The photographic language between personal confession and intercultural understanding

Voranc Vogel, Amsterdam, 25-28 October 2023

With Burja around Europe – in Amsterdam, we tried our best with Ed Kashi, a member of the elite group of world photographers.

In today’s world, photography plays an extraordinary role in our lives. It surrounds us in the media and follows us on social networks, and the clerk is also an everyday photographer with a camera close at hand. In this hyperproduction we are witnessing, it is important to understand or read photography.

At the same time, we must be able to distinguish high-quality and credible photographic creations and stories from the flood of more or less random snapshots that represent the majority of visual information we receive daily, especially on social networks.

One of the ways to ensure relevant and high-quality photographic news is definitely to trust proven and internationally established photojournalists who have been behind their work for decades and have produced stories that, through publication in world-renowned media and institutions, have had their stories also the actual effects on the topic they were dealing with.

One such author is Ed Kashi, an American photojournalist who, in his forty-year career, has received the prestigious World Press Photo award several times. He is a member of the elite group of photographic creators VII Photo, whose members mainly devote their work to socio-political topics around the world and treat vulnerable groups and individuals from the margins of society with special care, depth and responsibility in their work.

Kashi also lectures intensively about his work and his view of contemporary photography. I had the opportunity to meet him as part of the mobility of the Erasmus+ program in the organization of the visiting organization Eyes in Progress from France during the fieldwork they organized in Amsterdam between October 25 and 28.

I joined a culturally diverse group of participants from New Zealand, South Africa, Portugal, the Netherlands, France and Slovenia on the field. It was interesting to observe the different views on the photographic language, the attitude towards visual media and the way of narration characteristic of each participant.

This was the primary focus of Kashi’s lectures on how to develop your recognizable photographic language while at the same time understanding the cultural differences that arise when reading a set of visual works. We also touched on the process of creating the photographic story itself, as the mornings and afternoons were devoted to independent photography on the streets of Amsterdam, and in the meantime, consultation with the mentor and observation of the resulting photographs among the participants.

The last day of the workshop was exciting when we studied the photos taken by each of the participants as a group, and each tried to justify with their arguments why and for what purpose one of the photos taken should be excluded from the final selection of the photo series. A lively and colourful debate developed, which gave all participants an insight into the intercultural understanding of reading photography and enriched the individual’s opportunity to create their own photographic language.

At the same time, we relived the effects of Kashi’s work methodology, which I will definitely introduce in the workshops I organize myself. Indeed, different types of photographic stories require a different methodological approach. Outdoor learning and subsequent fieldwork, however, give photography that free path that can immortalize the past, present and future as a work of art. In the same photo.