Photography | IDFA DocLab

projects (74)

Watertight

Created with 3D printing, 12 miniature portraits of New Yorkers who live alone offer a cross-section of the single occupant household, currently the dominant mode of living in Manhattan.

Over the past 50 years, the number of people in the average household has fallen drastically. For the first time in the history of the Western world, the…

Making Home: Tai Hang

Explore the experiential and analytical routes in investigating Hong Kong home cultures.

Making Home: A Visual Ethnography of Tai Hang Domestic Space explores the experiential and analytical routes in investigating Hong Kong home cultures by…

Narrated Reality

A camera, a compass, and a clock narrate images based on location and time using machine intelligence.

Narrated Reality consists of three new interfaces for written language: a camera, a compass, and a clock that respectively narrate images, location, and…

Recognized / Not Recognized

A movement study exploring the characteristics of successful news photos.

The work of artist Coralie Vogelaar consist of systematic studies revealing the mechanisms within our visual culture. She conducts them by using quantitative…

Charlotte

Players explore the world of the 19th century short story, The Yellow Wall-paper and its author, Charlotte Perkins Gilman who was an important suffragist.

Charlotte is a video game in which players explore the world of the 19th century short story, The Yellow Wall-paper and its author, Charlotte Perkins Gilman…

What I Saw in Syria

A journalist gives readers a visceral, intimate sense of what it’s like to report on the Syrian war.

New York Times journalist Declan Walsh gives readers a visceral, intimate sense of what it’s like to report on the Syrian war. Some of that involves…

The Island of the Colorblind

Catch a glimpse of a world where flames light a up in black and white, trees have turned pink and a rainbow holds a thousand shades of grey.

What does color mean to those who can’t see it? Long ago, a catastrophic typhoon swept over Pingelap, a tiny atoll in the Pacific Ocean. One of the few…

100 Photographs: The Most Influential Images of All Time

A multimedia project on the hundred photos that have shaped our world. Short films, essays and stories from those who have made the news explain why.

This multimedia project by Time magazine celebrates the hundred photos that have shaped our world. To start, there’s the Beatles having a pillow fight…

Everyday Everywhere

By uploading photos of everyday life, “ordinary people” from all over the world show the place they live from a different perspective.

A new perspective on the world and the eradication of clichés: this is the aim of the online media network Everyday Projects. “Ordinary people” from…

Future Cities

Future Cities is a transmedia documentary about five emerging cities. Cities behind the obvious; because we all know Rio de Janeiro and Shanghai are booming.

Future cities tells the story of cities challenging these wellknown urban areas as it comes to creativity, (economic) growth and innovation. In video,…

Selfies

Selfies is a collection of over 9000 portraits taken from Instagram, which featured first in the Dutch national newspaper de Volkskrant.

To get the highest quality photographs all pictures tagged with "selfie" on Instagram were aggregated over a couple of weeks, then filtered through a face…

The Parade

The Parade is an authentic fable. It tells the tales of Cloclo number 18, a cheerleader, of Jonathan, a tuning fan, of Freddy, who breeds fighting cocks and of Gros Bleu, a carrier pigeon.

On the beat of Oignies’ brass band and under the watchful eye of the giants, they live out their passions, inherited from the working class traditions…

4Stelle Hotel is a web documentary that recounts a day in the life of the multiethnic community that occupied the abandoned luxury hotel on Via Prenestina in Rome and transformed it into their own home.

For years Italy has found itself under the international spotlight due to the massive influx of immigrants, who are often forced to live isolated from…

Imperial Courts

A serene photo and video portrait of the predominantly African American residents of a housing project in South Los Angeles.

Imperial Courts is the name of a social housing project in the Watts neighborhood of South Los Angeles. The majority of its residents are black Americans.…

Oh My Gosh, Zilla

Zilla van den Born fabricated the evidence of a five-week trip around Southeast Asia that she never took.

A trip around Asia is high on the wish list of many a recent graduate. Zilla van den Born did it too, traveling for five weeks around Cambodia, Laos and…

Cucalu: Rediscover Reality

This interactive iPhone game gets its players to take a fresh look at the world around them by having them photograph circles, squares and triangles in their hometown.

When we we’re on vacation, far from home, we notice all sorts of things with a heightened gaze that means we don’t miss a thing. But back home in our…

I Know Where Your Cat Lives

Uploading photos isn’t as harmless as you might think, as demonstrated by this amusing but unsettling online data project.

Millions of cat lovers from all over the world upload pictures of their fluffy housemates. This data project makes it possible to find out exactly who…

Refugee Republic

You think refugees are passive victims? Then spend some time in Domiz in northern Iraq and find out what everyday life in a camp is really like.

