The main purposes of the course are 1) to introduce the students to the basic techniques that eventually allow them to master the fundamental rules of “making” (not simply “taking”) photographs; and 2) to offer a general idea of the conceptual issues concerning the reading of photographs and images. This encompasses how photographs are taken, what their different forms and meanings can be, why they occupy such a key role in our society, who controls their circulation, where their main centers of production are located, and finally when this overwhelming global process originated. Since theory informs practice, the proposed conscientious engagement with questions about photographic meaning help students to develop not only a better critical understanding of the images surrounding them, but also a deeper sense of the underlying agendas found in the pictures they learn both to interpret and to construct. Students also discover how to combine their images with words and sounds and create their own multimedia “audio slideshows”. Last but not least, recalling that linear perspective was originally invented, developed and given formal description by Italian painters and architects during the age of the Renaissance, students also have the opportunity to reconsider the entire photographic process from the point of view of the numerous artists that, long before the invention of photography, faced the problem of effectively representing the three-dimensional space (i.e. reality) on a two-dimensional surface.
Prerequisites:
None
Additional student cost:
Photo projects printing paper (50 A4 sheets or more) and site visits.
Attendance policy:
Regular class attendance is mandatory. In an emergency necessitating an absence, the instructor must be notified, a medical certificate (from a doctor’s visit on the day you missed class) must be submitted to and cleared by the IES Abroad Milan Center Academic Advisor, and all assignments due must be submitted prior to missed classes. There are no makeup exams - an absence on the scheduled day of an exam results in a grade of 0% for that exam. Flight and traveling plans are not accepted as excused absences. Students are expected to attend lectures, to keep up with the readings on a weekly basis, and to work in groups on the assigned essay.
Learning outcomes:
By the end of the course, students are able to:
• Use their cameras effortlessly and appropriately;
• Analyze the role historically played by the Italian Renaissance’s view of reality on the development of photography;
• Critique, evaluate, and discuss the role of photography and images in contemporary society, the arts and the media;
• Envision, elaborate and assemble a personal multimedia project based on images, words and sounds.
Method of presentation:
Lectures and discussions; presentations and video tutorials; critical analysis of required readings; experiments with photographic and lighting equipment; field studies; student presentations of photographic projects; group discussions.
LANGUAGE OF PRESENTATION: English
Required work and form of assessment:
Mid term exam:
Photo Project 1 & Study Paper 1
- light, color and composition controls
- understanding technique and the theory behind it
20%
Photo Project 2 & Study Paper 2
- either a documentary or an art project
- contemporary critical issues on photography
30%
Final exam: Photo Project 3 & Study Paper 3
- multimedia project (based on Photo Project 2)
- multimedia: photographic images to watch and listen to
30%
Active Class Participation
20%
TOTAL 100%
Study Papers: These are 4.000 characters (or 1.000 words) papers correlated to the course syllabus contents. Study Papers follow each section and shall be handed in by due dates.
Photo Projects: Photo projects are to be presented to the class and the instructor on the stated dates. Projects should consist of 10-20 pictures each.
content:
The course is divided into three consecutive sections: A) technical, B) theoretical-analytical, C) project- oriented.
Weeks 1 to 4: Devoted to an intensive survey of the technical concepts which constitute the fundamental basis of the photographic process. As a final test, a short (1000 words) paper is assigned to students. Students must also complete a simple photo project that is be presented to the class and jointly discussed.
Weeks 5 to 8: Devoted to the critical analysis of some crucial theoretical debates around photography. As in the previous section, a written paper is assigned to students, together with a photo project.
Weeks 9 to 11: Devoted to knowledge of the most up-to-date techniques of presentation of audio/visual projects, both in the art world and in the documentary/journalistic milieu. The final photo project and written paper concentrate on these themes and implement these techniques.
Week 1
Lesson 1
Overview of the course, teaching methodology, bibliographical references, students’ personal presentation of own experiences and needs, course grading criteria and teacher’s expectations.
Lesson 2
Art and Visual representation, the Renaissance, the invention of perspective and the evolution of automatic image-making technology
Sturken, Marita and Cartwright, Lisa. Practices of looking. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Pp. 109-150
+ Instructor’s handouts
Week 2
Lesson 3
Camera equipment, films, digital sensors, image format.
