A departmental course combining students from all years, and guest teachers and lecturers.

“A Voyage of Biographical Photography” fluctuates between moving inward and expanding, between the private and the public. We will start with a personal biographical mapping of each of the participants, and move on gradually to photographic experimentation in public, less familiar environments that will enable the participants to experiment and become acquainted with a rich variety of experiences. The course is divided into two semesters that differ in structure. First semester: a format of weekly sessions, lectures, exercises and class reviews, in combination with encounters with guest photographers dealing with biography in different ways in their practice, as a personal or political starting point. Second semester: after a biographical mapping of the participants of the course, we will plan a number of trips to various destinations across the country in order to photograph and collect material. During the semester we will have a meeting in which we will share the material, edit and process it in preparation for a mini exhibition in the department, where we will showcase the travel journals of each student, as well as a number of selected photographs from the material, which will be enlarged. The course will enable collaboration, working in groups or independently.

In this course we will examine the various moments we experience in the creation process of a new work – from inspiration, through the extraction of the idea and to its execution in the best possible way.
Meanwhile, we will contemplate the photograph and its digital processing as an instrument of thought and interpretation of thinking, messages, ideologies, identities and emotions. The classes will be based on theoretical lectures and discussion by topic, alongside analyses of the works of the students, collaborative work in the digital lab, and more.
The course will include personal supervision in a group framework. At the end of each class, students will receive a photographic thinking exercise, on which they will work in their free time, and which we will discuss in the following lesson. These exercises will set the ground for a broader project.

Photography in the digital age has undergone major changes and broken through the boundaries of the dark room, chemical paper and gallery. These changes are manifest in the early stage of the photographic action, in the means of treatment and editing of the image, and in the display stage.
In this course we will introduce the working environment at the disposal of the photographer-creator in the digital age, from the organization and editing programs to the online display and exposure possibilities. We will consider that despite the democratization of photography, the field demands professionalism.

A studio course aiming, among other things, to clarify the connection between intention and thought and the selection of tools, modes of photography and presentation. In the first classes we will examine the technical abilities of the students and dedicate time to filling in any gaps. During the course, students will also experiment with a technical 5×4 camera.

The course will grant students a deep understanding of the advanced tools offered by Photoshop and the digital working environment. Alongside technical professionalism, students will develop a conceptual body of work throughout a continued period of time. The main subject of the course is the concept of place. We will try to understand its meaning in the digital age and develop a clear visual and personal perspective on the topic. We will read articles on subjects such as place, time and truth. We will analyze the field of photography in light of digital changes and search for sources of inspiration, not only in the world of photography. In addition, we will deal with the question of selecting a printing format, paper type, paper size and much more. At the end of the year we will hold a printing workshop within the course.

In this workshop we will address the meaning of the term “documentary” in a contemporary context. During the classes we will become acquainted with the history of the genre in order to understand how the concept of “documentary photography” developed and how it is perceived today. We will watch and discuss material dealing with the term “reality” and learn about photographers who stretched the boundaries of documentary photography and through it developed a unique fashion of observance and expression. Students will experiment with building a body of work dealing with social/political issues, while creating an outward gaze toward the world, taking a stand on reality and doubting the photographic “truth”. As part of the course, we will photograph across Jerusalem together.

Students will study the online photo editor Lightroom in order to complete their digital environment, and be tasked with preparing a digital book. In addition, they will study the various platforms for building a personal website and build one that will display their works on one of these platforms. The website will include texts that they wrote, video works, photographs, documentation of exhibitions they created, virtual material, sound or sculpture works. The website will be built with awareness to the personal choices of the student (art photography, portrait photography, fashion photography and more). Students will also experiment with creating an interactive video.