SummER INSTITuTE - Visual Studies Workshop

Larry TowellThe Personal Photo Story$550 | This course is not-for-creditM - F | 9:30AM - 5:00PM | SEMINAR ROOM (A2)JULY08–12Students will show their own work and evaluate the personalphoto story as well as the making of pictures that reflect theirown fascinations and interests in the social documentarytradition. We will discuss how to work independently on projectsthat are important to us as well as the mechanics of individualimage making, what makes one image work better than another,and the importance of sequence and flow in exhibitions and bookmaking. There will be morning reviews and afternoon shootingsessions where students will explore themes of their own choice.Bring your personal projects as slide shows, individual picturesand book dummies.Instructor Bio from the Magnum Photos website: Larry Towell’sbusiness card reads “Human Being.” Experience as a poet anda folk musician has done much to shape his personal style. Theson of a car repairman, Towell grew up in a large family in ruralOntario. During studies in visual arts at Toronto’s York University,he was given a camera and taught how to process black and whitefilm. A stint of volunteer work in Calcutta in 1976 provokedTowell to photograph and write. In 1984 he became a freelancephotographer and writer focusing on the dispossessed, exile andpeasant rebellion. He completed projects on the Nicaraguan Contrawar, on the relatives of the disappeared in Guatemala, and onAmerican Vietnam War veterans who had returned to Vietnam torebuild the country. His first published magazine essay, “ParadiseLost,” exposed the ecological consequences of the catastrophicExxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska’s Prince William Sound. He becamea Magnum nominee in 1988, and a full member in 1993. In1996 Towell completed a project based on ten years of reportagein El Salvador, followed the next year by a major book on thePalestinians. His fascination with landlessness also led him to theMennonite migrant workers of Mexico, an eleven-year projectcompleted in 2000. With the help of the inaugural Henri Cartier-Bresson Award, he finished a second highly acclaimed book onthe Palestinian-Israeli conflict in 2005 and in 2008 released theaward-winning The World From My Front Porch, a project on hisown family in rural Ontario where he sharecrops a 75 acre farm.