* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
When I first received the email from Thomson Reuters Foundation announcing they were planning to hold a photojournalism training course in Sao Paulo my first reaction was "Wow cool I really must attend that course ..."
As a Reuters photographer I'm always looking for more and more information in photojournalism, but to my surprise the next email I received clearly informed me that I was the person who was running the course and not just to attend it! .... I've been working for Reuters since 1996 and have never had this kind of invitation - I didn't think twice, I readily accepted this new challenge.
The course was advertised and after three weeks approximately 80 people from all over Brazil had applied, from photojournalists with excellent professional experience to people who were not professional in image, to official press people and TV producers. The selected 12 candidates were from Sao Paulo, Santa Catarina, Porto Alegre, Pernambuco and Rio de Janeiro. All having a reasonable amount of experience in photojournalism.
My idea was to have 12 people with the same level of professional experience so that we could have a homogeneous class. In the first day of the course it became obvious that the students were all at a good level of expertise in photojournalism making it easier during the next three days of the course. The knowledge and information flowed well with equilibrium exchange developing into very productive experiences.
The course began with a presentation of Thomson Reuters Foundation’s projects, how Reuters news media works and the daily work of a photographer from the largest news agency in the world.
After we focused on topics such as ethics, principles, image manipulation, and how important editing images are we then moved onto practical exercises.
I was really surprised with the excellent results from the course and also with the interest in such courses by photojournalists in Brazil.
During the course and in the following weeks I received emails asking when will there be another course like this one organized by Thomson Reuters Foundation.
