Sharing bad weather and good photography

Jonas Bendiksen

I started out in photography with very little formal schooling. In many ways, my education in this business was a one-year internship I did at the Magnum office in London, in 1996-97. I was nineteen at the time, but many responsibilities rested on my young shoulders. I made coffee for thirsty staff members, filed away returns (this was in the pre-digital age), answered phone calls, made tea for staff members, filed away more pictures, and ran to the post office.

Mundane as it sounds, this year turned out to be one of the most valuable experiences I ever had. By being around the offices, I got to spend a lot of time around Magnum photographers coming and going. Seeing them at work, talking to them about photography, showing them my own early stabs at taking pictures, gave me a crash-course in both the great ideals and hard realities of the working photographer. Looking back, I always think that simply being around the office, absorbing the tremendous creative energy of this prolific group of photographers and personalities taught me more than I’d ever learn if I went and got a bachelors degree in photography.

This is part of the reason why I got involved in Magnum Education. I talk to so many young photographers who feel frustrated by traditional photographic education. Students often feel they lack of realistic perspective on the fast-changing industry of photography, or miss exposure to hard-working photographers who realize their own personal projects. I meet many young photographers who are getting assignments and are working hard, but have difficulties formulating their visions for their own, more personal work. Thinking back on my own start, I frequently think a dose or two of the exchange of ideas I got as an intern at Magnum would help many photographers looking for the next step.

That’s what I hope our first Magnum Education event in Oslo March 4th-8th can offer photographers looking for a push. This will be more than just a normal workshop. Since we’ll have 10 Magnum photographers around that week, sharing views and work, I hope students will be part of an unusually intense dialogue about our craft. It will surely be a lot of fun as well, and I hope we manage to make a good informal atmosphere that everyone feels inspired by.

Some people have come to me worrying about the weather up here in sub-arctic Oslo that time of year. March usually brings long-lasting light after the dark winter, and heralds spring. There are, though of course no guarantees of a blizzard-free event, that is the nature of life up north. But fear not! One of the best rules-of-thumb I ever learned as a photographer is - The worse the weather, the better the picture.

01: © Jean Gaumy/Magnum Photos; 02: © Thomas Dworzak/Magnum Photos; 03: © Jacob Aue Sobol/Magnum Photos; 04: © Trent Parke/Magnum Photos; 05: © Larry Towell/Magnum Photos; 06: © Thomas Dworzak/Magnum Photos; 07: © Leonard Freed/Magnum Photos; 08: © Steve McCurry/Magnum Photos; 09: © Mark Power/Magnum Photos; 10: © Jonas Bendiksen/Magnum Photos

Look forward to seeing people here (but bring layers of clothes)!

PS: If you have any questions regarding the workshop don’t hesitate to ask them here. I’ll be frequently checking comments over the next week and will reply as soon as possible. We have had a lot of applicants to the workshops thus far, and it looks like we will fill every slot in the first round of reviewing applicants – deadline January 30th. So those who want to come join us should get their applications in before all the places have gone!

Magnum Workshop Oslo

Martin Fuchs

France. Paris. Fenelon college. 1988. Magnum photographers during the annual meeting. © Elliott Erwitt/Magnum Photos

The Magnum Workshop Oslo is a five day event organized to provide maximum personal photographic growth through a combination of small, intensive, progressive shooting masterclasses with Magnum photographers, subject-specific seminars and lectures, and ample informal time allowing for cross-pollination and networking between students and instructors. All of our instructors are experienced teachers as well as masters of their craft, and are dedicated to sharing their knowledge and experiences. Students will select one of the following Magnum photographers as a workshop leader: David Alan Harvey, Paolo Pelegrin, Alex Majoli, Christopher Anderson, Jonas Bendiksen, Alessandra Sanguinetti, or Alex Webb (joined by Rebecca Norris Webb), and will also have access to all participating Workshop leaders through the week. The event is organized in collaboration with the Norwegian Press Photographer’s Association, Bilder Nordic Photography School, and the Oslo College of Photojournalism.

The Masterclasses:
Students will arrive prepared to work. Over the course of the workshop, participants will produce individual projects under the same constraints as a professional assignment, but with daily review and editing sessions within their groups. Focusing on story formation, visual literacy, and personal vision, these intimate, intensive masterclasses form the center of the Oslo Workshop. Instructors will be readily available throughout the entire process to address issues and questions that arise along the way, as well as for individual portfolio reviews. Resulting projects will be exhibited in a group show with high visibility at the end of the week at Litteraturhuset, one of Northern Europe’s most prominent cultural locales. Our on-site HP printing staff will work together with students to produce large format exhibition prints using HP’s state of the art z-3100 printers. A multimedia project about the Oslo Workshop featuring student work will be produced by Magnum in Motion and will appear on Magnum Photo’s Website.

The Festival:
Participants in the workshops also receive a festival pass for the weeklong photographic lecture series “Dok/08”, which is co-produced with the Norwegian Press Photographers Association each evening at Litteraturhuset’s auditorium in central Oslo. These evenings will bring roundtable discussions, presentations of the workshop leader’s personal work, and seminars addressing pressing issues facing photojournalism today. Speakers include our Workshop instructors, additional Magnum photographers and other luminaries from the international photographic community including leading international photo editors and innovators in multimedia. All Workshop and Festival events are held in close proximity and will spill over into intimate gatherings nightly.

Who is the Workshop aimed at?
The Oslo Workshop is aimed at photographers who are dedicated to pushing their own personal photographic boundaries. This includes both professional and amateur photographers, but requires participants to arrive ready to work and to take their photography to a new level.

More information regarding requirements, accomodation and how to register for the workshop can be found on our workshop site. Spaces are filling up quickly...