Experimental Photography

This one-quarter program will focus on non-traditional photographic processes, including double/triple exposure, image stacking, use of time/movement, camera-less images, and making cameras from unusual objects. The purpose of the program is to help students distance the modern photograph from its reactive and ubiquitous production by means of technological marvels such as the mobile phone and digital cameras. Students can expect to relinquish the cleanliness of the modern photographic image in favor of results that will be unpredictable, unexpected and experimental, often refusing a clear finished state. This program will emphasize process-as-product; the way an image is made has an enormous impact on its legibility and ultimately its content. The program will ask students to synthesize their approach to non-traditional photography with the content of their images, which will often be in a state of flux or evolution due to the mercurial nature of the processes. Students will also be asked to keep documents and notes detailing their experiments and processes, as well as their broader approach to image-making as a form of communication and its current efficacy. Students will read and seminar on a variety of texts examining the history and complexity of photographic images, and the photo's empirical qualities contrasted against its inherent nature as a process of abstraction.

Anticipated Credit Equivalencies

6 - Experimental Photography

6 - Theory of Photography

4 - Artistic Practice and Critique