Courses

BFO-124-01 Portrait Photography
ECTS-Credits: 6
Prof. Bangert

BFO-124-02 Portrait (German)
ECTS-Credits: 6
Prof. Bauernschmitt, Prof. Trippel

Qualification Objectives: Students will possess basic skills in staging photographic portraits. They are aware of their responsibility as image makers towards the portrayed persons. Challenges regarding representation, visual stereotyping, othering, cultural appropriation, and one’s own socialization and perspective are acknowledged and addressed. Basic collaborative ways of working with the people portrayed are mastered.

Course Content: Exercises and assignments are used to introduce students to various genres of portrait photography. The finding of image ideas and the application and mastering of different light stagings will be played through. The resulting portrait works will be presented and discussed in the seminar. The students’ relationship to the persons portrayed will be discussed and critically examined. The relevance of the works in terms of content and aesthetics will be worked out together in the learning group by establishing criteria.

Courses

BFO-132-01 Photo- and Visual Theory
ECTS credits: 3
Prof. Fromm

BFO-132-02 Foto- und Bildtheorie (German)
ECTS credits: 3
Prof. Fromm

BFO-132-03 Storytelling in Journalism
ECTS credits: 3
Prof. Hauri

BFO-132-04 Storytelling im Journalismus (German)
ECTS credits: 3
Prof. Hauri

Qualification goals: The students have learned to access discourses of image and photo theory as well as image science and to reflect on them regarding questions from photographic image practice. They understand this as a potential that opens up essential new perspectives for their own practice. Students have literacy and confidence in dealing with current and historical theoretical texts and can refer to them in discussions and their own texts. You are familiar with the tools for writing scientific term papers. Students gain a broad understanding of the impact potential of narrative forms of presentation in journalism. They will learn to develop stories and present them in the form of treatments. They can recognize common narrative structures in stories and use them for their own contributions. Furthermore, they are familiar with common storytelling tools and understand how to use individual stylistic devices consciously.

Course content: Questions about photo and image theory will be worked out in the seminar based on selected reading texts. Key topics include:
– Photography and art. The discourse of the 19th century
– What is a photo? The photograph as a message, index and sign
– Photojournalism – Looking at the suffering of others?
– Photography and Society / Photography as Social Practice
– Distributed images. Digitization and Image Culture.

The seminar ‘Storytelling in Journalism’ examines current productions in the field of visual journalism regarding the narrative patterns and narrative forms used there.
– The narrative and its potential for attraction and impact
– Psychology of storytelling
– Structures of narrative texts
– Telling vs. reporting
– Elements, stylistic devices and tools of storytelling
– Classical and experimental narrative forms

Courses

BFO-125-01 Photographic Techniques and Digital Image Processing 2
ECTS credits: 3
Zakowski

BFO-125-02 Studiopraxis / Fototechnik / Bildbearbeitung 2 (German)
ECTS credits: 3
Zakowski

BFO-125-03 Audiovisual Production
ECTS credits: 3
Prof. Hauri

BFO-125-04 Audiovisuelle Produktion (German)
ECTS credits: 3
Prof. Hauri

Qualification Objectives: Students will expand and deepen the fundamentals of photographic shooting techniques. They will learn the technical and creative basics for recording and processing sounds and moving images. They know how common microphones, sound recording devices and cameras work and how to use current editing programs.

Course content:

– Exercises in handling camera systems and light shapers in the studio and outdoor area
– Teaching in-depth basics of digital image processing
– Camera technology and equipment, recording formats and codecs
– Microphone types, sound recording, sound and image synchronization, narrating with sounds.
– Setting sizes, details and perspectives
– Light settings, recording interviews, and interview techniques.
– Sounding out footage, working with editing systems
– Montage techniques and effects
– Image and sound correction

Courses

BFO-126-01 Visual Storytelling
ECTS points: 12
Prof. Fromm

BFO-126-02 Visual Storytelling (German)
ECTS points: 12
Prof. Bauernschmitt, Prof. Trippel

Qualification Objectives: Through hands-on assignments, students in this module will expand their knowledge of basic narrative techniques for developing photographic narratives. Linear narrative techniques, nonlinear narrative techniques, classical and contemporary narrative techniques, and application of visual languages in a photographic narrative. Students expand their personal range of approaches in the field of visual storytelling and deepen their knowledge acquired in the 1st semester in practical assignments. You will learn to edit intuition, framing, and narrative techniques into image sequences. Students will be able to conduct more complex journalistic research. The goal of this course is to provide in-depth learning of photographic storytelling techniques.

Course content: Visual storytelling is deepened through practical project assignments. Different narrative strategies and media implementations in photography and moving images are tested. The different visual communication of content is expanded in the narrative forms of reportage, essay and series. The dramaturgy, stylistic confidence, completeness, and entry and exit of a story will be discussed and further reflected upon using examples and students’ work. Journalistic principles are applied to visual narrative forms and set in relation to each other.