Advanced Digital Photography Syllabus

SYLLABUS

AR 336 Digital Photography II
Albertus Magnus College
Jerry Nevins, Professor
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MOD 2, 2010, Oct - Dec, 2010 Blog
Mod 4, 2010 Class Blog

Mod 1, 2009 Class Blog

Mod 5 Class Blog

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Course Overview:

AR336 affords you further opportunity to refine and extend the skills of photographic seeing begun in AR335. Your skills in digital photography will now be put to use exploring a personal body of work or a technical problem for the semester. Your ability to edit your images digitally will expand exponentially as you will now use Adobe Photoshop or Photoshop Elements

Portfolio work

This semester I am proposing a two track approach to your portfolio work.

Track 1. At the heart of the creative process is a desire to express an inner necessity... to realize a body of work that is important and vital to you. My role is to identify, clarify, enable and support you in that process. Early in the semester, you will choose a project to work on based on both an expansion of your technical skills and a refinement of your aestheic awareness of contemporary photographic practice. You will identify artists who are already working in the mode you want to explore in order to realize the strongest possible work you are capable of.

Track 2. Use the course to explore a variety of ways of working broken up into 2 or 3segments. This is a topical approach. One or more segments could explore a technical issues such as High dynamic range digital photography, Pushing the limits of scale and resolution, digitally composited images, etc.. Work with me to establish a plan. Alternately, you could delve into one topic for the whole semester.

For most of you, just becoming much more proficient in editing your digital images and working on a portfolio that is coherent and thematically based will be more than enough work for this mod.

The following are ideas that only scratch the surface of potential topics....

Some possiblities you might explore:

The best place to begin is to look through these Themes and the excellent images submitted by mostly amateurs at JPG Magazine: http://www.jpgmag.com/themes/

Explore some of the themes and processes this North Carolina photographer uses in her work

The work shown there would most definitely rate an A in this class....

-Street shooting... use of the accidental in a close urban environment using the 35 mm camera. Study the work of Henri Cartier Bresson.... understand the possibilities for shooting in an intuitive, quick and fluid way. Embrace the accidental, edit for the sublime. Also study the work of Bruce Davidson, Gary Winogrand, Lee Friedlander and Walker Evans.

"In photography, creation is a quick business — an instant, a gush, a response — putting the camera up to the eye's line of fire, snatching with that economical little box whatever it was that surprised you, catching it in midair, without tricks, without letting it get away. You make a painting at the same time that you take a photo." Henri Cartier Bresson

Start here for an excellent introduction to the genre at Luminous Landscape. Define a project that is limited by a specific theme. Fall is an excellent time to visit numerous fairs in Connecticut... take a look at this photo essay on the theme "The Midway" ... You could just find 4-5 fairs to visit in Connecticut... there woould be plenty of material for the MOD. Browse through the list of art photography magazines at the left. Find a body of work that resonates with you... show it to me or send me the link.

The Metaphor...Doorways, passageways both literal and metaphoric...Other metaphors? What did Stieglitz mean by the term "Equivalents"? Study the portfolios of Minor White and Paul Caponigro.

Link: Paul Caponigro.. Numerous links here to his work.

BOOKS Minor White : Rites & Passages
Minor White : The Eye That Shapes Peter C. Bunnell, Paperback

Landscape as metaphor... as poetry

-Social -documentary photography... exploring political, environmental and social themes such as homelessness, aging, pollution and the environment, work etc. Study...
W. Eugene Smith,
Sebastião Salgado,
Robert Capa

Pinhole photography

Martha Casanave What about 4x5 film, scanned and digitally printed?

You can add a pinhole to your digital SLR camera in place of the normal lens.

Through the Viewfinder Photography...

Use an old camera's viewfinder to make images with your digital camera.
Good tutorial and description

Intimate portraiture of family members...

Richard Avedon Numerous links to follow on Avedon.
Joyce Tenneson.. Intimate portraits of women.
William Wegman... Man Ray and other dogs.....
Chuck Close... Over sized segmented Polaroids

Formalism. Related to "The Constructed Photograph"

The Constructed Photography.

Cindy Sherman... staged tableaux
Olivia Parker. "For twenty years I have constructed what I photograph in the studio, combining objects and surfaces into new entities by the manipulation of light, space, and photographic materials." OP
Alexander Rodchenko Russian Constructivist early 20th Century
Gregory Crewdson

The list could go on and on... each student must commit to a theme in the first week of the course and stay with it through to a coherent, strong portfolio.

Browse through the extensive list of gallery and museum links for photography located on my home page entitled "Essential links for Photo students. Find work you appreciate and talk to me about it. This is an excellent way to refine your thinking about your project. Do you have the technical resources to engage your project? Do you have the necessary time, money, etc? Have you bought new equipment that you'd really like to explore in depth?

Academic Expectations:

The grade for this course is based upon the care and attention you bring to your work in this class. The portfolio is the most tangible evidence of your progress and attention. Care about what you are doing, help others in the class to succeed, consult frequently with me about your inspirations and problems and most of all, work hard. The portfolio will consist of 40-66 images posted to your fotothing.com portfolio. Of these, 15 - 20 should be outstanding works.

Materials:

Students are responsible for providing their own, cameras and software. A high speed internet connection and a healthy computer are assumed.

Special Needs and Accommodations: Please advise the instructor of any special problems or needs at the beginning of the semester.. Those students seeking accommodation based on disabilities should provide documentation.

Suggested Reading:

Basic Techniques of Photography, John Schaefer, Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1992

Beyond Basic Photography.- Henry Horenstein, Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1977

On Photography, Susan Sontag, The Noonday Press, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 1977

Cape Light, Joel Meyerowitz, New York Graphic Society, Boston, 1978

American Prospects, Joel Sternfeld

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