This Online Intensive in Visual Storytelling challenges photographers to address the social, cultural, or emotional space of people and the places they inhabit while providing them with the tools necessary to make evocative and compelling visual stories. This course will provide a unique opportunity to share diverse perspectives from various geographic locations while offering photographers support on how best to make effective visual stories. The global pandemic has made us think differently about how we see community, our everyday life, and the culture that surrounds us. While some participants may be documenting within a restricted landscape, others may have the opportunity to explore a newly opened world. By supporting these unique personal viewpoints during this unprecedented time, the stories developed together promise to be of value and significance.

Through independent assignments, critiques, and the honing of editorial skills, this intensive encourages a collaborative environment where participants engage in meaningful dialogue to broaden their way of working and seeing. Students will consider various strategies for photographing while exploring how a group of photographs seen in concert with one another can create an effective narrative.

Our aim is to produce content that has depth and substance and create a short essay that is most appropriate for a particular story.

Students will be asked to define what “sense of place” means in a photograph and delve into what it takes to tell stories about the social landscape. They will gain a deeper understanding of their individual motivation and unique perspectives, be they personal, political, or metaphoric, and build compelling visual stories about this unusual time in which we live in.

Students will also be introduced to contemporary practices that interweave video, sound and text into their visual narratives. Lectures on content, trends in visual storytelling and the ethics of storytelling, and multi-media will support picture making.

Students will also have the opportunity to meet with the faculty in a one-to-one sessions. The final week will culminate with a slide show presentation of participants completed work.

Participants are automatically accepted into next physical Masterclass in Visual Storytelling in Turin as advanced image-makers where they will be encouraged to play with the collaborative tools of audio, video, and web-based platforms while considering how best to construct a particular story. Graduates of the long-form Masterclass in Turin are automatically assured acceptance to ICP’s full-time One Year Certificate Programs.