Knight Center sponsors photo workshop in Chile

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Fifteen Latin American professional photographers and photo editors from five countries spent three days at the Universidad Católica School of Communications in Santiago, Chile, learning techniques and concepts that would help them edit their own work more proficiently.

The Knight Center for International Media, which supported this workshop organized by NuestraMirada.org and SomosFoto, sponsored two participants, Karla Gachet, of Ecuador, and Carolina Camps, of Argentina.

Camps said the workshop taught her how to organize her photos for the editing process. “In the past I knew that I had to eliminate photos, but I didn't know where to begin, didn't have a system for editing and sequencing my stories,” she said. “Although we eliminated a lot of my favorite photographs, I understand why, and I am very happy with the results."

Participants brought photographs from a story or essay recently completed -- or well developed -- but still in progress. Each day, they devoted time to one concept in the editing process, from eliminating visual redundancy to grouping photographs for themes and complementary pairings. The editing sessions took place with everyone’s participation.

International photographer Pablo Corral Vega, Knight Center’s former Resident Professional, and University of Miami Visual Journalism Program director, Loup Langton, taught the intensive three-day workshop, which had participants also from Chile, Uruguay and Peru.

Langton said the experience was very positive. “As always the Latin American participants were so enthusiastic about learning new concepts and about getting the most from the workshop,” he said. “Some of the photographic work was really strong and worthy of submission to international competitions.”

Four of the participants, including Camps and Gachet, were encouraged to enter their work in international competitions, such as World Press Photo and Pictures of the Year International.

Gachet said she has been to three SomosFoto workshops and they have taken her work to a higher level. “It gave me the tools to know how to organize my work, how to compare pictures and how to narrow them down so that it's still telling a story but without having redundancy in the pictures."

The workshop took place Nov. 11 – 13, 2008.

Posted on December 1, 2008

© 2008 University of Miami School of Communication