Documentary Photography and Photo Journalism: Still Images of A World In Motion

A picture of MIT students cossing Massachusetts Avenue in a rain storm.

Students cross Massachusetts Avenue in the rain. (Image courtesy of James Camp.)

Instructor(s)

MIT Course Number

21W.749

As Taught In

Spring 2002

Level

Undergraduate / Graduate

Cite This Course

Course Features

Course Description

Documentary Photography and Photojournalism: Still Images of A World In Motion exposes students to the work of a number of great documentary photographers and photojournalists, as well as to writing about the documentary tradition. Students work throughout the term on a photo documentary project of their own, attempting to reduce a tiny area of the moving world to a set of still images that convey what the viewer needs to know about what they saw - without hearing the sounds, smelling the odors, experiencing what was happening outside the viewfinder, and without seeing the motion. Students also write papers about the subjects of their photo documentaries.