it can be.
A Short Guide to History, Theory, and Practice
The first series, will examine the visual origins of major photographic areas such as landscape photography, portraiture, and conflict, the first series will look at some of the key photographers and ideas that have shaped how we see the world today and will also present a global, pluralist outlook on both the wonderful expressive and artistic qualities of the photographic image, as well as its darker side.
Time: 18:00 – 20:00 UK time
Dates: Tuesday 17th January, Tuesday 24th January, Tuesday 7th February, Tuesday 14th February, Tuesday 28th February, Tuesday 7th March
1 The Face – Who does the looking
2 Photography as witnessing – What we look at and what we do about it
3 Landscape – Where we look and what we show
4 Staged photography and self-portraiture – Looking at oneself
5 Photography, anthropology and travel – Looking at others
6. Documentary matters – Looking at how we look
Photography in Transition
The second series, Photography in Transition will look at how social and cultural change in the post-war era influenced photographic practice around the world, and will look at specific areas of interest within photography, from representation of the body to the family album and how these ideas are communicated in contemporary photography.
Time: 18:00 – 20:00 UK time
Tuesday 25th April, Tuesday 2nd May, Tuesday 16th May, Tuesday 23rd May, Tuesday 6th June, Tuesday 13th June
Global Histories
The final series, Global Histories, will look at the ways in which photobooks, design, and politics have played in photographic history. It will look at regional histories and how conflict, independence, and economics have helped shaped both the photography of a place and the ways in which it is disseminated.
Time: 18:00 – 20:00 UK time
Tuesday 3rd October, Tuesday 10th October, Tuesday 24th October, Tuesday 31st October, Tuesday 21st November, Tuesday 28th November
January 2023 Project Development Course
with Colin Pantall
(January 2023 – April 2023 – 5 group seminars and 2 one-to-one tutorials. The course will roll over in May 2023).
Over a period of five sessions (and two 30 minute tutorials) this course will look at the different ways in which you can develop your personal project for a coherent starting point, or possible exhibition, publication, or professional dissemination.
The course will focus on participants’ practice, the work they are making, and how projects can be started, or developed into coherent stories that might be told in print, in the gallery, in photobooks.
The course will focus on student participation and integrate ideas behind images and how artistic, cultural, and political influences have helped shaped how those images can be understood.
Each session will use the impetus from participants’ projects to highlight how sequencing, text, and narrative overlap and interact. Peer-to-peer participation is a central element of the course.
In addition to each session, students will also receive two 30-minute one to one tutorials which will focus specifically on their work. One will come before the course begins, one after it finishes.
By the end of the course students will have a stronger narrative foundation, ideas on how to use text, design, and printing, and possibilities for moving the project forward.
Time: 18:00 – 20:00 British Time
Dates: Tuesday 31st January, Tuesday 21st February, Tuesday 14th March, Tuesday 18th April, Tuesday 9th May, 2023
Plus individual sessions in January/April
Cost: £180
Mentoring
I mentor photographers both highly experienced and those who are looking to add a critical element to their practice.
In these mentoring sessions we work together (both in-person and/or online) on how projects can be developed, how theory can tie into practice, how a visual voice can be developed, how text can add to image, how contemporary practice connects to a wider history of photography. If you've never studied photography, I will bring you up to speed on the theory and the practice.
Feel free to contact me with any questions if you are are interested.
Writing for Photographers
Need a text for your project? Do you need some words to get to the heart of your project?
Need a statement that merges theory, practice and what makes your work so unique?
If you do, get in touch. I might be able to help.
Writing and Photography Workshop
My writing and photography workshops will be returning in the near future. Email me at colinpantall@yahoo.co.uk for more details.
Thank you all the participants who came to my writing and photography workshops in 2019 and 2020. We've had photographers, curators, journalists, students, curators, young photographers just starting out and artists come and the range of approaches has been exciting and stimulating.
Some Feedback: 'Really useful and insightful. Looking forward to articulating what my work means to me so that others can relate'. 5/5
'Absolutely delighted with the course, extemely pleased to go home and take it all in for the next few weeks.' 5/5
'It was really enjoyable and something that I wouldn't have got anywhere else.' 5/5
“Once again...welcome to my house. Come freely. Go safely; and leave something of the happiness you bring.” ― Bram Stoker, Dracula
WHAT
Writing and Photography is a one-day introductory workshop on the different ways you can write about photography – both your own photography and other people’s. Using interactive examples, the workshop will examine different forms of writing, the different voices it can be delivered with, finding your interests, how to start writing and escaping the academic voice.
If you have ideas, you can write, if you lack confidence in writing, this workshop will help you gain confidence.
WHO’S IT FOR?
It’s for anybody who is interested in writing about images..
Writing develops ideas, it makes connections, it enriches photography. This workshop is for people who want to expand how they think about and see their own photography. It’s for people who want to write about their own work and find ways to connect their way of seeing with viewers through writing.
It’s for people who want to write about photography, who think there are areas that are neglected or ignored in photography. It’s to give a written voice to those areas.
HOW AND WHY
One of the major blockages for people who want to write about photography is thinking there is one way of writing. There are many ways of writing about images. It does not have to be formal, academic, or an essay.
Using interactive activities with images, texts and key examples, participants will begin to identify ways of writing that match their personal style. They will look at starting points for getting their inspirations and ideas in a variety of written forms. By the end of the workshops, students will have writing ideas and approaches they can apply to their own work in the coming days, weeks and months. I
WHO AM I
I am a writer, photographer and lecturer in photography. I write regularly for publications including the British Journal of Photography, World Press Photo Witness, Magnum Photos, PH Museum of Humanity, Photomonitor, and Source Magazine. I co-edited and wrote Magnum China and have also written and edited texts for photographers including Cat Hyland, Laura El-Tantawy, Vincen Beeckman, and Amak Mahmoodian.
In addition to this, I have a background in teaching writing to learners with language barriers. Building confidence and developing both short-term and long-term strategies and frameworks of writing for participants of all levels is my speciality.
WHEN, WHERE, HOW MUCH
The next live workshop is now likely to be in 2021 given that Covid-19 is not going away anytime soon.
I will keep you posted on this.
Maximum number of participants: 10
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