Photographing in the Social Landscape with Thomas Alleman (Online Learning – Eight Sessions) – Sept 29

About

Online Learning Class

The photographs of “natural landscapes” with which we’re most familiar—Ansel Adams’ pictures of Yosemite, perhaps, or those National Geographic series on icebergs or rainforests, in fantastic color—all show the world we would encounter if we could travel to those special, faraway places. A pristine view, unsullied by man’s presence, is usually preferred, but sometimes we welcome a noble lighthouse or a picturesque old barn tucked into the corner of one of these images.

Our “social landscape,” on the other hand, is neither faraway nor unsullied, and it’s right outside your door. That social landscape includes taxicabs and telephone poles, beer signs, graffiti, political billboards, mom-and-pop corner shops and people, most of all. In the Social Landscape, people interact with one another and with the vast public spaces that surround and welcome them all – parks and boulevards and plazas – and they negotiate the more organized venues that they and others have chosen to share: stadiums, theaters, bars, clubs and buses. Signage guides participants and pedestrians in direct language, but it also shouts slogans and promises with cleverness and neon. The infrastructure of that built environment must be navigated: streets, bridges, walls, wires, and boxes. Rules, codes and conventions are often unwritten, but they’re in the air for all to feel and follow, or not.

Through lectures and discussions, exercises and assignments, this class will explore the Social Landscape as other photographers have seen it over that last hundred years. Students will learn more about their own responses to the Social Landscape and the challenges they must overcome and embrace in order to communicate their experience in photographs that reveal, edify and engage.

This course is strictly limited to 10 students.

Thomas Alleman (https://allemanphoto.com/) is a commercial, editorial and fine art photographer living and working in Los Angeles. During a 15 year newspaper career, Tom was a frequent winner of distinctions from the National Press Photographer’s Association, as well as being named California Newspaper Photographer of the Year in 1995 and Los Angeles Newspaper Photographer of the Year in 1996. As a magazine freelancer, his pictures have been published regularly in Time, People, Business Week, Barrons, Smithsonian National Geographic Traveler, and US News & World Report, and have also appeared in Brandweek, Sunset, Harper’s and Travel Holiday.
 
A link for the Zoom class meeting will be emailed to the attendees prior to the start date. Please read the instructions included in the email. If you have additional questions please contact Kevin Weinstein or Janis McGavin at info@lacphoto.org.

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