Advanced Digital Photography

This course explores storytelling through the genres of photojournalism, documentary, and art photography. We look at photographic books with the goals of expanding students' approaches, techniques, and aesthetic possibilities for their semester-long projects. The course constantly refers to the software tools we use to ensure reliable workflow and archive management. It addresses advanced color management as well as the science of converting images from color to black and white. Through lectures, hands-on assignments, and critiques, students expand their understanding of digital photography while exploring their creativity to broaden the possibilities and improve the quality of their photographs. Documentary photography and long-form photojournalism predominate, but we also explore art. This is a bridging course between accidental art while doing documentary work and art for art's sake. We look at various types of photography that are defined or self-defined as art. We dive into portraiture outside of the studio, shooting stories involving people and discussing how to get the picture when everyone does not want you to. This course explores conflict and documentary photography extensively, with an emphasis on narrative photography, but it does not preclude students from any genre of photography they wish to pursue. The goal of the course is for each student to produce a body of work or a photographic essay in electronic book form. The skill of editing one's own work is a key learning goal.