DGMD E10 Exposing Digital Photography Summer 3, July 14 – August 2, 2019 Venue: Sever Hall 110 Lectures: Monday to Thursday 8H30-11H30 AM

DGMD E10 Exposing Digital Photography Summer 3, July 14 – August 2, 2019 Venue: Sever Hall 110 Lectures: Monday to Thursday 8h30-11h30 AM.

Instructor: Greg Marinovich. [email protected] Mobile 617-708-7018

Office Hours: By appointment and after class. Class enrolment is limited to students who can attend in person

Prerequisites for taking the course:

You should have a competent or advanced knowledge of photography. If you have a deep interest in photography and already have experience in shooting at an intermediate or advanced level, this is the course for you. You will need access to the Internet and a computer with software like Adobe Lightroom to tone & edit your images, although we will offer these facilities at Harvard too. We recommend that you use your Harvard ID to access Lynda.com to get to grips with using the software before class starts. Adobe.com also has many online tutorials. If you are unsure of your level, please email me [email protected] or check out DGMD-9 which is a fundamentals course – these courses are designed to work in conjunction with each other to give you the best possible learning experience.

Who should take this course:

This course is suitable for intermediate to advanced photographers. It is also suitable for those who are experienced analog / film photographers and wish to make the leap to digital. The course is structured to work on a single body of work – a photo essay or story – through the semester. The key to great photography is great editing. This is for storyteller or narrative photographers in photojournalism, documentary or art photography. It is suitable for both graduates & undergraduates. Graduates will be held to a higher standard of work.

Course description:

This course explores long-form storytelling through the genres of photojournalism, documentary and art photography. We explore a variety of advanced technical underpinnings and techniques of digital photography with the goals of enabling students to further control their work and experiment in new ways and to develop a deeper and broader understanding.

The course will investigate cutting edge technology in photography, as well as the variety of formats available. The course will constantly refer to the software tools we use to ensure reliable workflow and archive management. Advanced color management as well as the science/art of converting your images from color to black & white. Note: Harvard uses Adobe software.

Through lectures, hands-on assignments, and critiques, students expand their understanding of digital photography while exploring their creativity to broaden the possibilities and improve the quality of their photographs.

With this lecturer’s background in conflict and documentary photography, this course will explore those worlds extensively, with an emphasis on narrative photography, but it does not preclude you from any genre of photography you wish to pursue. The goal of the course is for each student to produce a body of work, or a photographic essay. The art of editing your own work will be a key learning goal.

We will dive into portraiture outside of the studio, shooting stories involving people and discuss how to get the picture when everyone does not want you to. For the art aspect, we will discuss ‘accidental’ art while doing documentary work and ‘art for art’s sake’. We will look at various types of photography that are defined, or self-defined, as art.

There will be many photographic books made available to you electronically.

What you will need for the course:

You will need to come with an idea(s) about an essay or story to pursue through the semester.

Students should have access to a camera with a manual mode and an option for capturing RAW images for the duration of the course. DSLR or mirrorless digital cameras with interchangeable lenses are both suitable for this class, as is larger format digital. Note that you can borrow a camera and other photographic equipment for limited periods from 53 Church Street, Cambridge, MA. Contact me by email. You are expected to know how to control whichever camera you choose, as we do not assist participants’ working out how to use their camera menus and controls.

You will also need an external hard drive (I suggest a minimum of 1 terabyte from a reputable manufacturer) to store your work on; it is preferable not to store your images on your computer’s internal hard drive. If you are acquiring a new hard drive, please ensure it has been formatted for your computer. The best option is a solid-state drive; these are now affordable and usually more reliable than optical drives.

Course Aims and Objectives

Upon successful completion of the course, students should have an audience- ready in depth set of images that is to professional standards. Students will understand modern cameras’ behavior and limitations, and an ability to think critically about light, graphics, shapes and the psychology of color to create sets of images that translate their own interpretation of what they saw and imagined. They will also be able to think about the ‘readability’ of an image, or how others will understand their work.

Students will be able to develop a story idea into an essay that are valuable documents of life & society. They will learn how to edit their work to its best potential. Students will be able to organize and archive their work in a way that will be accessible decades in the future, and also understand how best to safeguard their work, both physically and from unlawful usage.

They will understand how to use the most appropriate software to catalog, edit, tone and distribute their photographs. Currently, I recommend Adobe Lightroom, while Capture One and Photo Mechanic are also excellent.

Course Policies and Expectations

You are expected to attend or watch the 12 formal lectures online or in person and to complete the assignments by the due date. The lectures will be recorded and uploaded for distance learners as well as for in class students to revise points they might have missed. In class, notes should be made on paper - a computer is not preferable, nor are mobile phones. Please do not indulge yourself of social media during lectures. Please arrive on time for class as not to disrupt your classmates.

Please do not submit your assignments or projects late; there is a 20% penalty for late submissions, and assignments more than seven days late will not be graded. Assignment and Grading Criteria (with approximate weightings) These are shown on the assignment list. As always, we may adjust this scale if necessary.

The assignments during the semester are worth 40% together. The final project is worth 60%.

Please Note that over and above meeting the technical requirements, there is always an element of the subjective when your images are graded on how well they work for a viewer. I understand this may be disconcerting to some participants, but I do share the grading rubrics with you.

Academic Integrity

You are responsible for understanding Harvard Summer School policies on academic integrity and how to use sources responsibly. Not knowing the rules, misunderstanding the rules, running out of time, submitting “the wrong draft”, or being overwhelmed with multiple demands are not acceptable excuses. There are no excuses for failure to uphold academic integrity. To support your learning about academic citation rules, please visit the Harvard Summer School Tips to Avoid Plagiarism, where you'll find links to the Harvard Guide to Using Sources and two, free, online 15-minute tutorials to test your knowledge of academic citation policy. The tutorials are anonymous open-learning tools. If you use websites to inform your answers to quizzes, please quote them. I prefer you to research and write your own findings than to copy, even though it is an open book format. If you are working in a photojournalistic or documentary photography genre, you are expected to abide by the ethics that pertain – see the reading list below.

Accommodations for students with disabilities

Students needing academic adjustments or accommodations because of a documented disability must present their Faculty Letter from the Accessible Education Office (AEO) and speak with the professor by the end of the second week of the term. Failure to do so may result in the Course Head's inability to respond in a timely manner. All discussions will remain confidential, although Faculty are invited to contact AEO to discuss appropriate implementation.

Sections

We offer online sections. These times will be announced.

Time commitment:

Photography takes time. Good photography takes more time. Generally expect to spend three to four times the time in class on your actual photography/editing. The more time you spend shooting and editing, the more proficient you will become.