Learn, share and experience – documentary photography course
I’m now starting to plan next year’s workshops, in particular the documentary photography course which takes some careful organising.
Like many photographers I regularly attend workshops and find ways to improve my photography. Sometimes I’ll study technical skills such as lighting but mainly I’m interested in approaches to photography and how different photographers identify projects, capture stories, edit and present their work.
2025 will be the second year of running a documentary photography course that is designed to be fun, informative, and supportive. Aimed at people at all levels, this course blends creativity, mindset, curiosity, and storytelling to help you document the subjects and issues you are passionate about.
Be a more confident storyteller
This is a workshop-style course designed for anyone who is looking to take their storytelling photography to the next level. You could be relatively new to photography or you might be an accomplished street photographer or portrait photographer who wants to explore the documentary photography genre to help give your photography storytelling more structure and develop your skills as a visual storyteller.
The documentary photography workshop is for anyone and will be relaxed, interactive and fun.
We’ll look at some of my favourite documentary photographers and their projects including W. Eugene Smith, Matt Black, and Dorothea Lange. We will discuss what they wanted the viewer to know and feel, and how they went about achieving their objectives.
What’s involved?
We start with an initial 1-2-1 video call with to discuss your personal objectives and any projects or passions you already have in mind. If you have existing work to share that’s great but if not, don’t worry. We’ll meet as a small group in the South East (N. Hampshire/W. Berkshire area – M3/M4) for a full day to discuss documentary photography, visual storytelling and putting it into practice. It will be a safe and respectful environment to learn and discuss together.
To get a sense of the content we’ll cover, take a look at my book Making Documentary Photography.
You’ll then work on a project of your own and we’ll stay in touch with regular calls before coming together at the end to showcase our work (or work in progress) at a final half-day workshop/celebration in person.
Why participate?
If you’re anything like me the idea of exposing myself and my work to a group of people I don’t know fills me with dread, but I firmly believe that we learn by doing and we get better with feedback.
My documentary photography course is about building confidence, not judging people or their work. Some of my favorite photographers, such as Letizia Battaglia for example, openly admitted to not having a good technical grasp of cameras, I don’t either and I don’t really care about sensor sizes or megapixels. I’m more interested in ideas, passion, curiosity and how we tell visual stories.
So, if that sounds like you, drop me a line or send me a message.
