The Photo Lens As Your Guide
To study photography in New York City is to be at the center of a metropolis where the photo lens becomes your insight into a visual experience, including New York neighborhoods such as the fashion, financial, and meat-packing districts, galleries and museums; individuals; urban life; nightlife; theater; and Central Park.
The Department of Photography & Imaging is centered on the making and understanding of images. Students explore photo-based imagery as personal and cultural expression. Summer courses, offered in both traditional and new technologies in image-making and writing about the image, are taught by a faculty of renowned artists and working professionals. Students may take courses for undergraduate or graduate credit or earn a noncredit certificate.
Summer 2009 Selected Course Offerings:
Advanced Directed Projects: Photography & Human Rights I
An advanced course that concentrates on creating photo essays in the context of human rights. Students will photograph, edit, sequence and present a photographic essay that they produce during the course, using allied media when useful; they will also read essential human rights literature and discuss in class its importance in pursuing the photo essay. Issues in effective fieldwork will be discussed, both strategic and ethical. The class will also consider the potential usefulness of such documentary projects and how to target work for greater social impact.
Digital Tools for Documentary Practice
This course will explore a variety of digital media tools that are useful for a documentary photographer. The class will explore issues relating to the digital camera, as well as to image capture, preservation, presentation and transmission. Lighting, audio interviewing, and the production of short videos will also be covered at a basic level. Students work on several small assignments to experiment with software and hardware, and will have the opportunity to complete a small project of their own. This course is intended to give students a fundamental understanding of the efficiencies and possibilities of the digital realm. This class is specifically intended for students enrolled in Photography and Human Rights 1, but is open to others as well.
Photoshop: Creative Imaging
This three-week workshop focusing primarily on Photoshop explores the possibilities for image manipulation and the steps involved in learning to translate traditional darkroom skills into electronic artwork and montage. Starting from the empty canvas, we look at all the basic elements of Photoshop, including selection tools, text, scale, retouching, and collage and introducing the principles of layers and masks and creating composite photographic images. We also cover scanning negatives, slides, and flat artwork as well as color adjustment using levels and curves. We look at all aspects of image creation and enhancement with equal importance given to the aesthetic effect and technical ease. By working on a creative project, students use the software to convey their ideas in this new media environment. Class time is divided between work-in-progress sessions, critiques, and lectures.
For a full list of summer courses, visit Photography and Imaging.