People desperately or resignedly waiting for help in the heat and the dust – this is the image most of us associate with refugee camps. But that’s…

Never Alone

This game, inspired by Alaska Native culture, brings the world of Iñupiaq stories alive.

Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna) is the first game developed in collaboration with the Iñupiat, an Alaska Native people. Nearly 40 Alaska Native…

The Sochi Project

This multimedia slow journalism project tells the shadow narrative to the upcoming Winter Olympics in Sochi, which is surrounded by conflict zones. It brings together long reads, photo series and TV reports.

In 2007, Vladimir Putin stepped onto the stage at the International Olympics Committee's annual meeting to the sound of the triumphal opening of Tchaikovsky's…

Hidden Wounds Interactive

An interactive version of a subdued video about the lives of war veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder.

"Redemption isn't coming soon / I am stuck here with these hidden wounds / All the things they make me do." Tom Barman, the lead vocalist with Belgian…

A Short History of the Highrise

This latest episode in a multi-annual documentary project highlights the history of the vertical living, from the Tower of Babel to the skyscrapers in New York.

Katerina Cizeks's interactive documentary project Highrise, about living high above the ground, is also growing to epic proportions. After the portraits…

Fort McMoney

A groundbreaking fusion of documentary and video game in which visitors play the detective, unraveling the interests that lurk behind the Canadian oil industry

http://vimeo.com/78342452 Fort McMurray, the heart of the Canadian oil industry, is the scene for a groundbreaking fusion of documentary and video game.…

The Last Hunt

This interactive photo book tells the story of Antonio “Pit” Allard, who retreats for the very last time into the Canadian wilderness to hunt.

Antonio "Pit" Allard does it every year, but this is the last time. He is getting older, and his body feels stiffer and more tired. Every summer for as…

Burn Out

This shocking web documentary captures the recent wave of suicides in France, which is on the verge of a collective burnout.

In recent years in France, a suicide has been committed in public on average every two weeks: April 26, 2011, in the parking lot at France Telecom. October…

Firestorm

Firestorm is an immersive, media-rich experience about a small Tasmanian town that was devastated by a catastrophic bushfire on January 4, 2013.

The story is focused around a series of haunting photographs that Tim Holmes took of his family as they sheltered underneath a jetty as a fire consumed…

Garedunord.net

Gare du nord is the biggest of Europe.500.000 persons cross it every day, coming from Paris, Lille, London, Amsterdam.

500.000 journeys… itineraries…. stories. Here cross themselves all the sexes, the social kinds, the nationalities, the socio-professional categories...…

Passing Stanger – The East Village Poetry Walk

Passing Stranger – The East Village Poetry Walk is an audio tour of poetry related sites in New York City’s East Village.

It is produced by Pejk Malinovski, with support from The Poetry Foundation. The interactive documentary experience was created in collaboration with Zeega.…

Moments of Innovation

When Documentary and Technology Converge

Defining documentary has never been easy, and interactive documentaries and other new forms of documentary storytelling compel us to revisit our assumptions…

Pointer Pointer

A simple but effective online timewaster: stop your cursor somewhere on the screen and a picture is loaded in which someone points right back at it.

Last June, a new online timewaster took its place beside cute kitty pictures and Facebook's endless stream of messages: Pointer Pointer. In the first four…

Gol! Ukraine

In 12 short films, hosts Oleg and Katya take us on a tour of Ukraine, which hosted the European Soccer Cup last summer.

An interactive tour of Ukraine, presented by French newspaper Le Monde on the occasion of the European Soccer Cup in Ukraine and Poland in the summer of…

MAFI.tv – Filmic Map of a Country

A new generation of Chilean filmmakers joins forces on this online platform with snapshots of everyday goings-on in Chile.

Chile is an emerging country when it comes to film, and the new generation switches easily from fiction to documentary, like a chameleon changing colors.…

Cowbird

“The most beautiful place in the world to tell stories”: a platform where users can share their life stories in pictures, text and audio

Cowbird calls itself "the most beautiful place in the world to tell stories," and "the free public library of human experience." This platform offers its…

Bear 71

Wildlife in Banff National Park from the perspective of a grizzly bear and that of the park rangers watching her 24 hours a day.

In Banff National Park in the Rocky Mountains, Canada, various wild animals are implanted with a GPS receiver and a chip, and from that moment they're…

Alma, a Tale of Violence

This interactive tablet documentary allows you to swipe back and forth between a no-frills presentation of the violent confessions of former gang member Alma and an alternate image stream that puts it all in context.

