Photography Courses          

This course is an introduction to basic camera functions: shutter speeds, f-stops, depth of field and metering. It also includes an introduction to black & white photography, major types of cameras, camera accessories, lenses, etc. Coursework includes assignments, field trips and critiques.

This course is designed to help the translation of reality to a two dimensional surface, with the focus being on the artistic side. We break down all the visual components that go into picture making, discuss their emotional impacts and than we reconstruct the image in such a way as to make the visual statement you anticipated before you clicked the shutter. This is a great help for anyone who wants to go beyond taking pictures to someone who wants to engage in the process of making art.

The Basic Darkroom course teaches students to develop negatives and print images including information about black & white films and filters, selecting papers and chemicals. Students will learn about contrast and density, dodging and burning, printer filters, hand coloring and spotting. Coursework includes assignments, field trips and critiques.

Prerequisite: Basic Darkroom
Intermediate Darkroom is for students who have basic darkroom knowledge. Classes will study advanced techniques such as contrast manipulation (multi-grid printing), flashing, toning, potassium ferricyanide bleaching, infrared film, pushing and pulling film, hand coloring. Coursework includes lab and field work, assignments and critiques.

The course on Zone System introduces students to ASA testing, normal development time test, plus/minus development, total development, compaction formulas, palladium/platinum printing and hand coloring. Coursework includes lab and field work, assignments and critiques.

The very beginnings of photography in 1839 to the most recent experimental processes and almost everything in between are covered in this survey of the alternative photographic processes.

Most of the processes that we will be studying will produce a print only as large as the negative. Remember most of these processes were developed in the early days of photography when large format cameras were the norm. Since most photographers use 35 mm or medium format cameras to produce prints from their negatives, enlarged negatives have to be made to produce a print larger than 35mm or 2 ¼ by 2 ¼. These enlarged negatives had to be produced by making an enlarged positive on film then making a negative from the positive in order to make the beautiful prints. I will still teach this method of making enlarged negatives. Anyone who can make a traditional black and white print can make an enlarged negative. The results from these negatives are spectacular. Many have been award winners.

With the advent of digital photography and printing, there is now the possibility of making enlarged negatives on a digital inkjet printer after either scanning the negative or a print. For the first time this year since the Academy has a new media room with Macs, a scanner and an Epson 2200 printer, we can make digital negatives! This will also be covered in class. We will be covering the latest methods for making digital negatives using your photographs, photoshop and the inkjet printer. We will even make digital negatives from a digital camera bypassing the conventional chemical film negative.

We will follow a logical progression in learning to make the alternative photographs. Almost all of the processes start with fine art or printing papers. We will mix our own chemistry and coat the paper with the light sensitive materials we have mixed. No enlargers are necessary. Our exposing will be done in ultraviolet light boxes or in the sunlight.

With the hard part of the enlarged negatives done, we will get into the alternative processes. We will begin with one of the earliest and most permanent of the iron based process- the cyanotype. Until the advent of the digital age, almost all blueprints were made using the cyanotype process. The process is alive and well and we'll even take a look at some of the prints made by Linda McCartney of Beatles fame. Cyanotypes are blue (cyan) and can be quite striking. They are relatively easy to produce and will give us a good introduction to hand coating paper with the light sensitive chemicals.

Then we will move on to van dyke browns which are in the same family as the cyanotypes but produce a brown print. Overexposed cyanotypes will be used to make a new type print called a blue van dyke!

The kallitype is the next process studied and introduces us to the methods we will use to produce the platinum/palladium prints that are the pinnacle of the photographic processes. These processes are “self-masking” and we will be able to pull out all the details that you can never get with the silver gelatin processes! The tonality of these prints make them among the most beautiful prints ever produced.

A new variation of this process is the ziatype which is a printing out process developed by Richard Sullivan of New Mexico hence the “zia” in ziatype. You actually can watch the print come to life in the ultraviolet light.

The second half of the year has been aimed to both the new and old processes. We take a break from the enlarged negatives with lith printing. This new process promulgated by Dr. Tim Rudman uses regular negatives (although you could use enlarged negatives.) It produces a sunset rose color with a grainy texture. They are quite stunning and are a traditional favorite among students.

We will also be studying the bromoil process in which a paper with a heavy bromide content is exposed normally, then bleached and tanned removing the silver. Lithographic inks are applied to the blank print and the image reappears with the color of the ink and texture of the photographer/artist tastes.

An annual favorite has been the tintype. This turn of the century process is silver gelatin applied to an black enameled metal sheet. The difference here is that a positive instead of a negative is projected onto the sensitized plate.

We usually finish the year with the oldest of the photographic processes, the salted print. This was the process that produced the first modern print using light sensitive silver nitrate.

The salted print is similar to the process used by William Henry Fox Talbot at the birth of photography in 1839/40.

I call the alternative photographic class “liberation photography.” It is a welcome addition to the traditional photographic processes and gives the photography so much more latitude in photographic personal expression.

Join me in this unique photographic odyssey!

A list of topics/subject matter we will cover:

• Overview of how digital technology works and how the process differs from film imaging.
• Technical considerations of digital capture including metering methods, sensor sensitivity settings, file formats, histogram evaluation, exposure techniques, etc.
• Storage card management: downloading and archiving files, editing digital image files.
• Setting up an appropriate computer workstation for digital imaging: viewing environment, monitors, monitor calibration, and choosing the best color space to work in.
• Raw conversion using Photoshop CS raw converter including setting the dynamic range, contrast, color balance, correcting chromatic aberrations, correcting color aliasing, etc.
• Understanding the color process: the relationship between RGB (additive) and CMY (subtractive); how to manipulate process colors to achieve correct color balance in a digital image.
• Importing digital images to Photoshop for final optimization and output. We will work extensively with the following Photoshop tools: curves, levels, shadow/highlight control, masks, layers, dodge/burn, paint brush, color balance, replace color, HSB control, unsharp mask, blur/ sharpen tool, crop tool, rubber stamp tool.
• Blending techniques to enhance dynamic range: By creating layers from normal, under, and overexposed frames of otherwise identical images, a final image can be blended together from all 3 exposures. A mastery of this technique can result in images with a dynamic range of 8 to 10 stops, well beyond what film can achieve. This process is similar to the zone system in black/white photography, but is more powerful and easier to use.
• Converting to grayscale using the channel mixer and raw converter.
• Preparing files for output: setting the physical size of the image, canvas sizing, resolution, employing interpolation techniques for files that lack sufficient resolution for larger scale printing; making digital proofs with Photoshop's automate command.
• Printer color management: inkjet printers are capable of providing either hard proofs of digital files or final, exhibition quality prints. We will cover soft proofing techniques and color management within Photoshop using icc profiles.
• Merging multiple digital files together to create extreme wide angle images and panoramas.
• Archival considerations: storing files so that they will be accessible in the future; using CDs & DVDs with a long read life; UV sprays and fixatives that extend the life of inkjet prints; saving and distinguishing multiple files of the same image (camera raw, converted tiffs, specialized tiffs optimized for a particular output device). Shooting assignments will be given weekly.