Langford, Michael. Bilissi, Efthimia. Langford’s Advanced Photography. Oxford: Focal Press, 2008. Pp. 15-41
Lesson 6
Light: natural, artificial. Knowledge and control of practical lighting conditions.
Langford, Michael. Bilissi, Efthimia. Langford’s Advanced Photography. Oxford: Focal Press, 2008. 129-155
Week 4
Lesson 7
Composition, framing, proportions, perspective and image design skills.
Freeman, Michael. The photographer’s eye. Oxford: Focal Press, 2007. Pp. 8-106
Lesson 8
Digital workflow, image management, photographic processing software.
First written assignment hand out.
Simon, Dan. Digital Photography Bible. Desktop edition. Indianapolis: Wiley Publishing Inc, 2004. Pp. 247-319.
Week 5
Lesson 9
The myth of photographic truth: the photograph as document.
Students hand in first written assignment.
Price, Derrick. “Surveyors and surveyed. Photography out and about”. in Photography. A critical introduction. ed Liz Wells. London and New York: Routledge, 2009. Pp 65-116
Lesson 10
Mid term exam:
Students present their first photo projects to the class and freely debate with the instructor and the rest of the class
Week 6
Lesson 11
Mid term exam:
Students present their first photo projects to the class and freely debate
with the instructor and the rest of the class
Week 7
Lesson 12
The mass media and the public sphere
Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright Sturken, Marita and Cartwright, Lisa. Practices of looking. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Pp. 151-188
+ Instructor’s handouts
Lesson 13
Photography in the age of electronic imaging
Lister, Martin. “Photography in the age of electronic imaging” in Photography. A critical introduction. ed Liz Wells. London and New York: Routledge, 2009. Pp 311-344
Week 8
Lesson 14
Visual persuasion: visual truth, visual lies
Second written assignment hand out.
Messaris, Paul. Visual Persuasion. The role of images in advertising. Thousand Oaks, London, New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1997. Pp. 129-160
Lesson 15
Image Ethics – part one
Image Ethics – part two
Sontag, Susan. Regarding the pain of others. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003. Pp. 104-126
Frosh, Paul. “Digital technology and stock photography: and God created Photoshop” in Image ethics in the digital age. Ed Larry Gross, John Stuart Katz and Jay Ruby. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003. Pp. 183-216.
Week 9
Lesson 16
Visit to one of the following:
• local gallery
• cultural institution
leading professional photographic studio
Students hand in second written assignment.
Lesson 17
Tutorial: students present their second photo projects to the class and freely debate with the instructor and the rest of the class
Week 10
Lesson 18
Multimedia Storytelling: an overview Telling stories with pictures and sound. The power of multimedia. Notable examples from the web. Multimedia components.
Instructor’s handouts, freely available video material.
Lesson 19
Audio technical specifications, sound editing tools and software, audio genres and typologies.
Instructor’s handouts, freely available audio/video material.
Week 11
Lesson 20
Audio slide shows: examples, elementary and complex editing software.
Final written assignment hand out.
Instructor’s handouts, freely available software.
Week 12
Final exams
Required readings:
A course pack including all the required readings (in digital form) is available at the beginning of the course. It is also supplemented, when available, by handouts (in digital format, as well).
Freeman, Michael. The photographer’s eye. Oxford: Focal Press, 2007.
Gross, Larry, Katz, John Stuart, Ruby, Jay (Eds). Image ethics in the digital age. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003.
Sontag, Susan. Regarding the pain of others. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003.
Sturken, Marita, Cartwright, Lisa. Practices of looking. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2001
Wells, Liz (ed). Photography. A critical introduction. London and New York: Routledge, 2009.
Recommended readings:
Adams, Ansel. The camera. New York, Boston:, Little, Brown and Company, 2005 [1980].
Berger, John. Ways of seeing. London, New York: Penguin Books, 1972.
Bolton, Richard (Ed). The Contest of Meaning. Critical Histories of Photography. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992.
Clarke, Graham. The Photograph. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Evans, Jessica, Hall, Stuart (Eds). Visual Culture: the reader. London, Thousand Oaks, New York: Sage Publications, 2001.
