Summer 2024: Contemporary Narratives
Images above by Eamonn Doyle, Colin Pantall, and Thom and Beth Atkinson
Contemporary Narratives 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.
1 Humanist Photography
2 Postwar Sentimentalism
3 Street Photography, City, and Self
4 New Landscapes
5 Photographing the Family
6 Fictions and Narrative
Time: 18:00 – 20:00 UK time
Dates: Mondays 13th May, 27th May, 10th June, 24th June, 1st July, 15th July
2024 Autumn Online Project Development Course
October 2024 – December 2024 online - 5 group seminars and 2 one-to-one tutorials.
Over a period of five sessions (and two 30 minute tutorials) this online 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 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.
Time: 18:00 – 20:00 British Time
Dates: Tuesdays October - December tbc
Plus individual sessions in October/December
The Summer Workshop is now sold out but you can book for the Autumn Workshop below
Writing for Photographers (with Simon Bainbridge and the BJP
London, 20 April 2024
A one-day introductory workshop on how to write about your photography. Using interactive examples and exercises, the workshop will examine various forms of writing, the different voices that can be delivered for different purposes, how to start writing, and – ultimately – how to write a convincing and engaging statement about your work.
Throughout the day, you will be encouraged to identify your interests, and to use writing to channel the purpose of your work and to express your voice. You will be given help to write your own personal statement, and get feedback on your writing in one-to-one, 30-minute follow-up sessions at a later date.
On this course you will:
-
Find ways to get started with writing
-
Develop your own project statement
-
Identify the key elements of your work
-
Gain insights into how you can use text and image
-
Do exercises on how to use writing as a tool for identifying your purpose
-
Experiment with how to simplify language and be direct in your writing
-
Learn how to engage and interest your audience
-
Examine how to adapt your own texts for different audiences
-
Get feedback on your writing in a follow-up one-to-one session with a tutor
-
Reserve Your Space
£250 Per Person
10:00 - 18:00
20 April 2024, BJP Offices, London E2
This workshop is strictly limited to 12 participants. Please reserve your ticket today to guarantee your place.
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.
Newsletter
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 late spring 2024
I will keep you posted on this.