Photo Documentary and DiscoverySemester Course

Major Discipline(s)
Communication, Journalism, Media Studies
Type
Elective Course
Available
Fall/Spring semester
Credit(s)
3

Use your camera as a passport for opening doors and as your tool to explore and understand the cultures, people, and places you encounter in Sweden and on your trip to Berlin. In this course, learn to research and tell your individual story through photography. Through workshops and excursions outside the classroom, develop the skills to dive into different cultures and use your camera as a medium for understanding a community and telling your story through photographs.

Included Exploration Trip

The Exploration Trip is an opportunity to dive into the course content in another context. You will undertake an independent or small group assignment, exploring the course material on location. These trips are more loosely structured than Study Tours, with more room built in to self-direct your learning experience and class work while on site.

In the travel component of this course, we explore the beautiful region of Österlen (spring) or the unique city of Malmø (fall), both located in Skåne, the southernmost county in Sweden. For three days we will uncover the area and meet the people who live there through photo documentary projects. Exploring your photographic skills in a new space is an ideal way to push your limits as a photographer and share experiences in the group. You learn how to take control of a situation, how to gain the courage to interact with subjects, and how to embrace emotions as exposed through photography. You will also gain experience working with light and angles, shooting portraits, and completing personal, artistic, and classic photo assignments. To develop as a photographer you have to push yourself outside your comfort zone and sometimes do things that could feel awkward or embarrassing but this will push you to another level of understanding both about yourself and and the world around you.

This trip will come at no extra cost to you, but is a mandatory part of the curriculum of this course. Travel will take place over three days during the period of your semester known as the ‘Study Break.’

Related Discipline(s)

This course would also be of interest to the following discipline(s):
Photography, Visual Arts

Faculty

Johan Marklund

DIS Stockholm Semester Faculty

Service management, Umeå University and Euromed - Ecole de commerce Marseille. Freelance photographer. With DIS since 2023.