April 2016 Estepona, Andalucia, Spain/New York, USA

MoMA ‘Seeing through Photographs’ – Thoughts on documentary photography
As part of the ‘Seeing through Photographs’ online course at the MoMA, Michelle wrote a blog entry about how stories become more powerful with photographs and how photographs can shape people’s opinions. Every person looking at an image will have a different interpretation based on their own personal experiences.
What makes photography’s relationship with truth so complicated?
The truth is so difficult to define; the truth for one person may not be the truth for another. There is an expression, “Tell the truth because the truth can´t hurt”. A visual of “truth” depicted within a photograph can indeed provoke a variety of emotions: it can evoke happiness, it can be consoling or it can cause emotional trauma.
In my opinion, nothing is “reality” or “the truth”; we don´t know what is outside of the frame. Photographs have that magical false reality – they can´t possibly portray the truth, because who are we to say what is the truth is in the first place?
In what ways do a photographer’s artistic choices and point of view affect the meaning of a picture?
The angle, the viewpoint, the closeness or the distance will all alter the meaning and focus of an image. The artistic choices of the photographer during his or her creative process will affect the visual interpretation and narrative of the final photograph. Read Michelle’s blog post. 

April 2016 Estepona, Andalucia, Spain

20th Anniversary of Andalucia.com
As co-founder of andalucia.com in 1996, it was very important to celebrate this huge landmark of 20 years in appropriate style, marking the development from the initial days of two early adopters (Michelle and her partner Chris) working from the lounge of a small apartment, to a fully-fledged business with one of Spain’s top websites boasting 10,000 pages.

The day-long celebration for 50 guests included a treasure hunt in teams, in locations in and around Estepona, whose streets were blooming with spring flowers; a Keynote speech by Andalucia.com MD Chris Chaplow tracing the history of the website and mentioning some of its key staff members; and a delicious lunch at the Venta Garcia in Casares, where the winning teams from the treasure hunt were presented with framed limited edition photographic prints by Michelle.

A mix of nationalities took part in the day, with many Spanish and English journalists, as well as friends, clients, and past and present employees.

April 2016 Estepona, Andalucia, Spain/New York, USA

MoMA ‘Seeing through Photographs’ online course
April had a double celebration – not only the 20th anniversary of Andalucia.com, but Michelle’s final grades came back after completing all six modules of the course – she scored an impressive 91%.

MoMa course certificate Michelle Chaplow
Seeing through Photographs

Introduction to Seeing Through Photographs
“Photography is a foreign language everyone thinks he speaks.” — Philip-Lorca di Corcia
One Subject, Many Perspectives
Discover photography’s roots in both art and science by observing the diverse ways the medium has been used across time to capture a single subject familiar to us all.
Documentary Photography
Explore a variety of approaches to documentary photography, from those that aim to produce objective records to those that critique the reliability of photographs as evidence.
Pictures of People
Examine pictures of people—as individuals or as representatives of a type, posed or captured unaware—and discover how the choices made by both photographer and subject inform our assumptions about those depicted.
Constructing Narratives & Challenging Histories
Learn to look critically at the way photographs have been used to construct narratives that shape our understanding of ourselves and the world around us
Ocean of Images: Photography & Contemporary Culture
Many artists are turning to our image-saturated world as both a source for and subject of their work. Explore how they examine—and frequently disrupt—current methods of image production, presentation, and circulation