Robert Clarke-Davis

Large Format Photography introduces students to the ideas and aesthetics associated with a large-format view camera. Students will learn pre-visualization, camera movements, perspective control, large-format optics, and how to handle large format sheet film. Assignments focus on portraiture, landscape, studio, and architecture. Students are encouraged to develop a personal style via flexible assignments. Technical skills acquired include view camera setup and control, experience with sheet film, the zone system, large format scanning, and analog and digital printing. All enrolled students are assigned a 4x5 studio camera and will have access to an 8x10 and 4x5 field cameras, along with a variety of optics and accessories.

A variety of technical readings from multiple sources will help students understand perspective control, camera setup, lens choice, bellows extension, available film choices, exposure, and reciprocity compensation associated with large format photography. Additional readings and screenings will provide examples of historical and contemporary work created utilizing large format photography, and highlight the cameras meditative qualities and excellent resolution and control.

Large Format Photography introduces students to the ideas and aesthetics associated with a large-format view camera. Students will learn pre-visualization, camera movements, perspective control, large-format optics, and how to handle large format sheet film. Assignments focus on portraiture, landscape, studio, and architecture. Students are encouraged to develop a personal style via flexible assignments. Technical skills acquired include view camera setup and control, experience with sheet film, the zone system, large format scanning, and analog and digital printing. All enrolled students are assigned a 4x5 studio camera and will have access to an 8x10 and 4x5 field cameras, along with a variety of optics and accessories.

A variety of technical readings from multiple sources will help students understand perspective control, camera setup, lens choice, bellows extension, available film choices, exposure, and reciprocity compensation associated with large format photography. Additional readings and screenings will provide examples of historical and contemporary work created utilizing large format photography, and highlight the cameras meditative qualities and excellent resolution and control.

Topics courses cover a wide range of aesthetic concerns and change according to the semester and faculty, allowing a more in-depth examination of specific topics within photography. The courses provide students access to the specific topics driving faculty research and practice, as well as allowing the department to nimbly address issues pressing to our current context and time. Additionally, these courses are used to address the interests of students not already covered in our curriculum. The format ranges in each section, but these six hour studio courses are meant to engage students in both research and making, developing their own artistic trajectory. The format is often experimental, modeling the artistic practice of the instructor and generously expanding the photographic medium.

Close-reading and discussion are essential; looking at and discussing art; creating new work and exchanging feedback. Recent topics have included: Decolonizing the Gaze, Desire, Representation and the Self, Screen Capture, Creative Production and Portfolio, Observing Power, Rich and Poor, The Archive, and Constructing the Rural. Readings are subject to individual course topics and not exemplified here.

This graduate level studio seminar course is a hybrid of reading, discussion, making and critique, designed to pursue positions in historical and contemporary philosophy, critical analysis, and current thought relevant to photography and visual literacy. Throughout the semester, the course aims to explore the past and future of visual media and to look at its discourse in relation to life as an artist in the greater realm of culture, society and politics. Course programming includes critical readings, short and informal writing assignments, work and research presentations.