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Photography courses present a full range of conceptual, critical, and
technical approaches to contemporary photographic practice while supporting your
individual interests and methodology.
The Photography area has a visiting artist
program, which brings renowned artists to campus for lectures, interactive
sessions with students, slide lectures, and workshops.
Our comprehensive facilities include beginning and advanced black-and-white darkrooms, color darkrooms, digital photography, alternative processes (nonsilver),
and many types and formats of cameras and lighting. For a complete list of
equipment and facilities, see Media Stockroom. Previous Course Offerings
Below are previous course offerings for the Photography
area. Students must visit mySMFA to see current offerings and register. Students in the undergraduate, graduate, Studio, and
Post-Baccalaureate certificate programs may also take Continuing Education
courses for credit.
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| Exposure to Photography / PHT 1010 |
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| This course is appropriate for students who have had no experience in photography and who wish to learn about the use and function of cameras. Students taking this course will be introduced to a wide range of technical skills in order to gain competence in slide-portfolio building. There is no darkroom work involved. Students will have weekly assignments and will learn to light and photograph 2-D and 3-D work, and to make appropriate choices of equipment, lighting, and film stock. |
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| Photo Foundation I / PHT 1011 |
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Appropriate for students who have no experience in photography or who have had some high school courses. We emphasize understanding the languages of photography that coexist within art photography, advertising, print media, cyberspace, and the family album. Primary focus is on photographic seeing and meaning rather than printing in the darkroom. An intensive orientation to various types of cameras and films includes instruction for exposure and development of film. In addition to darkroom work, we produce images by commercial processing of color slides/prints, black-and-white Polaroid slides, and digital scans, to name a few. We introduce students to computer imaging, appropriation, and instant photography. Students develop a vocabulary to discuss issues, ideas, and critical thought as it applies to one's own work and to the wider world of photography. We have periodic critique sessions, slide lectures, and field trips (including a visit to the Photographic Resource Center exhibition space and library). We encourage attendance at the department's visiting artist lectures.
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| Photo Foundation I / PHT 1011 04 |
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Appropriate for students who have no experience in photography or who have had some high school courses. We emphasize understanding the languages of photography that coexist within art photography, advertising, print media, cyberspace, and the family album. Primary focus is on photographic seeing and meaning rather than printing in the darkroom. An intensive orientation to various types of cameras and films includes instruction for exposure and development of film. In addition to darkroom work, we produce images by commercial processing of color slides/prints, black-and-white Polaroid slides, and digital scans, to name a few. We introduce students to computer imaging, appropriation, and instant photography. Students develop a vocabulary to discuss issues, ideas, and critical thought as it applies to one's own work and to the wider world of photography. We have periodic critique sessions, slide lectures, and field trips (including a visit to the Photographic Resource Center exhibition space and library). We encourage attendance at the department's visiting artist lectures.
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| Photo Technical Workshops / PHT 1014 |
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| This is a hands-on, how-to course in basic photographic techniques. The subject matter varies from week to week, and may include: hand-held and studio strobe lighting, hot lights, medium-format cameras, large-format cameras, mural prints, digital printing and use of digital cameras, using a light meter, the Zone System, photographic transfers, Polaroid transfers, and hand-coloring photographs. |
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| Large Format Photography & Digital Output / PHT 1021 |
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This course introduces photo students to the range of digital imaging technology available for photographic reproduction. The course will run in two sections in conjunction with Large Format Photography. It is strongly recommended that students taking this course take one of Large Format
Photography sections or other photography courses although it can be taken independently. This course will mainly focus on substituting traditional darkroom with digital printing technology. Various digital correction and manipulation techniques of photographic images will be dealt with in close relation to traditional photography throughout the semester. Epson 2000P, HP Designjet 5000, Iris printer and Kodak Dye-Sublimation printer will be used as the final output devices. As an intense technical workshop the topics of the course include advanced scanning techniques, theory and practice of color management system, various printer and paper tests as well as advanced image editing techniques. Field trips to local digital printing lab and artists will also be arranged.