"I was fifteen when I wanted to join a gang." And to join the gang, Alma had to commit murder - there were no two ways about it. This is how Alma, now…

Photo Opportunities

We travel, we see a monument, we take a picture

Photo Opportunities explores the varying frames captured of famed landmarks and constructs distorted images that reflect the "touristic gaze". Framing…

National Parks Project

National Parks Project is a collaborative film, music, TV and new media project on Canada’s National Parks. Like never before.

In 1911, Parks Canada was founded, becoming the world’s first national parks service. To celebrate the 100th anniversary of Parks Canada is the launch…

Today

A simple ritual of taking one photo each day and posting it online, along with a short story, beginning the day Jonathan Harris turned 30.

When Jonathan Harris ( http://number27.org ) turned…

9-eyes

9-eyes curates images found on Google Maps Street View

Curated by Jon Rafman, 9-eyes.com is a website collection that lets you explore the many unusual and unexpected images of people and places found on Google…

Holy Mountain

Exploring people’s relationship to the sacred through the city’s landmark, Mount Royal.

Holy Mountain is an interactive documentary produced by the NFB that explores people's relationship to the sacred through the city's landmark, Mount…

Big Stories, Small Towns

An interactive documentary project connecting local stories and communities in South Australia.

Big Stories features collaborations between small town communities and filmmakers in residence. The project is shaped through extensive local consultation…

Africa To Australia

Africa to Australia is an interactive documentary that follows the stories of Africans who came to Australia.

Africa to Australia is an interactive documentary that tells the stories of African immigrants and refugees living in Australia. Using a multi-platform…

Am Not Was

Multimedia piece about an amnesiac who is unable to recognize faces.

Am Not Was is a multimedia piece that tells the story of an amnesiac named Claire who is unable to recognize faces. As a memory enhancement device, Claire…

Dear Photograph

Take a picture of a picture from the past in the present.

Dear Photograph is a website that encourages people to 'take a picture of a picture from the past in the present' and post it with a message to the photograph.

Soul of Athens 2011

Soul of Athens 2011 – Our Dreams Are Different – is a multimedia project showcasing different stories that examine the changing American Dream.

The Soul of Athens multimedia project started in 2007 as a showcase that explored the characters and stories of Athens, Ohio; a small community in the…

Goa Hippy Tribe

Goa hippies travel to the Indian beach paradise Anjuna Beach – the place where it all began.

The Goa Hippy Tribe project is about people who shared a common space and time on the shores of Goa, India during the 70’s ‘hippy revolution’ and…

The Zone

A sensory journey into the heart of Tchernobyl’s exclusion zone – the forbidden area around the nuclear power plant.

A sensory journey into the heart of Tchernobyl's exclusion zone - the forbidden area around the nuclear power plant.…

Beyond 9/11

Forty men and women look back on the 9/11 attacks.

The Prism: Krisis Greece 2011

Everything that newspapers and TV ignore is dealt with here, in 27 short films by retrained photojournalists, who capture crisis-ridden Greece in a creative, resolute way.

The Prism Greece 2011 is an online platform containing 27 multimedial films which gauge the mood in Greece in the…

Via PanAm

Documentary photographer Kadir van Lohuizen is traveling from the southern tip of Chile to the very north of Alaska, creating multimedia photo stories along the way.

In March 2011, the acclaimed Dutch documentary photographer Kadir van Lohuizen embarked on one of his most ambitious adventures to date: the multimedia…

Shit My Kids Ruined

What’ve your beloved kids ruined? Perhaps your couch? Your TV? Your marriage? Your dreams?

SMKR's mission is comic relief, commiseration and birth control; this is not about blame. If you’re a parent the hope is that you identify and cringe…

Condition One

Choose your own field of vision in the images of a bloody protest in pre-revolutionary Libya or a chaotic police arrest on the streets of New Orleans.

Condition One is reinventing photojournalism into a full-immersion, virtual reality experience.

The Burning House

What would you rescue if your house was on fire?

It's a question everyone gets asked at some point. The Burning House is a website that lets a different person answer this question every day. The voluntary…

New York Minute

New York Minute paints an original and interactive portrait of the legendary hometown of hip-hop

The webdocumentary New York Minute is an original and interactive portrait of the legendary hometown of hip-hop. The main components are a series of mini-documentaries…

This Land

Interactive snowmobile road trip across 2,000 inhospitable kilometers of Northern Canada by filmmaker Dianne Whelan

In March 2007, seven members of a Canadian army rangers unit went by snowmobile to the most northerly point of Canadian territory, just a few hundred kilometers…

Soul of Athens

Using photographs, text, audio, and film, audio-visual students from the small midwestern American town of Athens spotlight some of the city’s exceptional inhabitants and locations: the tattoo artist, the fashion doll, the banks of the Ohio River.

