https://www.magnumphotos.com/learn/course/bieke-depoorter-chance-encounters/

• The relationships that Bieke Depoorter establishes with her subjects are key to her approach to her work, and at the foundation of her artistic practice. Accidental encounters are often the starting point for projects: some of them leading to relationships which are years long. The ways these interactions naturally develop dictate the nature of Depoorter’s work. In our third on-demand course, Depoorter delves into her philosophy on working with people — one that is rooted in the idea of being “a person first, photographer second” — while also exploring the complexities that come with this approach.

•  Gregory Halpern leads our latest on-demand class. Featuring a curriculum of 16 lessons, this class unpacks his approach to portraiture, the power of editing and sequencing in building photographic narratives, and shares insights into how his celebrated projects and photobooks – including A, ZZYZX and Omaha Sketchbook – were created. Follow Halpern as he creates new work in and around his native Buffalo, NY, focusing on his attempts to create compelling portraits of strangers met via Craigslist and encountered along the way. Halpern shares his end-to-end process, from pressing the shutter and creating contact sheets to his approach to editing and sequencing, giving his honest reflections on the successes and the failures. This class offers a host of valuable advice that can be applied to your photographic practice, from thought-provoking discussions on the genre of documentary photography, to playful exercises on the relationships between images when presented in a sequence. 

• Across a curriculum of 21 lessons spanning more than five hours, Black speaks on his pathway into photography, teaches some of his key guiding principles to making meaningful work, often on difficult subjects, and shares insights on how he has developed significant projects focused on themes of geography, inequality, and the environment in his native region of the Central Valley in California, as well as further afield.This course is full of advice for those interested in using the medium of photography to highlight issues, stories, people and places that are important to them. Learn from Black as he shares vital guidance on forging a connection with a subject, theme or idea that can propel your photography forward.