Documentary Photography Course with Rio Helmi in Ubud, Bali

“The Art of visual storytelling” - DOCUMENTARY Photography Course with Rio Helmi

Join this 6 days photography course with one of the renowned Indonesian documentary photographers in Indonesia - Rio Helmi.

About the course:

This intensive course will take place in Bali on June 16-21, 2022

The programme is designed for intermediate students who have good basic photography skills and wish to enhance their abilities. The focus of our course is to master the process of documentary photography. Throughout the course, you will be mentored by Rio Helmi who will guide you the various steps involved - beginning with research and preparation down to final selection and editing. This will be a practical, hands-on course with individual assignments, shooting, group discussions and editing sessions.

Upgrade your level of photography.

Highlights:

• The lexicon of documentary photography: becoming familiar with the work of masters of the genre.
• Deepen your knowledge: creating a documentary photographic essay from A to Z
• Identifying stories to develop and key images
• Refine your storytelling and composition: image analysis, editing and writing captions
• Learn ground rules for Interactions with subjects
• Discover your own visual language, as well as practical and conceptual,
• Dealing with real situations in reportage
• Receive individual feedback and guidance on your work and get inspired for the next project

Classes and content:

• Aims of documentary photography & reportage
• Storytelling approaches: conceptual or spontaneous?
• Style: how it affects the message
• Pitching an idea – formulating the idea – what does it take?
• The 5 Ws – who what where when how
• Fundamentals of editing

Testimonials :

Mark " This workshop totally opened a new perspective and provided previously inaccessible depth of understanding of docum4entary photography. It also lit up the passion to tell visual stories in a mindful, emphatic and authentic way."

Gabriel: "The main thing I realized in this workshop is that without showing a story, pretty photos don’t mean much. While ideation and conceptualizing is a difficult task, it is the key to create meaningful and impactful photographs."

Need to know before you go :

• Candidates are expected to arrive comfortable with their equipment and ready to photograph.
• Participants should bring their own laptops, and everything needed for digital editing.
• Each participant will be awarded a certificate of completion of the course.

Fees:

650 USD

50% - required to book a place

Dates: June 16-21, 2022

Location :

The workshop will be held in Rio Helmi’s spacious and unique home in Pejeng, 15 min drive east of Ubud. The fee includes vegetarian Indonesian style lunch.

Other notes:

The course will be held in English. The location of the place will be revealed after the booking and due to the limited availability it is highly recommend to book well in advance. The fee does not include transport, accommodation or on the ground expenses.

About the tutor :

Born to an Indonesian diplomat father and a Turkish mother, Indonesian photographer and writer Rio Helmi has been capturing images of Asia and writing since 1978. His work can be seen in magazines, documentaries and more than 20 large format photographic books. Solo exhibitions of Rio’s still photography have been held in Bali, Jakarta, Madrid, Miyazaki, Palo Alto, San Francisco, and Sydney, and his works are held in private collections around the world including in London, Rome, Boston, Washington and Tokyo.

In the past Rio focused on the interaction between indigenous peoples and their environment, and as a result has traveled extensively across the Indonesian archipelago and further afield across Asia including Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, Japan, Ladakh and Mongolia, photographing both remote tribal people and modern urban life.

From 1979 to 1983, Rio worked as a photographer/writer and associate editor in the Indonesian media (Bali Post, Mutiara, Sinar Harapan, Tempo). Since 1983, Rio has freelanced for many regional and international magazines (Asiaweek, Geo, Harper’s Bazaar, New York Times, New York magazine, Tempo [Indonesia], Time, Vanity Fair, Vogue). He has published several large format photo books – among others ‘River of Gems, a Borneo Journal’ (text by Lorne Blair), and ‘Bali Style’.

Rio has been based in Bali for more than four decades, and speaks five languages fluently.

He writes in Indonesian and English, and has blogged about a wide range of topics for the Huffington Post and the website ubudnowandthen.com dedicated to his place of residence, Ubud. He has also moderated panel sessions and conducted public interviews at the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival which is now an annual event of international repute.

His book Memories of the sacred, retrospective portfolio of Bali of over 35 of documentation years with text by Diana Darling, was launched early October 2010 by Afterhours publishing in Jakarta, is perhaps his most important work on Bali to date. Rio’s latest is a book on architecture: “Popo Danes – Bali Inspired” which was launched in 2019 by Rizzoli.

Ongoing projects include a series of urban-scapes from various cities, documentation of migrant workers from Java in Bali, and a new series of aerials of Bali.