No, it's not the Greek capital, but the small midwestern American town that is the focus of this collection of student projects. Athens is the home…

Les Communes de Paris

A choice-based, digital tour of Paris, brought to you personally by the residents of the city’s rich, diverse and disparate neighbourhoods.

Digital wanderings through the streets of Paris in the company of the city's inhabitants. You embark on a journey from one of the 14 starting points located…

Young Me/Now Me

Placed together, a picture from a scrapbook and a careful reconstruction of it 20, 30 or 40 years later tell an enormous tale.

The projects on Ze Frank's website put the visitor's creativity to the test. Young Me/Now Me is the latest in vlog guru Ze Frank's series of participatory…

Awkward Family Photos

A spectacularly popular website where visitors share their awkward family photos with one another and with the rest of the world: clumsy photos of gawky people in embarrassing situations.

It began as an in-joke between two friends, and Awkward Family Photos quickly became a worldwide Internet hit, attracting millions of views a…

Kenk

Filmed footage of bicycle thief and Slovenian immigrant Igor Kenk is transformed into a remarkable interactive, black-and-white comic book over documentary audio footage.

Slovenian immigrant Igor Kenk was filmed in and around his second-hand bicycle shop in Toronto - until his arrest for bike theft. The footage forms the…

HIGHRISE/Out My Window

Kickoff to the extensive documentary project Highrise, which delves behind the myriad high-rise apartment windows that tower into the urban skylines of the world.

Concrete gray apartment buildings have been the most common form of housing for the past half-century. You can find them all over the world, and they all…

Welcome to Pine Point

A multimedia portrait of the disappeared Canadian mining settlement of Pine Point by one of its former residents.

The town was built in the 1960s, but closed down with the mine when the stocks of zinc and lead ore ran out in the late 1980s: literally torn down and…

The Ninth Floor

This photo documentary with audio commentary spends three years in the lives of heroin addicts residing in a Manhattan apartment building.

In 2004, between 20 and 30 young heroin addicts lived on the ninth floor of an apartment complex on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. The electricity had been…

Driftless: Stories from Iowa

Affectionate but unpitying black-and-white images capture the tough existence of people still living in declining rural areas of Iowa.

As Tumara Gosnell bluntly puts it, "There's only three things you can do in Iowa: drink, do drugs, or have sex." She is a former barfly who swapped life…

We Choose the Moon

An interactive recreation of the historic Apollo 11 mission to the Moon.

Each stage of this interactive online exhibit allows visitors to follow the historic moon landing minute by minute, and explore archival photos and footage…

Filmmaker in Residence

Katerina Cizek collaborates with doctors and patients to capture the stories of a Toronto hospital in the National Film Board of Canada’s pioneering Filmmaker in Residence initiative.

The Filmmaker-in-Residence program is an alternative model of media-making. This collaborative initiative is the National Film Board of Canada's effort…

Days with My Father

A poignant selection of photographs and text form a diary of the last years in the life of photographer Phillip Toledano’s father.

Following his mother's sudden death in 2006, Toledano began to spend increasing amounts of time with his father. Because his dad's short-term memory…

One in 8 Million

A series of miniature portraits in sound and photographs; each introduces just one of the more than eight million inhabitants of New York City.

The "eight million" referred to in the title are the inhabitants of New York City. At the last count in 2008, there were in fact 8,363,710 of them. And…

Mortified

This multimedia project allows visitors to upload embarrassing adolescent treasures such as diary extracts, poems, and photographs.

Sometime in the late 1990s, Dave Nadelberg came across a love letter he had written as a teenager. Instead of putting it away again, he decided to show…

The Whale Hunt

Photographs are presented as a framework to tell the moment-to-moment story of a whale hunt in Northern Alaska.

Web artist Jonathan Harris took a picture every five minutes during his trip to Alaska, where he went whaling with an Eskimo family. The photos are now…

Flick Radio

A documentary maker gets lost in the world’s most popular photosharing website.

Everyday people upload thousands of new pictures to Flickr. Filmmaker Bert Kommerij joins the community, becomes a trusted user and discovers the stories…

Exactitudes

A huge photographic collection of meticuously documented human identities and the similarities between them.

Rotterdam-based photographer Ari Versluis and profiler Ellie Uyttenbroek have worked together since October 1994. Inspired by a shared interest in the…

Journey to the End of Coal

An educational webdocumentary that lets viewers investigate the world of Chinese coal miners who risk their lives in state-owned and private coal plants. 300 photographs and many hours of video and sound were used to create a striking immersive environment.

There are some places in this world you may wish they never existed. Some places just like the dark lands of Shanxi, China. Not only is this place known…