This resource page features course content from the Knight Center for Journalism in the America's massive open online course (MOOC) titled "Visual Journalism: Looking at the other in the age of selfie." The four-week course took place from March 4 to March 31, 2019. We are now making the content free and available to students who took the course and anyone else who's interested in the photojournalism and telling other people's stories through documentary photography.

The course, which was supported by the Knight Foundation, was taught by João Pina. He created and curated the content for the course, which includes video classes, readings, exercises, and more.

 The course materials are broken up into four modules:

• Module 1: The History and ethics of photojournalism and documentary photography
• Module 2: Self portrait vs. Selfie
• Module 3: The importance of strong visuals and the photobook as an object
• Module 4: Using social network platforms to create outreach

As you review this resource page, we encourage you to watch the videos, review the readings, and complete the exercises as time allows. The course materials build off each other, but the videos and readings also act as standalone resources that you can return to over time.

We hope you enjoy the materials. If you have any questions, please contact us at journalismcourses@austin.utexas.edu.

About the Instructor

João Pina is a freelance photographer born in Portugal in 1980. He began working as a professional photographer at age eighteen, and graduated from the International Center of Photography’s Photojournalism and Documentary Photography program in New York in 2005. Pina’s photographs have been published in D Magazine, Days Japan, El Pais, Expresso, GEO, La Vanguardia, New York Times, New Yorker, Newsweek, Stern, Time, and Visão, among others.

His work has been exhibited at the Open Society Foundations (New York), International Center of Photography (New York), Point of View Gallery (New York), Howard Greenberg Gallery (New York), King Juan Carlos Center – NYU (New York), Canon Gallery (Tokyo), Museu de Arte Moderna (Rio de Janeiro), Museo de Arte do Rio (Rio de Janeiro), Paço das Artes (São Paulo), Centro de Fotografia (Montevideo), Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos (Santiago de Chile), Parque de la Memoria (Buenos Aires), Torreão Poente – Museu de Lisboa (Lisbon), KGaleria (Lisbon), the Portuguese Center of Photography (Porto), Visa pour L’Image (Perpignan), and Reencontres d’Arles (Arles).

In 2007, Pina published his first book, Por Teu Livre Pensamento (out of print), featuring the stories of twenty-five former Portuguese political prisoners. This project inspired an Amnesty International advertising campaign that earned him a Gold Lion Award in the 2011 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, and won the OSF – Moving Walls 21 in 2013. He also received the Estação Imagem grant in 2010, and was a finalist for the Henri Nannen and Care awards in 2011, and the Alexandra Boulat Grant in 2009.

In 2014, he finished his longest personal project, documenting the remnants of Operation Condor, a large-scale secret military operation to eliminate political opposition to the military dictatorships in South America during the 1970s, resulting in his second book CONDOR.

His third book 46750, published on the spring of 2018, focus on the ongoing urban violence in Rio de Janeiro and the city’s transformation over the past decade while preparing for the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games.

He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 2017/2018 and is a faculty member of the International Center of Photography in New York, and a regular lecturer and teacher of photography workshops.

Website: www.joao-pina.com

The History and ethics of photojournalism and documentary photography

 This module will cover:

• History of “Humanistic photography”
• Great Depression, Spanish Civil War and WWII and role of photography
• The golden years of photography in the print media
• Ethical standards in the journalistic world
• Evolution of the perceptions of photographic reality

 Video Class

 Readings

Self portrait vs. Selfie

 This module will cover:

• The drive to use your own body to tell a story
• Looking at the inner world vs. global issues
• Developing portrait skills

 Video Class

 Readings

The importance of strong visuals and the photobook as an object

 This module will cover:

• The documentary project from idea to the book/exhibition
• Photographic skills in unknown territories
• The importance of photobooks as a definitive media of communication

 Video Class

 Readings

Using social network platforms to create outreach

 This module will cover:

• How to increase your audience on traditional and social media
• Creating meaningful work that avoids creating visual noise
• How to survive as a photojournalist
• How to engage with a complete stranger and photograph them

 Video Class

 Readings