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PGY 4440C PHOTOGRAPHY & CREATIVE WRITING
Supplies:
Working camera that uses film and paper processing or digital camera capable of producing high quality digital prints. Students must provide their own camera, film, paper, and film processing chemistry. Wet paper processing is provided for students enrolled in this course for a lab fee.
A writer's log (of informal writings) in written form or by using weblog technology.
Photography and Creative Writing is a studio art course. The student should be familiar with both the camera and darkroom. Using photographic imagery we will examine approaches to photography and the documentary, including aesthetics, editing, sequencing, composition, and the expressiveness of light and atmosphere as they affect content in documentary work. We will consider the issues of objectivity, interpretation, political agenda, mass communication, marketing, art worlds, and the commodification of just about everything.
Writing assistance is offered through the University Center for Excellence in Writing, SO 107. If you feel your writing needs more assistance than offered in this course, please make an appointment with them. This course is an interdisciplinary studio art course.
Assignment Overview:
Is fiction okay? No. This course is about telling your own personal story with supporting images. If you want to include fiction in a separate, clearly labeled document, in addition to the reality based story that would be okay. But, if you are looking for an outlet for fiction, this is not your best option.
Assignment: Personal Narrative
This is the beginning of coursework. With images and text, introduce yourself and your project. This does not have to be a biography but it needs to clearly identify you and your relationship to your project.
Assignment: Essays
This is the meat of your coursework. Your stories or writings do not need to be about the images themselves but, they do need to be about the issues surrounding, or subject of, the images. Always ground the text in the images. Stories or texts should paint a picture that is clear. These texts should not be personal narratives in style. Each of your essays should have a minimum of 600 words, including your personal narrative.
Many young photographers, led by artists such as Nan Goldin, Wolfgang Tillmans, and Nick Waplington, have turned their cameras inward. These, and other photographers, make images mainly of their own lives and friends. They shoot what they KNOW, and make no pretense of interpreting or even representing objective reality. This aesthetic inclination parallels an exigency in our culture as a whole: a new need to establish individual identity when, despite our mass communications and freedoms, people are more anonymous than ever (or at least feeling that way).
All students must keep a weekly journal of informal writings that should be used to develop your five writing assignments. You may keep them in a journal that you bring to class or you may use weblog technology. Web logs are both free and not. Below is a listing of a sample of web logs available to use if you care to:
www.blogger.com
www.blog-city.com
www.diaryland.com
?
www.bigblogtool.com
$
www.typepad.com $
http://radio.userland.com
$
www.livejournal.com
$
weekly schedule | supplies | readings | downloads | main