Guest Speaker – Polina Fedorova –
"Photography that Speaks"
(Monday, January 23, 2017)

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POLINA FEDOROVA
​Biography:
 
Polina Fedorova was born is St. Petersburg, Russia. She is the founder and director of The Photo School which offers numerous courses for photographers from beginners to advanced levels. She also offers workshops here and abroad, notably in Russia. Polina has been teaching photography since she arrived in Montreal in 2006.
 
After pursuing studies in Art and Education in St.Petersburg, Polina completed further studies in the 1990s for Modern Art Curators. She subsequently worked as an exhibition manager and as a photo editor for Russian magazines such as Afisha and BG.
 
​Is there any member of a photo club who doesn’t want to take great pictures?
 
In this presentation, I’m going to show you how to reach that goal, based on an approach developed from my training, my photo work and my observations as a professional photographer.
 
To make a single powerful picture — one that tells a story, or has a message — you start by creating a pictorial story or photo essay.  For the first attempt, you may need ten images, the next five, then three, and the last attempt — just one! This holds true for different types of photography, for example: nature, people, fashion, wedding or photojournalism.
 
The presentation will provide rules and guidelines which show how to recognize, read and react to pictorial stories. Images are not ‘read’ in the same way as a work of literature. What connects a series of images can be a recurring subject matter, the feelings evoked in the viewer, the photographic technique (such as unusual camera angles) or many other things.
 
Examples from the work of international photographers, as well as from my own work, will richly illustrate the approach used to succeed in getting that great capture, that one image that speaks volumes!