The New Business of Photography
The research Tell Your Story, initiated by Forhanna in 2019, showed that several ways exist in which documentary work can be produced sustainably. The research focused on projects and the way they were financed by their makers.
Now Forhanna initiates a new research to help identify how photographers can create not just sustainable projects, but sustainable careers.
‘How can narrative photography be
made future-proof?’
This new research aims to understand the transition of the visual economic industry and how economic value relates to social value. Developing this understanding requires a historical perspective on what the economic infrastructure of non-fiction photography has been, what the state of this media economy currently is, and what the role and position of both practitioners as well as institutions such as galleries, museums, publishing houses is.
Forhanna will annually produce a practical handout for practitioners to make the results of the research project accessible to anyone interested in how the transition of the photographic industry affects the visual economy.
The researchproject ‘Tell Your Story’ focuses on creative projects and the way they were financed by their makers.
About the researcher
David Campbell
David Campbell is an internationally-experienced, globally-minded communications, media and politics professional with a uniquely varied history of strategy, management, analysis and writing within government, academia, and non-government organizations (NGOs).
David is passionate about creating and investigating new ways of seeing the world that can promote change. As a strategist, he develops purpose-driven communications that deliver an organisation’s objectives. As a producer, he fosters diverse and different perspectives with social impact. As a professor, he researches, writes and teaches about the media economy to understand the power and impact of visual stories.Â
David holds a Ph.D. in International Relations and for more than twenty-five years he taught visual culture, geography, and politics at universities in the USA, Australia, and the UK. He is currently Honorary Professor in Political Science and International Studies at the University of Queensland, Australia, and Visiting Professor in the Northern Photography Centre at the University of Sunderland, UK.
David has produced visual projects on the Bosnian War, imaging famine, and the visual economy of HIV/AIDS, and between 2015 and 2020 he worked in senior management at the World Press Photo Foundation in Amsterdam.