Prerequisites

• High school diploma or university degree.
• Experience and knowledge in photography.

Course Description

The significant advancement in the production, preservation, and archiving of photographic images has led to the emergence of a new artistic genre called "Photo-Essay Film." It is a literary, philosophical, or aesthetic essay resulting from the interplay of ideas sparked by the author's self-cultural experience and the vision of visual images, or the visions that go beyond what is immediately visible in the image. The outcome is a story, an essay, or a text accompanied by titles that establishes an aesthetic or philosophical relationship with the image, transcending it into an aesthetic or spiritual background for the text. In this course, participants will learn how to derive text from images and photographic stories to create distinctive artistic expressive works.

Course Objective

By the end of this course, participants will:
• Define the fundamentals and concepts of photographic essay films.
• Develop creative photography skills professionally.
• Analyze components of photographic essay films and apply them.
• Write an essay based on ideas derived from a deep reading of the image.
• Discuss artistic elements of photographic essay films and how to utilize them.

Course Outline

• Introduction to film photography essay:
- Concept of essay.
- Boundaries between photographic essay films and visual storytelling, and reportage.
- Aesthetic and philosophical difference between visual presentation of images and photographic film.
- Visual storytelling with images.

• Creativity in photography and its concept:
- Visual composition: blocks, light and shadow, perspective, lines.
- Visual construction of the photographic story.
- Tools used in photography and treatment.
- Deep and analytical reading of the image.

• Components of film photography essay:
- Narrative essay text.
- Images that form a visual story.
- Quality standards and image attractiveness.
- Locations for shooting and their impact on the photographic story.

• Artistic elements of photographic essay films:
- Procedural process and linking information and events.
- Visual sequence and internal relationships between shots.
- The interconnection between images and text.

Course Benefits

• A graduation certificate by Aljazeera Media Institute.
• A graduation project: photo-essay film.