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| Beginning Digital Photography / PHT 1039 |
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| Work with images in the digital realm. We cover Adobe Photoshop through step-by-step lessons and assignments using your own images. We explore combining images from various sources including photographs, video, drawings, or printed originals, and carefully explain and demonstrate scanning from slides and prints. Students learn how to use our digital cameras as an additional imaging resource and are introduced to QuarkXPress, a page layout program for combining images and text. We teach the fundamentals of color correcting, digital retouching, input and output resolution, and optimizing files for printing. Field trips to local service bureaus demonstrate the high-end output options available. Prerequisite: PHT 1011 |
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| Directed Studies:Photo Book Project / PHT 2002 |
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| This is a tutorial course for people who are interested in developing a photographic book. Relationships among pictures and the relationship between picture and text will be central concerns. Admission is based on portfolio and interview. Applicants should have an existing body of work that they wish to sequence in book form. Means of publication will be up to the student; and we will study several publishing options. |
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| Evidence / PHT 2003 |
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| This is an introduction to the history and skills of the documentary photographer. We define the term "documentary" and trace its evolution from admissible evidence and "proof" through the highly contested territory of truth. Your primary responsibility is to select and, with guidance, record, describe, and interpret a subject or phenomenon for the entire semester. Emphasis is on volume and weekly effort. Regular private consultations help you focus and evolve projects, and address problems of access and approach as they arise. Technical competence in the medium is required: the course is primarily concerned with ideas and imagery. Historical aspects will be examined in weekly presentations on various issues in documentary practice. Students are asked to participate in one of these presentations and to assemble slides and ideas on topics such as"Science and Pseudoscience," "Document and False Document," "Surveillance," or "Propaganda." Admission by permission of instructor. |
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| The Photographic Object: Color II / PHT 2004 |
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This is a skills-building course that allows students more thorough experience in the theory and practice of photography in color. Slide lectures, critiques, field trips, and student-led projects provide a broad base for in-depth study of color photography as a vehicle for personal growth in skills and understanding of critical issues. Emphasis will be on nuance, choices of materials, processes, and techniques, as well as decisions about scale, size, and presentation. Students will be given the opportunity to produce works on a large scale and of exhibition quality. Additionally, students will be exposed to alternative choices for exhibition.
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| Still Life Photography/ Advanced Lighting / PHT 2005 |
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| Drawing from a range of commercial lighting and illusionary techniques, we will study the construction of the still life. The genre will be examined historically, as used in advertising and other enticement practices, through contemporary photographic art practice. Students will engage in the practice, theory, and critique of the persuasive mode. You should have good basic skills. Prior to taking this class, you should have completed Basic Lighting and Intermediate Photography, or should present evidence of equivalent skills. Admission by consent of the instructor. Limited to fourteen. |
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| Large Format Photography / PHT 2006 |
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| We introduce students to large-format, or view cameras, and work with four-by-five-inch film, with the opportunity for work on eight-by-ten-inch film. Class thoroughly covers technical strategies, basic lighting, and contemporary explorations of the view camera. Students have reserved access to rail and field photography. Prerequisite: One semester of Intermediate Photography, or consent of instructor. |
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| Directed Studies Digital Photographic Practice / PHT 2008 |
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| Foundation Photo II / PHT 2012 |
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| The second half of the introductory photography course emphasizes enlarging with a three-hour, weekly, supervised darkroom session in which you get hands-on experience. The main technical goal in Foundation II is to become adept at making a good camera negative to enhance your enlarging skills. Complete film speed and development tests as you gain control over exposure of the negative. We introduce exposing color negatives and color printing. More time is spent in critique as students expand their explorations in photography. By the end of this semester you should have a solid grasp of the technical aspects and an awareness of what you are interested in photographing. Prerequisite: Foundation Photography I. |
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| Basic Lighting / PHT 2014 |
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Learning how to control and manipulate light is a fundamental creative tool for any professional or fine-arts photographer. This hands-on course explores basic lighting techniques ranging from the use of sunlight, flash, and multiple flash, to tungsten lights, tota-lights, and strobes. To help you develop your own distinctive style of lighting your subject, we will explore inexpensive, homemade lighting options and more complicated setups with studio light kits. Lighting demos, group critiques of work, slide lectures, discussions, and occasional collaborative projects will ensure that you learn effective lighting techniques whether you are a photographer, or work in video and film. You may work in your choice of format, including slide film, Polaroid, color prints, or black-and-white. This is not a darkroom class, but some darkroom access is available. Attendance is mandatory in order to check out lighting equipment. Prerequisite: Foundation Black-and-White Photography (PHT 1011) or equivalent.
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| Intermediate Photography / PHT 2021 |
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Develop your critical and technical skills. We assume that students at this level have achieved a degree of independence and are starting to evolve ideas, a visual language, and dialogue about their work. Students participate in critiques of their own work and that of fellow students, and work on acquisition of technical control. We introduce you to medium-format cameras, color printing, and the use of lighting in photography. Visiting artists are invited to the critiques, and sequencing, context, content, and contemporary issues are discussed. We hold periodic technical demonstrations and field trips. Admission by portfolio review at registration. Prerequisite: Foundation Photography II (PHT 2012)
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| Context / PHT 2023 |
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| Making a Picture (instead of taking one) / PHT 2026 |
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| Color Photography II / PHT 2027 |
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Advanced Color Photography allows students more thorough experience in the theory and practice of photography in color. Slide lectures, critiques, field trips, and student-led projects provide a broad base for in-depth study of color photography as a vehicle for personal growth in skills and understanding of critical issues.
