Photography
College of Arts and Letters, Department of Design
Program Description
The Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography at Sacramento State is aimed at educating students in contemporary photographic methodologies and in the current situation of photography, its use and its communicative effects. The curriculum is designed to give students a broad exposure to not only the technologies, processes, and models of contemporary practice, but also to introduce them to the aesthetic, cultural, and ethical dialogues surround the use and role of photography in our society. The program does not aim to create, specifically, studio artists or commercial practitioners, but to give students the tools to act in a world where such models are concurrent and highly overlap. We wish our students to be adaptable in a changing landscape of photographic practice, and to be successful and responsible in their role shaping how and what images communicate.
The Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography is intended for students who are interested in pursuing careers as photographic image makers. The program provides students with the technical, creative, and critical thinking skills needed to practice in a variety of fields including art, design, editorial, and production. The breadth of courses in the program reflects the importance of both a liberal arts background and professional preparation in the field. Courses encompass the study of photographic and graphic history and theory, aesthetics, design, contemporary digital and analog photographic practice, lighting, complex planning, and professional practice.
Degree Program
Special Features
- Among the facilities available for Photography students is a large digital lab furnished with Macintosh computers, large format inkjet printers, and film and flatbed scanners. There is also an alternative process facility, a well-equipped chemical darkroom, and a studio lighting facility.
- The Photography program has a generous collection of equipment available for student checkout that includes small, medium and large format cameras, various lenses, tripods, and portable lighting equipment.
- A Design Department gallery on the 4th floor of Mariposa Hall that regularly exhibits student work.
Career Possibilities
Photography is one of the most widely used forms of visual communication in our world today. As the technology to create and share visual imagery has become more accessible and expedient, photographs have taken on a vital role in how we share complex visual information. We use it both to form and communicate the sense of who and what we are via social media, and it is an important tool in the material and mental exploration and interpretation of our world. The Photography degree at Sacramento State prepares students to thoughtfully engage in the production, interpretation, and presentation of photographic images, asking them to consider how these images can be created and used in the world, whether in personal, social, or professional contexts. While gaining technical skills in the production of photographs, students engage rigorously in the conceptual discourse surrounding photographic images (their use and meaning) and are encouraged to consider the application of photographs broadly and with flexibility. Students who earn a degree in Photography can bring this expertise to all career fields, whether these are the more traditional photographic careers that occur in the fine arts, commercial photography, journalism, or editorial work, or in the any of the myriad professions that need and rely on photographic imagery to help define, gather, and assess information, or communicate who and what they are.
Contact Information
Richard Pratt, Department of Design Chair
Mystique Horton, Administrative Support Coordinator
Mariposa Hall 5001
(916) 278-3962
FAX (916) 278-6116
Photography Program Website
Faculty
DERTINGER, DOUG
POOR, NIGEL
SHEPARD, NICK
How to Read Course Descriptions
PHOT 11. Digital Photography I. 3 Units
General Education Area/Graduation Requirement: Arts (Area C1)
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
An introduction to digital photographic image making. Course acquaints students with photographic equipment and techniques used to create and disseminate digital images. Aesthetic, conceptual, and cultural issues surrounding the production and application of photographic images are also discussed.
PHOT 12. Digital Photography II. 3 Units
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
An introduction to composited photographic images. Course provides a broad primer to digital editing and compositing techniques. Lectures and discussions provide artistic and ethical context for contemporary photographic practice.
PHOT 15. Survey of Photography. 3 Units
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
PHOT 20. The Photographic Self. 3 Units
General Education Area/Graduation Requirement: Understanding Personal Development (E)
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Focuses on photography's influence on notions of self from its inception in 1938 to the present. Enhances students' understanding of how and why photography became the powerful and ubiquitous tool that shaped a new form of visual self-expression.
PHOT 40. Darkroom Photography. 3 Units
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Course covers basic concepts and skills in chemical-process photography. Emphasis is placed on basic camera theory, film exposure and development, darkroom printing, and post processing techniques. Lectures, discussions, and assignments provide artistic and historical context for the creation and interpretation of photographic images.
Note: This course requires safety training. This course requires personal protective equipment (PPE).
PHOT 101. Photography, Inception to Mid-Century. 3 Units
Term Typically Offered: Fall only
Introduces students to the history of photography, from inception to Mid-20th Century. Practices of photographers and artists, working with photographic technologies, will be discussed. The course examines photographic vision and the impact of the medium through lectures and readings by art historians and photographers.
Cross-listed: ART 101.
PHOT 102. Photography, a Social History. 3 Units
Term Typically Offered: Spring only
Examines photographic vision and the impact of the medium on society through readings by both photographers and photographic critics. Establishes the importance of photography as a contemporary medium, explores the development of photographic vision and the relationship between photographs and cultural events. Lecture/discussion.
PHOT 111. Intermediate Digital Photography. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): PHOT 11 and PHOT 40
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Covers intermediate to advanced concepts and techniques in digital photographic practice, providing students with the ability to explore both new and previously mastered software and hardware applications. Emphasis is on using digital techniques to generate and print effective and imaginative photographs. Lectures, discussion, and assignments focus on expanding the technical, aesthetic, and conceptual concerns surrounding the creation of contemporary photographic images.
