35 Before 35: #26 - Take (Another) Photography Class

3 Oct

During my first semesters of grad school, I took a few digital photography classes and while I certainly know my way around a camera, I love learning and I specifically wanted to take a photography class with more emphasis on art, technique, and lighting than the overall mechanics of digital photography, photo editing, or commercial photography. So in my last semester of grad school, I took a History of Photography course that also included several additional workshops on lighting and technique.

One of the things I liked about the course was that we weren't just learning about the history of photography and the major players; we were also asked to shoot in their style. So unlike many of those liberal arts classes where you simply critique and write about things, we were actually doing something (and yes, there was still a ton of writing). But I loved this class and I'm so glad I was able to get the weird Job Hunting 101 required class waived and take this class instead.

So here are just a few of my favorite projects from that class:

Final Project

Our final project required us to select one of our favorite photographers from any point in the course, and in addition to a full research analysis about their shooting style, we were required to shoot in their style and explain why and how our photography fit their style. I chose Eugene Atget as my photographer. Very little is known about him and his artistic viewpoint, but he captured amazing and poignant photos of places, daily life, and culture in France during his time. Below are a few of the images I took in his style, of downtown Belmont, North Carolina during the holiday season.