Description

Ochre Space and Magnum Photos are pleased to announce a five-day workshop with Magnum photographers, Newsha Tavakolian and Bieke Depoorter. This workshop is made possible thanks to the support of Junta de Freguesia da Ajuda. Sign up here.

Join Newsha Tavakolian and Bieke Depoorter for a workshop in Lisbon between 10th to 14th July where you will focus on telling intimate stories through visual storytelling.

Through discussions and group crits, you will explore working intuitively to forge deeper personal connections with your topics and subjects. You will learn how to shoot from your heart, creating more meaningful images by listening to your intuition, as opposed to what you believe others want to see. You will be asked to create new work on a daily basis, and both Tavakolian and Depoorter will be on hand to review your work, offering their feedback, support, and advice. 

Under their guidance, you will spend five days roaming through Lisbon, which has a rich history of Moorish, Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque influences. By exploring the city’s history and culture, you will be asked to follow your instincts to develop your photographic style and visual language. Lectures and references to photography, books and film will also contribute to the working process.  

Depoorter’s intimate and immersive approach to portraiture and Tavakolian’s background in documentary photography and the moving image will enable you to experiment with their different photographic styles during the workshop. This is an opportunity to tackle any questions and doubts you may have around creating a meaningful relationship with a project, as well as drawing out the personal in your work. 

Participants will be split into four groups and will be tutored by the photographer of their choice. Each participant will create a new body of work in Lisbon through daily shooting exercises or edit and sequence a long-term project with the help of Depoorter or Tavakolian.  

Bieke Depoorter’s group crits is now fully booked and there are only a few spots left for Newsha Tavakolian’s group. 

Schedule*:

Day 1

09:00–10:00: Welcome, introductions

10:00–11:30: Presentation by Newsha Tavakolian 

11:30–13:00: Presentation by Bieke Depoorter 

14:00– Late: Shooting time 

Day 2

10:00–13:00: Group A crits (Shooting time Group B)

14:00–17:00: Group B crits (Shooting time Group A)

Day 3

10:00–13:00: Group A crits (Shooting time Group B)

14:00–17:00: Group B crits (Shooting time Group A)

Day 4

10:00–13:00: Group A crits (Shooting time Group B)

14:00–17:00: Group B crits (Shooting time Group A) 

Day 5 

10:00–18:00: Editing & Sequencing Workshop 

*Depoorter and Tavakolian will co-teach on several occasions during the workshop.

This workshop offers:

  • Group crits. 
  • Intimate sessions and lectures on visual storytelling. 
  • Editing and sequencing strategies.
  • A 50-page workbook on how to get started in photography.

This workshop is open to both still and moving image makers.

Price: 

€1300 (incl. VAT). Terms and Conditions apply.

Bieke Depoorter’s group crits is now fully booked and there are only a few spots left for Newsha Tavakolian’s group. 

Sign up here.

If you would like to pay in two instalments of €650 over a two-month period sign up here.

Deadline to book your spot: June 1, 2023

Scholarship: 

Magnum Photos is happy to sponsor two scholarship for this workshop. The scholarships will be given to two women photographers based in Portugal. The successful candidates will be selected by Newsha Tavakolian and Bieke Depoorter, a representative of Ochre Space and of Magnum Photos. The selection will be based on the quality of the work submitted.

Apply for the scholarship here.

Deadline to apply for the scholarship:  May 20, 2023 at midnight.

Biographies

Bieke Depoorter (°1986, Belgium) received a master’s degree in photography at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent in 2009. Three years later, when just 25 years old, she was made a nominee of Magnum Photos, of which she was named a full member in 2016. Depoorter has won several awards and honors, including the Magnum Expression Award, The Larry Sultan award and the Prix Levallois. She has published four books: Ou MenyaI am About to Call it a Day, As it May Be, and Sète#15. She worked together with Aperture, Editions Xavier Barral, Edition Patrick Frey, Lannoo, Hannibal and Le bec en l’air to publish these books.

The relationships Depoorter establishes with the subjects of her photographs lie at the foundation of her artistic practice. Accidental encounters are the starting point, and how these interactions naturally develop dictates the nature of Depoorter’s work. But several recent projects have been the result of Depoorter questioning the medium. In As it May Be, she gradually became more aware of her status as an outsider, both culturally and as a photographer. So, in 2017, she revisited Egypt with the first draft of the book, inviting people to write comments directly onto the photographs. In Sète#15, and also Dvalemodus, a short film she co-directed, she began to see her subjects as actors. Although she portrayed them in their true environments, she tried to project her own story onto the scenes, fictionalizing the realities of her subjects in a way that blurred the lines between their world and hers.

Newsha Tavakolian is known for her powerful work covering wars in Iraq and social issues in her native Iran. With clarity and sensitivity, Tavakolian has photographed female guerilla fighters in Iraqi Kurdistan, Syria and Colombia, prohibited Iranian female singers and the lives of people living under sanctions. Over the years, her practice has shifted from photojournalism to photography as art.

A self-taught photographer, Tavakolian began working professionally in the Iranian press at the age of 16, at women’s daily newspaper Zan. At the age of 18, she was the youngest photographer to cover the 1999 student uprising, which was a turning point for the country’s blossoming reformist movement and for Tavakolian personally as a photojournalist; a year later she joined New York-based agency Polaris Images.

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