Photograph New York, Create Your Vision

Semester and Year	SP 2011
Course Number	ARTS-UG1480
Section	001
Instructor	Jeff Day
Days	Tue
Time	3:30 PM - 6:10 PM
Units	4.0
Level	U
Foundation Requirement

Description

By giving us a sense of place, the city we inhabit recreates us. This documentary photography course explores New York City as the ever-changing environment in which we are involved. Embarking on a photographic project of their design, students will depict a highly visible urban space (viewed as a world financial, cultural, artistic capital) through their own relationship to it: their ways of interacting, acting, and being moved. Classes prepare students to work on their position as photographers: as they make pictures in the streets of New York, they will determine their own perception (vantage point, angle, point of view, framing) and establish a particular relationship with the audience (through scale, rhythm sequence, position, color). Exploring the boundaries between public and private space, feeling space and scale with the body (and not only with one's eyes) and creating a personal color palette will be strongly encouraged. Students will also explore a photographer's power to change audience perception, for example, through large scale installations inciting viewers to inhabit particular vantage points. Though documentary imagery is traditionally considered to establish a transparent relation to 'reality,' this course challenges students to recognize its created character and to recreate the city by influencing with their photographic intervention the ways it is perceived. Classes will offer technical instruction, critiques of student work, debates on street photography, visual analysis and discussions with invited artists, and will be highly collaborative. Open to highly motivated students with or without experience in documentary photography; digital or film cameras welcome.

Course Type

Arts Workshops (ARTS-UG)