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| Color Photography / PHT 2034 D1 |
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| This intensive will provide a foundation for you to actively and critically engage in the visual language of color photography. Through technical workshops and supervised lab time, you will learn how to make high-quality color negative and color-balanced fine art prints. Through slide presentations on contemporary photography, discussions on color theory, visual journals, outside projects, and in-course critiques, you will explore color as a means for enhancing photographic images and art practice. You will need a film-based camera and preferably some experience in black-and-white photography. d preferably some experience in black-and-white photography |
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| Documentary Photo / PHT 2037 |
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This introduction to the history and skills of the documentary photographer defines the term "documentary" and traces its evolution. Your primary responsibility is to select and, with our guidance, record, describe, and interpret a subject or phenomenon for the entire semester. Emphasis is on volume and weekly effort. Regular private consultations help you focus and evolve projects, and address problems of access and approach as they arise. Technical competence in the medium is required: the course is primarily concerned with ideas and imagery. Historical aspects will be handled by weekly presentations on various issues in documentary practice. Students are asked to participate in one of these presentations and to assemble slides and ideas on topics such as "Science and Pseudoscience," "Surveillance," or "Propaganda." Admission by permission of instructor.
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| The Photographic Object: Digital Printing / PHT 2040 |
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| Work with images in the digital realm. We cover Adobe Photoshop through step-by-step lessons and assignments using your own images. We explore combining images from various sources including photographs, video, drawings, or printed originals, and carefully explain and demonstrate scanning from slides and prints. You learn how to use our digital cameras as an additional imaging resource and are introduced to QuarkXPress, a page layout program for combining images and text. We teach the fundamentals of color correcting, digital retouching, input and output resolution, and optimizing files for printing on a variety of output devices. Field trips to local service bureaus demonstrate the high-end output options available. Prerequisite: PHT 1011, PHT 2034. |
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| Traditional Fine Point / PHT 2052 |
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Gain techniques to be used in the making of exhibition-grade black-and-white gelatin silver prints. We demonstrate the qualities of various papers, developers, and toners to build your individual definition of "The Fine Print." Remedial work should be kept to a minimum. Competence with basic black-and-white technique will be verified at registration. Admission by permission of instructor.
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| Landscape as Concept, Experience and Image / PHT 2200 |
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This course will form a framework for students to discover, question, and explore how they choose to view and present the land as a photographic image. Through exercises, assignments, readings, class critiques, and the examination of contemporary and historic work, we will investigate various ways of experiencing and photographing our environment. Field trips to a spectrum of terrain (urban and natural), relevant exhibitions, collections and installations will form a basis to explore landscape from western, eastern, indigenous and personal perspectives. The use of various camera formats, film emulsions and photo papers will be discussed. Students interested in landscape who are working in film, digital, light sensitive materials, as well as other media are encouraged to take this course. Each student is expected to examine their interest with landscape in terms of a relevant body of work. Prerequisite: Foundation Photography (PHT 1011).
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| Four Digital Printers / PHT 3046 |
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| Large Format Photography / PHT 3047 |
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We introduce students to large-format, or view cameras, and work with four-by-five-inch film, with the opportunity for work on eight-by-ten-inch film. Class thoroughly covers technical strategies, basic lighting, and contemporary explorations of the view camera. Students have reserved access to rail and field photography. Prerequisite: One semester of Intermediate Photography, or consent of instructor.
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| Advanced Seminar in Digital Photography / PHT 3049 |
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This course is for the advanced student in digital photography who already has knowledge and abilities to produce professional digital photographic prints. The class will run in a seminar format and students are required to have their own on-going projects that utilize photography and digital printing. Critical and technical discussion sessions will be held regularly and prepared by students. The material and subjects will be decided by the instructor and the students together in the earlier part of the semester. In this course the contribution of each student is very important and the materials will be covered through presentations of the students. Students who have already taken the
'large format photography & digital output'.
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| / PHT 3077 |
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| Directed Studies: Digital Photo Practice / PHT 3100 |
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PHT 3100 01
For students with a working knowledge of intersections of traditional and digital technologies who wish to broaden and refine their ideas and output. Meetings will be arranged on a timely basis to look at work in progress and to discuss options available for continued production. Participants are expected to have a self-generated plan or projectand should use the meetings for both critical and informational exchanges. There will be no group/class meetings. Prerequisites: A demonstrated ability to work independently and one year's experience in digital practice.
