As part of my ongoing personal development as a photographer, I attended an online workshop, the Social Documentary Photography Visual Storytelling Workshop. This was hosted by the Royal Photographic Society and presented by professional photographer and teacher, Stewart Wall. More information about his social documentary photography course can be found here.

The course was structured around three components:

• Part one, imagining the photographic project – conceiving of an idea, making decisions on what the story is you would like to tell, planning out the project
• Part two, creating the project – taking the images that you have envisioned and included in your plan.
• Part three, completing the project – post production, sequencing and formats for presenting the finished work

Right from the start I found the course to be engaging and informative and I learned a tremendous amount from it that I will definitely be applying to my studies and FMP, as well as all future personal projects. We explored the work of other artists and how they have approached social documentary photography, how they have created compelling visual narratives and the various formats in which they have shared their final projects.

I was particularly interested in photobooks and zines as this is something I am considering for my Final Major Project. What stood out for me though, was the variety of different ways that a photographic project can be disseminated and shared with an audience – this can range from very simple artifacts such as postcards, to more complex projects such as books or documentary films.

Stewart encouraged us to think creatively about what we would like to document and tell a story about, as well as being creative and unique in the way we choose to present the project. He encouraged experimentation with methods, techniques and ideas that invite creativity and bring the individuality of the photographer to the fore.

We discussed a format and process for planning out a photographic project and deciding on what images to capture and include in a body of work in order to capture the narrative and visual story telling aspect. This process that we were shown really helped me to get an understanding of how to sequence my own photography to create a story or narrative.

As a group, we were given a brief and a task to work on using the techniques and methods we had learned. It was fascinating to see how everyone approached the task and how it was interpreted and expressed in very unique and individual ways.  The feedback session that followed was insightful and allowed us to share ideas and expand on them through group discussion. Below is the short project I created for the workshop:

I chose to create a simple narrative depicting the reality of working from home as a part of life during the Covid-19 Pandemic. I chose to keep the images dark and shadowy to reflect the sombre mood and a sense of confinement.

I was definitely challenged to think outside the box and produce something different to what I usually do and I had a lot of fun working on the task.  I am reminded that it is always good to have personal projects to work on to allow creativity to flow without any pressure to produce something other than for the love of it.

This was an excellent workshop and it has definitely taught me the value of planning out my projects according to the narrative I wish to express and in line with the way I want to produce and share the project.