Instructor Jacqui Martell

Room 122

Material Fee: $65.00

 

In this elective students learn to operate a manual film camera, chemically process film and print their negatives in a darkroom. Students first observe, then deconstruct over two hundred famous photographs, then learn classic and alternative darkroom printing skills to generate a photographic body of work.

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Darkroom Photography is a combination of art and science. This course requires sequential, cummulative learning, memorization and cultivates patience and persistance. 

 

There are three projects; observations of the ordinary world, candid or set up portraits and experimentation with alternative methods such as solarizing, distressing film and double exposure.

 

The work is made and assessed in three domains: photographic elements, compositional style and psychological meaning.

 

In the psychological domain students work with ideas such as ambiguity, mystery, tension of opposites, body language, gaze, culture, emotional expression, symbolism or identity.

 

They learn to utilize compositional styles such as central, diagonal or asymmetry to enhance the visual power of their imagery.

 

Finally students learn to achieve control of the photographic elements, such as shadow and light, range of value, depth of field or texture and apply powerful cropping both with the camera and in the darkroom to make powerful well-crafted work.

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The class culminates in thematic presentations of work and a written artist's statement.