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Course Offerings

Understanding Fine Art Photography

For nearly two hundred years, artists have used photography for a broad range of creative endeavors, from meditations on composition and the beauty of natural elements to expressions of personal experience and bold statements of social protest.  Bringing together practices of visual study, critical analysis and hands-on creative exploration, this colloquium will investigate topics in fine art photography past and present including portraiture, landscape, the uncanny, the role of the gaze within photographs and conceptions of truth in photography.  Within each area of focus, students will learn to analyze composition, technique and concepts involved in creating photographs.  Through creative and critical work, students will engage in dialogue with the ideas and methods of historical photographers, such as Roger Fenton, Matthew Brady, Julia Margaret Cameron and Paul Strand as well as contemporary ones such as Ed Burtynsky, Diane Arbus, Jeff Wall and Sally Mann.  No prior experience with photography or studio art is required.

Course taught by

Alexandra Opie