Frosh, Paul. The Image Factory: Consumer Culture, Photography and the Visual Content Industry. Oxford, New York: Berg, 2003.
Halpern Wenger, Debora, Potter, Debora. Advancing the Story: Broadcast Journalism in a Multimedia World. Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2008.
Kemp, Martin. The Science of Art: Optical Themes in Western Art from Brunelleschi to Seurat. New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 1992.
Newton, Julianne. The Burden of Visual Truth: The Role of Photojournalism in Mediating Reality. Mahwah, London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2001.
Levi Strauss, David. Between the eyes. Essays on photography and politics. New York: Aperture, 2003.
Other Resources:
Students must supply their own digital camera (6 Megapixels or more) with manual controls, with a strong preference for a digital SLR (Single Lens Reflex). Only in rare cases is a film camera acceptable for the course.
Brief Biography of Instructor:
Marco Capovilla received his college education at the University of Pisa, where he achieved a degree in
Information Sciences. While carrying out a doctoral program at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, he became involved in research initially with the Italian National Research Council, and subsequently, as a visiting scientist, at the University of California at Berkeley, investigating and studying the physiology and biophysics of visual systems. A major change in his career took place in the mid 1980s, when, after a period dedicated to the study of the photographic arts and techniques, he became a professional photographer working in the editorial world and contributing to major international magazines. In the late 1980s, he also became a photographic journalist, with interests including: geographical reportage, sociological and anthropological issues, historical and artistic buildings, the natural environment, World Heritage sites, and portraits. His research work has been shown in numerous personal and group exhibits. For the past ten years he has also been lecturing and teaching in Italian Universities, with topics ranging from Photojournalism to Visual Communication Ethics, from Visual Sociology to Multimedia Storytelling. He also serves as President of Fotografia & Informazione, the Italian Press Photographers’ Association.
The main purposes of the course are 1) to introduce the students to the basic techniques that eventually allow them to master the fundamental rules of “making” (not simply “taking”) photographs; and 2) to offer a general idea of the conceptual issues concerning the reading of photographs and images. This encompasses how photographs are taken, what their different forms and meanings can be, why they occupy such a key role in our society, who controls their circulation, where their main centers of production are located, and finally when this overwhelming global process originated. Since theory informs practice, the proposed conscientious engagement with questions about photographic meaning help students to develop not only a better critical understanding of the images surrounding them, but also a deeper sense of the underlying agendas found in the pictures they learn both to interpret and to construct. Students also discover how to combine their images with words and sounds and create their own multimedia “audio slideshows”. Last but not least, recalling that linear perspective was originally invented, developed and given formal description by Italian painters and architects during the age of the Renaissance, students also have the opportunity to reconsider the entire photographic process from the point of view of the numerous artists that, long before the invention of photography, faced the problem of effectively representing the three-dimensional space (i.e. reality) on a two-dimensional surface.
None
Photo projects printing paper (50 A4 sheets or more) and site visits.
Regular class attendance is mandatory. In an emergency necessitating an absence, the instructor must be notified, a medical certificate (from a doctor’s visit on the day you missed class) must be submitted to and cleared by the IES Abroad Milan Center Academic Advisor, and all assignments due must be submitted prior to missed classes. There are no makeup exams - an absence on the scheduled day of an exam results in a grade of 0% for that exam. Flight and traveling plans are not accepted as excused absences. Students are expected to attend lectures, to keep up with the readings on a weekly basis, and to work in groups on the assigned essay.
By the end of the course, students are able to:
• Use their cameras effortlessly and appropriately;
• Analyze the role historically played by the Italian Renaissance’s view of reality on the development of photography;
• Critique, evaluate, and discuss the role of photography and images in contemporary society, the arts and the media;
• Envision, elaborate and assemble a personal multimedia project based on images, words and sounds.
Lectures and discussions; presentations and video tutorials; critical analysis of required readings; experiments with photographic and lighting equipment; field studies; student presentations of photographic projects; group discussions.