PHT 3100 02
Individual meetings will be arranged on a timely basis with students who are working on a personal project and wish to discuss and evaluate their process making. These meetings will allow us to reconsider personal production. We will focus on methodologies and approaches in art making, locating influences, expanding ideas as well as sharpening possible results. Participants are expected to engage in critical discussions as well as to demonstrate their ability to work independently.
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| Advanced Context / PHT 3203 |
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| Photographing People / PHT 4026 |
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| Creating an engaging photographic portrait involves decisions that move beyond the visual record of a person's face. We will explore the varied aspects and considerations involved in photographing people and making portraits. Our objective will be to make portraits that reflect the photographer as well as the subject. You will produce a small portfolio of portraits by shooting in the studio and on location. We will consider the work of notable photographers who have produced remarkable portraits (Irving Penn, Arnold Newman, Richard Avedon, Bernice Abbott, Cindy Sherman, and Annie Leibowitz, among others) and discuss the elements that make them effective. You must have basic black-and-white darkroom skills and should plan on an additional four hours of independent darkroom time each week. |
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| Imaging with Light Sensitive Materials / PHT 4044 |
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Learn how to mix chemicals to create photographic coatings for artists' paper, cloth, metal, and other surfaces. Use graphic arts film on a stat camera and an enlarger; generate negatives with a computer; cyanotype (blue prints); Van Dyke brown printing; palladium printing (warm brown image rich in detail); tone black-and-white photos; enlarge emulsion printing (black-and-white photo liquid in a bottle); and image transfer (relocating the image only from a Polaroid photo, magazine, or office copy onto your own substrate). Regular critiques and slide presentations offer a contemporary and historical overview of techniques. Students supply paper and some film. Chemistry is available for use in class but students must supply their own for large projects.
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| Photo Technical Workshop / PHT 4056 |
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Please see addendum for course description.
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| Photography for the Budget Minded / PHT 4070 |
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| Do you want to make great photographs, but don't have a lot to spend on a camera? This workshop will show you how to use low-budget materials with exciting results. We will start with photograms and work our way to homemade pinhole cameras. Then we will shoot with plastic cameras such as the Holga and the Holga with flash, box cameras (made in the 1940s and 1950s and now common in thrift shops and junk stores), and Lomos, which take four continuous shots a split-second apart. Unpredictability and "mistakes" will be embraced. Along with learning the technical information you'll need to make photographic magic, we will also look at slides and images by photographers who used similar cameras and methods |
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| Photo Independent Study / PHT 4098 |
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| Students may opt to register for an independent studio period which represents work done outside of class during the academic year. Independent Studio periods should be linked to a course for which you are registered. Students may enroll in up to one block of independent studio per term, and must be registered as a full time studio student. A faculty signature is not required in order to register for the course. If you take more than one independent studio, it must be linked directly to a course and a signature is then required. |
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| Your Camera, Your Community / PHT 4120 |
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| We will examine and document our roles in-and reactions to-specific, intimate communities. Your community may include your family, friends, colleagues, and neighbors, among others. How you respond to, interact with, and experience your community will form the basis of your class project. We will look at the work of other photographers who have worked with this theme, such as Nan Goldin, Tina Barney, Sally Mann, and Nick Waplington. Different approaches to photography such as the "snapshot aesthetic" will be discussed, as well as technical and creative uses of the camera. This is a non-darkroom course; students of all levels are welcome, but general proficiency with a 35mm camera is expected. |
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| Advanced/Graduate Seminar: Domestic Photography / PHT 6042 |
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Domestic Photography: This course explores ideas about domestic space, familial affiliations, immigration and the construction of the home in relation to photography; as a site of privacy, kinship and the mapping of culture, nation, and ethnicity. We will look at the home as a charged historic site and explore activities and uses of space that define the home itself. We will look at the way photographs set in the home inform both biography and autobiography. Students will read theoretical writings on the rhetoric of family photographs, architecture, space, privacy, issues of diaspora; as well as the psychology of the home in relation to war and sexuality. We will look at pieces by contemporary artists and filmmakers who have used the domestic environment in their work.
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| Extended Document / PHT 6044 |
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This is a production class for photography, video, film, or sound students who want to work within the documentary genre, but wish to explore approaches and structures outside of traditional practices. Students are encouraged to challenge their own notions of how documentary work operates within the wider culture. Site-specific installation, books, projections, and interactivity are presentation strategies that we explore. There are class assignments, readings, critiques, and discussions. Several visiting artists attend and participate in critiques. This course may be taken for one semester, but students are encouraged to take it for a full year. Extended Document counts as a graduate-level seminar class.
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