Photographing Photo Story with High Difficulty Level Photo Techniques  

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The official Doc-Camp photo story exhibition and discussion were held from 20 to 23 September 2022. In the first Photo Discussion, Nadim (the center of media alternative studies) presented Boy Harjanto as a speaker to dissect 12 photo story themes from UII students across the globe. From across the class and department. Boy said in addition to technical photography, the photo exhibition of the participants has tried to raise various themes. Even so, there are some assessments from him.

He judged that some photographers were still not brave enough to experiment with photo techniques with a fairly high difficulty level. “For example, using panning, slow motion, zooming, rotation, and other technique,” said Boy Harjanto in a Photo Discussion by Participants of the 2022 Doc-Camp Photo Exhibition; this discussion is a result of the collaboration between PSDMA Nadim Communication UII and Klik18 that held on September 20, 2022. Boy gave an assessment and dissects the photos of the participants while also showing examples of his works that capture the moment of Iqra’s printing around Kotagede or freezing the routine activities of Ramadan in Jogokariyan with various experiments of high-level photography techniques.

Therefore, in addition to considering the technical aspects of photography and photo experimentation, photo story photographers must also consider what Boy calls the storyline exposure technique. A photo story is a technique of telling stories through photos. So photo story photographers must be able to play smart with photos and storylines.

“In terms of storyline presentation, Doc-Camp photographers, some of them have focused on making story photos according to the plans made,” Boy explained. “Although there are also participants who are less focused on the plans that have been made previously,” said Boy. For example, there is a team that creates another storyline in the photo of the story itself.

This Doc-camp Photo Story class combines student photographers from across generations, departments, faculties and multi genders with various themes. So, not all photographers are dominated by men. “This class is divided into two groups with different durations. Doc-camp 2019 resulted in the production of seven photo story titles that were done individually and in groups. Then Doc Camp in 2022 produced five photo story productions. Personally and also the majority are made in groups,” said Boy. In total, 12 story photos have been produced by all participants with various themes. For example, the theme of Islamic traditions at the Ancient Kraton Pathok Negoro Mosque in Plosokuning, the anti-mainstream recitation of Ngaji Filsafat (a religious recitation that study of Philosophy as the material) at the Sudirman Mosque, Biker Subuhan (Subuh bikers), to portraits of a pesantren with deaf majority students in Sleman.

At the end of the event, Naufal Syahrofi, Chairman of Klik18 (UII Communications student also the head of the student photo community), gave a memento from the Department of Communications, UII, to Boy T. Harjanto, their speaker and mentor during the process of making and producing photo stories in 2022. Boy has accompanied the participants from the training process, planning, sequencing, to photo curation and exhibitions.

(Featured Photos by Nabiel Marazieq)