LANGUAGE OF PRESENTATION: English
Mid term exam:
Photo Project 1 & Study Paper 1
- light, color and composition controls
- understanding technique and the theory behind it
20%
Photo Project 2 & Study Paper 2
- either a documentary or an art project
- contemporary critical issues on photography
30%
Final exam: Photo Project 3 & Study Paper 3
- multimedia project (based on Photo Project 2)
- multimedia: photographic images to watch and listen to
30%
Active Class Participation
20%
TOTAL 100%
Study Papers: These are 4.000 characters (or 1.000 words) papers correlated to the course syllabus contents. Study Papers follow each section and shall be handed in by due dates.
Photo Projects: Photo projects are to be presented to the class and the instructor on the stated dates. Projects should consist of 10-20 pictures each.
The course is divided into three consecutive sections: A) technical, B) theoretical-analytical, C) project- oriented.
Weeks 1 to 4: Devoted to an intensive survey of the technical concepts which constitute the fundamental basis of the photographic process. As a final test, a short (1000 words) paper is assigned to students. Students must also complete a simple photo project that is be presented to the class and jointly discussed.
Weeks 5 to 8: Devoted to the critical analysis of some crucial theoretical debates around photography. As in the previous section, a written paper is assigned to students, together with a photo project.
Weeks 9 to 11: Devoted to knowledge of the most up-to-date techniques of presentation of audio/visual projects, both in the art world and in the documentary/journalistic milieu. The final photo project and written paper concentrate on these themes and implement these techniques.
Week 1
Lesson 1
Overview of the course, teaching methodology, bibliographical references, students’ personal presentation of own experiences and needs, course grading criteria and teacher’s expectations.
Lesson 2
Art and Visual representation, the Renaissance, the invention of perspective and the evolution of automatic image-making technology
Sturken, Marita and Cartwright, Lisa. Practices of looking. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Pp. 109-150
+ Instructor’s handouts
Week 2
Lesson 3
Camera equipment, films, digital sensors, image format.
Langford, Michael. Bilissi, Efthimia. Langford’s Advanced Photography. Oxford: Focal Press, 2008. Pp. 15-41
Lesson 4
Lenses, focal length, exposure controls, sensitivity.
Langford, Michael. Bilissi, Efthimia. Langford’s Advanced Photography. Oxford: Focal Press, 2008. Pp. 42-67
Week 3
Lesson 5
Color, tones, dynamic range, contrast.
Langford, Michael. Bilissi, Efthimia. Langford’s Advanced Photography. Oxford: Focal Press, 2008. Pp. 68-84
Lesson 6
Light: natural, artificial. Knowledge and control of practical lighting conditions.
Langford, Michael. Bilissi, Efthimia. Langford’s Advanced Photography. Oxford: Focal Press, 2008. 129-155
Week 4
Lesson 7
Composition, framing, proportions, perspective and image design skills.
Freeman, Michael. The photographer’s eye. Oxford: Focal Press, 2007. Pp. 8-106
Lesson 8
Digital workflow, image management, photographic processing software.
First written assignment hand out.
Simon, Dan. Digital Photography Bible. Desktop edition. Indianapolis: Wiley Publishing Inc, 2004. Pp. 247-319.
Week 5
Lesson 9
The myth of photographic truth: the photograph as document.
Students hand in first written assignment.
Price, Derrick. “Surveyors and surveyed. Photography out and about”. in Photography. A critical introduction. ed Liz Wells. London and New York: Routledge, 2009. Pp 65-116
Lesson 10
Mid term exam:
Students present their first photo projects to the class and freely debate with the instructor and the rest of the class
Week 6
Lesson 11
Mid term exam:
Students present their first photo projects to the class and freely debate
with the instructor and the rest of the class
Week 7
Lesson 12
The mass media and the public sphere
Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright Sturken, Marita and Cartwright, Lisa. Practices of looking. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Pp. 151-188
+ Instructor’s handouts
Lesson 13
Photography in the age of electronic imaging
Lister, Martin. “Photography in the age of electronic imaging” in Photography. A critical introduction. ed Liz Wells. London and New York: Routledge, 2009. Pp 311-344
Week 8
Lesson 14
Visual persuasion: visual truth, visual lies
Second written assignment hand out.
