Photography: Concepts and Processes
May 15 - June 2, 2006

Photography: Optics and Perspective in Italy
May 15 - June 2, 2006

Bill Adams

Photography: Concepts and Processes  This intensive studio course investigates the relationship between critical concepts and alternative photographic processes, through an exploration of the unique setting and historic practice of photography and art in Florence, Italy. Students will learn to create images using 19th century photographic processes including salted paper, printing-out paper, albumen printing, photogravure, and bromoil.

The ability to craft images using these techniques falls in line with a contemporary trend, visible in museums and galleries across the country, to reinvestigate early photographic methods. These antique processes, often combined with modern photographic materials and digital imaging, are inspiring a new generation of image makers.

After studying the history of the camera obscura in Renaissance art and architecture, students will create negatives for contact printing using pinhole cameras. On location in Florence, students will learn to operate a 4x5 view camera, creating large format Polaroid negatives that will later be used in the darkroom. Students with digital experience will be encouraged to use the computer lab to make enlarged negatives for contact printing, combining this new technology with processes that date back over one hundred years.

This studio course is designed to go hand in hand with a special topics seminar in photography that will address contemporary issues and photographic theory as they relate to studio practice and the unique collections in Florence. Through demonstrations, field trips, open labs, discussions, critiques, and readings, students will discover how these historic techniques can be used to express ideas within the dialogue of contemporary art. Students will be encouraged to explore the creative possibilities of various processes as they build a notebook of samples and observations. Emphasis will be placed upon developing advanced concepts while promoting experimental strategies for creating and manipulating images. With the ancient winding streets of Florence as a backdrop, students will have the unique opportunity to learn historical processes while they create work inspired by a critical dialogue and first-hand experience with some of the most significant works of art in history.

This special topics seminar in photography is designed to complement the studio course Concepts and Processes--Italy, FA3165 by stimulating a dialogue that explores historical and cultural influences on contemporary photographic practice and theory. Emphasis will be placed on relating the specific techniques introduced in the studio course to the unique offerings of Florence as a center for artistic and cultural studies.

Through walking tours of Florence, Siena, regional museums, and historic sites, students will gain greater insight into the historical relationship of photography to other mediums, and specifically to the artistic and scientific breakthroughs of the Italian Renaissance. Discussions and lectures will center upon the renowned photographic archives of the Alinari Museum of Photography in Florence. Access to the archive will allow students to see original examples of the photographic techniques they are learning in the studio. This experience will serve as a springboard for relating historical image making to contemporary theory and practice.

Slide lectures will include discussions of contemporary photographers working in Italy, as well as photographers using art history as a point of departure for their images. Emphasis will be placed on constructed imagery as a means of communicating complex ideas. This seminar course will inspire students to develop an intellectual understanding of their work within the context of the history of art and photography by exposing them to strategies and theories represented by the diverse and historically significant artwork that is available in collections in Italy.