The Beginnings of the project:
In November 2012 Video Volunteers and the Magnum Foundation joined forces to set up a participatory photography project for Community Correspondents at Video Volunteers. To view all of the photo essays created by the CC’s, click here.The genesis of the project was a meeting in 2011 between VV co-founder, Jessica Mayberry, and world-renowned Magnum photographer, and President of the Magnum Foundation, Susan Meiselas. Magnum is one the most well recognised photo agencies in operation, started in 1947 by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, David Seymour and George Roger. For its part, Video Volunteers is excited at how collaborations between professionals and citizens can shape journalism and the arts in the future. The project kicked off after Magnum Foundation was able to secure a grant from the Fledgling Fund.
VV selected 20 Community Correspondents, nearly all women, and Magnum picked photographers interested to work with them, which included Magnum Nominee, Olivia Arthur, and Magnum Foundation Fellow, Sohrab Hura. There were two workshops of four days each, one in November 2012 in Ranchi, Jharkhand, and one in March 2013 in Goa. Follow the links to read more from CC’s, Amit Topno and Reena Ramteke on their experiences from the workshop. Workshop 1: Ranchi [caption id="" align="alignleft" width="400"]
A Photo taken during the first assignment in Jharkhand[/caption] The first workshop, titled ‘Storytelling through Photography’, focused on creating visually strong, contextualised images and building a narrative into picture stories. Our CCs are strong at activism but sometimes less skilled at visuals, and we knew photography was a great way for them to develop a better eye. Furthermore, this workshop was a chance for them to explore visual media through a new lens. “I like taking photographs. I usually take photos at weddings and family functions, but this workshop has brought a new dimension to my work. I’ve learnt concepts like framing a shot, which will not only help me take better photographs, but also improve the quality of my videos”, said Reena Ramteke, one of the participants. In between the first and second workshop, correspondents took photographs on pre-decided assignments, receiving feedback as they went along from the Olivia and Sohrab. Workshop 2: Goa At the start of the second workshop participants presented their work from the past three months and received further comments from the trainers. In some instances individuals had taken over 7,000 photos. Olivia and Sohrab had their work cut out as they tried to get the CCs to begin thinking about how an edited series of photographs might appear. [caption id="attachment_3141" align="alignleft" width="300"]



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