This studio course offers students a comprehensive and hands-on experience in traditional black-and-white film photography. Students will work with SLR, medium and large format film cameras, employ continuous lights, and utilize the full potential of the black and white darkroom as a creative space for photographic inquiry, experimentation, and production. Lectures, assignments, and critiques will introduce students to the critical, historical, and theoretical language necessary to discuss and formulate ideas, and enable them to articulate their artistic identities within lens based art.

This course considers the histories and theories of ‘technical’ images – images made not by the artist’s hand, but with an apparatus (i.e. primarily photographs, but also: film, video, computer-generated images, etc.). The role of technical images in daily experience has increased exponentially, from the early influence of photographic plates through to the current ubiquity of electronic screens. As a vital form of culture, technical images raise profound questions concerning the production of knowledge, ethics, aesthetics, politics, the development of personal selfhood, and the construction of social awareness. This course addresses these media not only as forms of art, but collectively as expressions in a complex and abstract mode of human communication and language.

This course will investigate the advanced mechanics, aesthetics, and theory of staging photographic imagery using artificial and mixed lighting in a studio environment. Students will work to direct, stage, and resolve their concepts using the techniques and materials demonstrated. Through a series of lectures, demonstrations, discussions, and readings, students will work through strategies in creating a range of staged imagery. This might include including constructing sets for tableau photos, and staging a range of performances and installations for the camera. Instruction in artificial lighting, medium and large format cameras, media and studio equipment, and various digital and analogue techniques will be delivered to facilitate student projects.

This course teaches students extensive skills in working with tungsten light and electronic flash systems. Demonstrations and in-class exercises support the understanding of lighting principles, help develop a comprehension of the studio as a creative space for image production and stress the safety and care of equipment. In assignments, students engage in the histories and contemporary applications of still life and portraiture. Lectures and discussions contextualize their technical skills and introduce them to a wide range of artists working with studio lighting.

This senior course allows students in their final year of study to work with peers and faculty to plan and execute a graduation project, prepare a portfolio and written artist statements, as well as to undertake research to support their emerging practice. Students will participate in presentations, critiques and discussions of ongoing, self-directed projects as well as preparing their own bodies of work for art-based and/or applied presentation. Students may substitute VAST-400 Senior Studio or VAST-420 Visual Arts Thematic II for PHOT-400 Senior Photo Practice.