Fall 2021 Course Schedule

62-141 Black and White Photography I

Section A MW 1:25pm-4:15pm Karen Antonelli ( instagram.com/karen_antonelli )

Section B TR 8:00am-10:50am Sean Carroll ( seancarrollphotographs.com)

Section C MW 7:00pm-9:50pm Dillon Burns Roberts ( dillonbroberts.com )

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 1:25-pm-4:15pm Jamie Gruzska ( jamiegruzska.net)

This course allows you to gain experience with medium and large format film cameras while emphasizing aesthetic development and personal artistic growth. 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

MW 1:25pm-4:15pm Dylan Vitone ( dylanvitone.com )

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

TR 1:25pm-4:15pm Aaron Blum ( aaronblumphoto.com )

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

MW 8:00am-10:50am Ross Mantle ( rossmantle.com )

Portraiture maintains a unique standing in photography for its direct and collaborative relationship between an individual and a photographer. This course will examine this relationship and the larger contexts which provide the conceptual framework for deriving meaning and understanding from an image of another person. We will study the theoretical and practical aspects of portrait photography in both studio and environmental settings, providing students with an understanding of the genre by developing both technical and conceptual skill sets. Students will utilize analog and digital equipment, learn studio lighting techniques, develop approaches to working with natural light, and explore methods of printing and presentation.

Class meets in MM B14.

62-239 Reading Pictures, Writing Photography

R 7:00pm-9:50pm Leo Hsu ( leo-hsu.com )

Through photography’s history, writers have sought to identify what is special about photography - the medium’s “essential characteristics” - and what happens when photographs make something visible. What assumptions lies behind these critiques? How does photography facilitate and embody modernity’s projects? What are photography’s anxieties? Where are we now? In this course students will engage critically with photographs and photography through classic and contemporary texts and by producing their own weekly writing. Students will become familiar with key issues raised around photography and develop their own critical and authorial voices. Readings include pieces by Ariella Azoulay, Roland Barthes, Walter Benjamin, Teju Cole, Rebecca Solnit, Susan Sontag, Hito Steyerl, and many others.

Class meets in TBA.

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

M 7:00pm-9:50pm 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.