PHOT 141. Intermediate Darkroom Photography. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): PHOT 40 and PHOT 11
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Course covers intermediate level concepts and skills in chemical-process photographic practice. Emphasis is placed on the artistic potential of camera- and darkroom-based image production and manipulation. Lectures, discussions, and assignments focus on expanding the aesthetic and conceptual concerns surrounding the creation and application of photographic imagery.
Note: This course requires safety training. This course requires personal protective equipment (PPE).
PHOT 148. Artificial Light, Studio. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): PHOT 111 and PHOT 141
Corequisite(s): PHOT 102 and PHOT 155
Term Typically Offered: Spring only
A commercially oriented course with assignments covering such topics as food, fashion and products photographed with artificial light in the studio. Business, legal and ethical practices in commercial and editorial photography are discussed as they apply to work done in a studio setting. Students are expected to become visually and technically competent with artificial light sources used in a studio setting.
PHOT 149. Artificial Light, Location. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): PHOT 148 and PHOT 155
Corequisite(s): PHOT 165
Term Typically Offered: Fall only
A location lighting course covering the use of artificial light and non-studio photography. Assignments cover such topics as: interior and exterior architecture, food and fashion shot on location. Techniques for combining the use of hot lights, electronic flash and ambient light are discussed. Students will use a body of work demonstrating their visual and technical understanding of artificial light sources for editorial and commercial application.
PHOT 155. Advanced Photography Techniques. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): PHOT 111 and PHOT 141
Corequisite(s): PHOT 102 and PHOT 148
Term Typically Offered: Spring only
Explores advanced techniques in the production of photographic imagery, with special emphasis on the hybridization of photographic processes. Lectures cover advanced chemical and digital photographic procedures in camera use and printing techniques. Students must demonstrate a high level of visual awareness and technical competency, and must be willing to take risks in the creative application of photographic processes.
PHOT 161. Photography in the Field. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): PHOT 141 or instructor permission.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
The class visits specific sites followed by a group critique of the resulting photographic work. The course objective is to examine how one situation can be interpreted by many varied sensibilities, broadening the artist's visual vocabulary. Students are required to create visually unified portfolio that demonstrates a sense of place.
Cross-listed: ART 161.
PHOT 162. Alternative Photographic Processes. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): PHOT 141 or instructor permission.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Studio course exploring alternative photographic processes that may include: printing-out paper, new cyanotype, argyrotype, and platinum-palladium. Slide discussions, individual and class critiques.
Cross-listed: ART 162.
PHOT 163. Pinhole Photography. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): PHOT 40 or equivalent.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Intermediate course investigating the theory, history, and practice of pinhole photography. Use of student-made pinhole cameras of varying focal lengths using black and white and color materials. Emphasis on creative approach in both camera making and image formation, supported by intermediate-level photographic technique. Individual final portfolios and group exhibition of cameras and prints at conclusion of course.
Cross-listed: ART 163.
PHOT 165. Issues in Contemporary Photographic Practice. 5 Units
Prerequisite(s): PHOT 148 and PHOT 155 Fee course.
Term Typically Offered: Fall only
Covers advanced problems in the process of creating photographic work. Emphasis is on the ways which content/form relationships within a body of work are informed by the artist's conceptual and material engagement, as well as the way in which process and context shape meaning in photographic work. Course centers on readings in contemporary theory and aesthetics, discussion, the production of photographic work, and critique.
Note: Type III Fee, $45
Fee course.
PHOT 175. Studio Topics in Photography. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): PHOT 148 and PHOT 155
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
This class is a broad investigation of photography's potential. Each semester the class concentrates on a photographic strategy including but not limited to: documentary, journalism, fabrication, image and text, and the archive. Students are introduced to photography's varied application, new developments and conversations in the medium. Readings and discussions will enlist a range of theoretical and critical approaches. Course center on readings, discussion, production of photographic work and critique.
PHOT 180. Senior Portfolio. 5 Units
Prerequisite(s): PHOT 165 Fee course
Term Typically Offered: Spring only
A senior level course aimed at furthering student's knowledge of postgraduate opportunities. The required final portfolio of images will reflect the student's photographic education, experience and area of expertise. The content and format of this portfolio will depend on the student's future academic or professional goals.
Note: Type III Fee $45
PHOT 195. Internship In Photography. 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): A minimum of two upper division photography courses.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Directed observation and work experience with public agencies, organizations, publications, design or photography studios. Fieldwork is offered to give students experience, personal contacts and orientation in the area of professional photography. Supervision is provided by faculty and the cooperating community employer. Students are required to maintain a detailed record of activities and report regularly to the supervising faculty member. To receive credit the selected activity must be approved prior to adding the course. Ten hours weekly.
Credit/No Credit
PHOT 199. Special Problems. 1 - 3 Units
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Individual projects or directed readings in photography. Open to students who are working at an advanced level of photography and competent to carry on individual work.
Credit/No Credit
PHOT 299. Special Problems. 1 - 3 Units
Prerequisite(s): Requires instructor approval.
Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Individual projects or directed readings in photography for graduate level students. Open to students who are working at an advanced level of photography and competent to carry on individual work.
Credit/No Credit