Messaris, Paul. Visual Persuasion. The role of images in advertising. Thousand Oaks, London, New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1997. Pp. 129-160
Lesson 15
Image Ethics – part one
Image Ethics – part two
Sontag, Susan. Regarding the pain of others. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003. Pp. 104-126
Frosh, Paul. “Digital technology and stock photography: and God created Photoshop” in Image ethics in the digital age. Ed Larry Gross, John Stuart Katz and Jay Ruby. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003. Pp. 183-216.
Week 9
Lesson 16
Visit to one of the following:
• local gallery
• cultural institution
leading professional photographic studio
Students hand in second written assignment.
Lesson 17
Tutorial: students present their second photo projects to the class and freely debate with the instructor and the rest of the class
Week 10
Lesson 18
Multimedia Storytelling: an overview Telling stories with pictures and sound. The power of multimedia. Notable examples from the web. Multimedia components.
Instructor’s handouts, freely available video material.
Lesson 19
Audio technical specifications, sound editing tools and software, audio genres and typologies.
Instructor’s handouts, freely available audio/video material.
Week 11
Lesson 20
Audio slide shows: examples, elementary and complex editing software.
Final written assignment hand out.
Instructor’s handouts, freely available software.
Week 12
Final exams
A course pack including all the required readings (in digital form) is available at the beginning of the course. It is also supplemented, when available, by handouts (in digital format, as well).
Freeman, Michael. The photographer’s eye. Oxford: Focal Press, 2007.
Gross, Larry, Katz, John Stuart, Ruby, Jay (Eds). Image ethics in the digital age. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003.
Langford, Michael, Bilissi, Efthimia. Langford’s Advanced Photography. Oxford: Focal Press, 2008.
Messaris, Paul. Visual Persuasion. The role of images in advertising. Thousand Oaks, London, New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1997
Simon, Dan. Digital Photography Bible. Desktop edition. Indianapolis: Wiley Publishing Inc, 2004.
Sontag, Susan. Regarding the pain of others. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003.
Sturken, Marita, Cartwright, Lisa. Practices of looking. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2001
Wells, Liz (ed). Photography. A critical introduction. London and New York: Routledge, 2009.
Adams, Ansel. The camera. New York, Boston:, Little, Brown and Company, 2005 [1980].
Berger, John. Ways of seeing. London, New York: Penguin Books, 1972.
Bolton, Richard (Ed). The Contest of Meaning. Critical Histories of Photography. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992.
Clarke, Graham. The Photograph. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Evans, Jessica, Hall, Stuart (Eds). Visual Culture: the reader. London, Thousand Oaks, New York: Sage Publications, 2001.
Frosh, Paul. The Image Factory: Consumer Culture, Photography and the Visual Content Industry. Oxford, New York: Berg, 2003.
Halpern Wenger, Debora, Potter, Debora. Advancing the Story: Broadcast Journalism in a Multimedia World. Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2008.
Kemp, Martin. The Science of Art: Optical Themes in Western Art from Brunelleschi to Seurat. New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 1992.
Newton, Julianne. The Burden of Visual Truth: The Role of Photojournalism in Mediating Reality. Mahwah, London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2001.
Levi Strauss, David. Between the eyes. Essays on photography and politics. New York: Aperture, 2003.
Students must supply their own digital camera (6 Megapixels or more) with manual controls, with a strong preference for a digital SLR (Single Lens Reflex). Only in rare cases is a film camera acceptable for the course.
Marco Capovilla received his college education at the University of Pisa, where he achieved a degree in
Information Sciences. While carrying out a doctoral program at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, he became involved in research initially with the Italian National Research Council, and subsequently, as a visiting scientist, at the University of California at Berkeley, investigating and studying the physiology and biophysics of visual systems. A major change in his career took place in the mid 1980s, when, after a period dedicated to the study of the photographic arts and techniques, he became a professional photographer working in the editorial world and contributing to major international magazines. In the late 1980s, he also became a photographic journalist, with interests including: geographical reportage, sociological and anthropological issues, historical and artistic buildings, the natural environment, World Heritage sites, and portraits. His research work has been shown in numerous personal and group exhibits. For the past ten years he has also been lecturing and teaching in Italian Universities, with topics ranging from Photojournalism to Visual Communication Ethics, from Visual Sociology to Multimedia Storytelling. He also serves as President of Fotografia & Informazione, the Italian Press Photographers’ Association.