Welcome To The Institute

Thanks to disposable cameras, digitalization, and the Internet, a social phenomenon is emerging in countless communities and countries that we think deserves to be celebrated, replicated, studied, and identified. It includes the use of still photography, full motion photography, and sound. But as a collective movement, we call it Photographic Empowerment.

The Institute for Photographic Empowerment (IPE) combines the resources, energies and contacts of two important institutions: Venice Arts and the USC Annenberg School for Communication. Venice Arts has compiled a remarkable record in the United States and the world – from helping the homeless to document their lives to giving voice to women in Africa who are living with HIV/AIDS.

At USC Annenberg, scholars are studying the impact of these images on communities and individuals. We also have an intense interest in the ability of still and full motion photography to contribute to pubic diplomacy and to make it possible for people to gain leadership roles in their own communities. But while we have worked together to launch this Institute, we are looking forward to working with other groups and individuals around the world who are pioneering this field in even better and more innovative ways.

The Institute will serve as a virtual meeting place for groups and individuals who share our interest in learning from one another, creating best practices, exploring ethical and legal issues, and learning from the research of social scientists. We hope that this website will help to start that process and we invite all who are interested to come, comment, and collaborate.

Geoffrey Cowan
University Professor and Director,
USC Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership

IPE at The SPE National Conference

The Institute of Photographic Empowerment is currently being represented at the Society for Photographic Education’s 2008 National Conference, titled “Agents of Change: Art and Advocacy“.

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Documentary Photography In Colorado Spring, CO

Jim Hubbard (left) and Neal Baer (right) interact with students during Colorado College’s Documentary Photography Class.

IPE Update

INSTITUTE UPDATE | Winter 2007-2008

A quick update to our friends and colleagues working in the field. We’ve received a tremendous response to the establishment of the Institute and have been working this Fall on building infrastructure and identifying programs that will support people’s interests and needs related to the Institute serving as a central, unifying space (virtual and real) that can link people engaged in the field (whether as photographers/practitioners, participants, academicians, or other interested individuals) to resources, projects, research, ideas, and one another. To be successful, we need your participation:

Website content
Early next year we intend to launch a new iteration of the IPE website that we hope will, eventually, offer the definitive collection of information on participant produced media and study, as well as providing tools and knowledge for those looking to begin their own projects and initiatives. We are asking for your participation. Our hope is to have sufficient content to take us through the first quarter of the year and to help build a site that is interesting, lively, and interactive. With regards to copyright and usage, IPE retains no ownership of your material - you retain all credit and copyright - and will choose how others use your materials via selecting the appropriate Creative Commons license, which will accompany the posting. Here’s what we are looking for, specifically:

Article submissions (unpublished or with rights to publish, ideal)
Academic papers
Models for evaluation of ongoing programs/projects; summaries of research data
Blog entries on key issues in the field (please let us know if you are interesting in being a regular/feature blogger)
Wiki entries
Books, published articles, journals for bibliography
Open educational resources (training materials and related resources, such as those produced by ICP and Harvard)

Feature projects
We intend to begin to regularly feature projects on the site and welcome your submissions and story ideas.

Events, internships, linking people in your communities
We will have an events calendar on the new site that will list all activities relevant to the field—conferences, local meetings, training and course work, etc. Please forward these to us and be sure to include us on your list announcing such opportunities, and we will be sure to post. For those of you who are nonprofit or academic institutions, we are also happy to post internship placement opportunities, jobs in the field, or other ways in which individuals might get involved in your organization.

Online forum
One way in which we hope to accommodate the many requests that we receive (and, we are guessing, each of you receive) for support and consultation—is through an Online Forum. It would be very helpful to know who amongst you might be available to provide various levels of online support or can otherwise accommodate such support in your existing programs.

Hot off the press
We are looking for someone (or several people) who regularly search the media for stories related to participant-produced work and who would commit to forwarding these to us for publication on IPE. Having current news, stories, and related features is another way in which we hope to keep the site lively and to build the relevance of its content so that it becomes the “go to” site for the field.

Thanks in advance, and I look forward to your responses and submissions. We are also open to other ideas about how to broadly serve people in or interested in the field. Should you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to contact Pablo Toledo, IPE Program Manager at pablo@joinipe.org.

All the best,

Geoffrey Cowan
University Professor and Director,
USC Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership

Lynn Warshafsky
Director and PI, IPE
Executive Director, Venice Arts

Jim Hubbard
Creative Director, Venice Arts

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