3 credits, the course takes place at the school on Tuesdays, 10:30 am – 1:00 pm
The course teaches students the various Photoshop tools as well as effective working habits for a digital environment. Students will be introduced to the digital lab – study the different stages of scanning and processing the digital file up to the printing preparation stage. With short practical exercises in photography and photo processing, we will be dealing with various topics and become acquainted with artists and photographers who use the software as a central tool in their practice, and as a personal or political expression. Students will also be introduced to the software’s many features and begin creating works in Photoshop in an intelligible and efficient way. We will explore the options offered by the digital lab, practice scanning photographs and negatives and printing quality photographs professionally.
The aim of the course is to get students acquainted with and skilled in camera operation and introduce the photography studio as a key instrument in the production process of the carefully planned photograph. Studio photography is distinguished, among other things, by maximum control over the nature of the photographed image, with an emphasis on lighting and space. However, aside from this technical definition, an important quality of studio photos lies in the structuring of the space and that which we choose to have appear in it, especially and solely for the purpose of photographing it. We will seek to define studio photography as a structured and thought-out system of camera – space – object/subject – lighting, created uniquely for the purpose of taking the photograph, which will disappear from the world afterwards; this in clear contrast to the snap-shot, which captures and steals a moment from the already existing world.
The format of the classes will range from visual presentation and technical demonstration to practical photography. The first semester of the course will be dedicated to getting acquainted with the camera and the space of the studio as a meeting point of the camera with the space and lighting created especially for it. We will get to know and operate the lighting equipment in the studio through a series of classes of applied photography of a still-life set. The second semester will begin with several experimentations with photographing a figure in the studio. Later on we will move on to more complex practices and take the camera outside of the inner studio walls and to various locations. We will end with a presentation of a personal series that employs the lighting tools learned throughout the course, in order to turn a place into a “studio”.
The hours 3:30-5:30 pm are allocated to resting and working in the school spaces, which include, among other things the library, the digital lab – where printers and quality scanners are available, and more. This time will enable students coming from afar to work on the campus during the study day, without having to travel to the school on another day for independent work.
3 credits, the course takes place at the school on Tuesdays, 5:30-8:00 pm. The course will also include excursions and tours.
In the first part of the course, students will be introduced to key concepts in the medium of photography: use of light and its significance, time and space in photography, the materiality of the photography medium both on a technological and a conceptual level – focus, movement, perspective, framing and cropping, composition, form and line, angle and distance, texture, color and tone. In addition to studying the components of photographic language, students will be exposed to work processes of photographers.
In the second part of the course, each student will begin developing their own unique perspective. We will be exposed to genres from the world of photography: documentary, staged, still life (product), and fashion photography, as well as other media.