62-141   Black and White Photography I

Section A   TR 8:30am-11:20am   Martin Prekop

Section B   MW 8:30am-11:30am   Ivette Spradlin

Section C   MW 1:30pm-4:20pm   Jamie Gruzska

This course will teach you the basic craft of photography from exposure of the negative through darkroom developing and printing to print finishing and presentation. Content includes student presentations, class discussions, shooting assignments, darkroom sessions and class critiques. We will concentrate not only on the technical aspects of photography, but also the aesthetics of seeing with a camera. The course concentrates on photography as a fine art---what is unique to it and the concerns that are shared with other visual arts, such as composition, tonal values, etc. and aims to equip students with an understanding of the formal issues and the expressive potentials of the medium.

Class meets in MM B10.

62-241   Black and White Photography II

  TR 1:30-pm-4:20pm   Martin Prekop

Black and White Photography II allows you to gain experience with medium and large format film cameras that aren't available at many universities. View cameras remain the state of the art in control and quality for both analog and digital workflows; knowing how to use one is a very valuable professional skill. You can make stunning large-scale prints using either darkroom or inkjet processes; imagine the resolution of an 8x10 or 11 x14 inch sensor and you begin to see the potential of the view camera. This course emphasizes aesthetic development and personal artistic growth through individual tutorials and group critiques. As an advanced student, you have access to an unusual assortment of panoramic and pinhole cameras that will change the way you make photographs, revealing unknown perspectives. Additional topics include digital process though negative scanning and inkjet printing, advanced monotone printing methods, and a focus on exhibition and folio presentation. Cameras will be supplied for this course.

Class meets in MM B10.

62-142   Digital Photography I

  TR 1:30pm-4:20pm   Dylan Vitone

This course explores digital photography and digital printing methods. By semester's end students will have knowledge of contemporary trends in photography, construction (and deconstruction) of photographic meaning, aesthetic choices, and the use of color. Students will learn how digital cameras work, proper digital workflow, RAW file handling, color management and Adobe Photoshop. Through the combination of the practical and theoretical, students will better define their individual voices as photographers.

Class meets in MM B2.

62-242   Digital Photography II

  MW 6:30pm-9:20pm   Ross Mantle

Digital Photography II combines digital and analog processes in both color and black white. Students will gain experience with digital workflow, analog to digital conversion, virtual drum scanning and large format digital printing. Topics include trends in contemporary photography, professional practices, project development, narrative and serial work, and portfolio presentation. Students will be expected to develop their own self-directed projects throughout the semester culminating in a cohesive portfolio of their work. Readings, assignments, artist visits, critiques and discussions will give context to the practical work and help develop a wide ranging familiarity with the subjects.

Class meets in MM B2.

62-245   Portrait Photography

  TR 8:30am-11:20am   Aaron Blum

Portrait Photography explores the emotional and visual process of collaboration between subject and photographer that creates a photograph. We'll use cameras of all formats and levels of sophistication to create portraits in the studio and on location. We'll find and exploit available light and create artificial light to complete our vision, and we'll explore a wide range of darkroom strategies to support and add richness to our final print. Through film and video we'll meet some of the masters of this form like Arbus, Newman, Avedon and Penn, and we'll take advantage of any opportunities to visit exhibitions and photographers studios.

Class meets in MM B14.

62-326   Photographic Narrative

  F 8:30am-11:20am   Charlee Brodsky

Most photographs tell stories. We see photographs in newspapers, magazines, snapshot albums, on the web, in books, and in posters. In these contexts photographs often work with words to convey meaning, whether they are shown with captions, news stories, or just with titles. Photographs can work without words, too, to create purely visual narratives. In this course, students will make two series of photographs: one that is fiction and one that is non-fiction. In addition to making photographs, students will determine the context in which their photo-stories will be seen. Students may make photo books, for example, or decide that their images will be seen on a website. While students are making photographs, we will explore the rich traditions of photo-graphic story-telling that range from the world-oriented work of photo-journalist W. Eugene Smith to the documentarians such as Walker Evans, Nicholas Nixon, and Alec Soth. We will look at photographers, too, who constructed private worlds, such as Duane Michals, Cindy Sherman, Bruce Charlesworth, and Laurie Simmons. As students explore both fiction and non-fiction through photographs, we will look at the interesting interplay between words and photographic images; how images are paced and scaled to create tempos; how photographs are sequenced to tell stories; and other formal elements involved in creating visual narratives.

Class meets in MM 121.

62-371   Photography, The First 100 Years, 1839-1939

  T 6:30pm-9:20pm   David Oresick

Photography was announced to the world almost simultaneously in 1839, first in France and then a few months later in England. Accurate "likenesses" of people were available to the masses, and soon reproducible images of faraway places were intriguing to all. This course will explore the earliest image-makers Daguerre and Fox Talbot, the Civil War photographs organized by Mathew Brady, the introduction in 1888 of the Kodak by George Eastman, the critically important social documentary photography of Jacob Riis and his successor, Lewis Hine, the Photo-Secession of Alfred Stieglitz, the Harlem Renaissance of James VanDerZee, the precisionist f64 photographers Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, and Edward Weston, and other important photographers who came before World War II. The class will be introduced to 19th century processes, such as the daguerreotype, tintype, and ambrotype, as well as albumen prints, cyanotypes, and more.

Class meets in SH 208.

62-239   Reading Pictures, Writing Photography

  R 6:30pm-9:20pm   Leo Hsu

As culturally-constructed objects, photographs are both complex signifiers and vehicles of social and political influence. In this course students will engage critically with photographs and photography through classic and contemporary texts on photography, and by producing their own writing. Students will become familiar with significant photographers and key issues raised around photography, and develop their own critical and authorial voices through class discussion and weekly short response papers, as well as longer assignments and occasional in-class exercises. Course readings include but are not limited to texts by Roland Barthes, Joan Fontcuberta, David Levi-Strauss, Martha Rosler, Abigail Solomon-Godeau, and Susan Sontag, as well as review pieces on photography by Teju Cole, Philip Gefter, Vicki Goldberg, and others.

Class meets in PH A19C.