INSTRUCTOR: Elstein
UA Pratt Institute School of Architecture

Playing Against the Camera

Overview

Photographers are…people of the apparatus future. Their acts are programmed by the camera; they play with symbols; they are interested in information; they create things without value. In spite of this they consider their activity to be anything but absurd and think they are acting freely. The task of the philosophy of photography is to question photographers about freedom, to probe their practice in the pursuit of freedom.

Several approaches come to light. First, one can outwit the camera’s rigidity. Second, one can smuggle human intentions into its program that are not predicted by it. Third, one can force the camera to create the unpredictable, the improbable, the informative. Fourth, one can show contempt for the camera and its creations and turn one’s interests away from the thing in general in order to concentrate on information.

In short: Freedom is the strategy of making chance and necessity subordinate to human intention.

Freedom is playing against the camera.

–Vilem Flusser, Towards a Philosophy of Photography

This class is intended for students who wish to develop an intense engagement with the theory and the craft of architectural imaging.

The agenda of the class is to critique and subvert traditional indexical notions of the photographic rendering— real or virtual—as a trace of some reality external to itself.

Instead, we will strive to develop strategies of “playing against” the inherent program of the representational apparatus—the camera or the computer—with the goal of producing images that transcend their indexical origins and generate information.

Objectives

–Learn the basic principles of digital photography, with special emphasis on techniques relevant to architectural representation.

–Complete weekly photographic exercises designed to hone their appreciation of light, color, focus, composition, and perspective.

–Be introduced to the canon of great architectural photography and develop a critical vocabulary through weekly readings and class discussions.

–Develop mastery of Photoshop as both a digital darkroom and an environment for compositing.

–Develop mastery of Maxwell Render as an environment for virtual photography, including an in-depth knowledge of material creation and lighting.

–Produce a series of exhibition quality digital prints.

Requirements

–Complete weekly readings and technical exercises.

–Summarize, present, and critique at least one reading in class.

–Actively participate in class discussions and online critiques.

–Submit to occasional pop quizzes designed to demonstrate mastery of basic photographic principles.

–Be prepared to make at least one image per day and maintain an online “sketchbook” of work done during the semester.

–Complete two larger scale projects. The mid-term project will focus on photographic image making and the final project will focus on visualization and compositing. Both projects will grow out of weekly exercises and sketchbook assignments.

Bibliography

Barthes, Roland (1984) Camera Lucida, New York: Hill and Wang.

Bloch, Christian (2007) The HDRI Handbook: High Dynamic Range Imaging for Photographers and CG

Artists, Sebastopol CA: Rocky Nook Press.

Elwall, Robert (2004) Building With Light: An International History of Architectural Photography, New York: Merrell.

Flusser, Vilem (2007) Towards a Philosophy of Photography, London: Reaktion Books

Hunter, Fil (2007) Light: Science and Magic: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting, Amsterdam: Focal Press.

Kopelow, Gerry (2007) Architectural Photography: The Digital Way, Princeton: Princeton University Press.

La Grange, Ashley (2005) Basic Critical Theory for Photographers, Amsterdam: Focal Press

Lowell, Ross (1999) Matters of Light and Depth, New York: Broad Street Books.

Mitchell, William J. (2001) The Reconfigured Eye: Visual Truth in the Post-Photographic Era, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Shore, Stephen (1998) The Nature of Photographs, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Shulman, Julius (2001) Photographing Architecture and Interiors, New York: Balcony Press.

Sontag, Susan (1979) On Photography, New York, Picador.

Zakia, Richard D. (2007) Perception and Imaging: Photography—A Way of Seeing, Amsterdam: Focal Press.

Photographers

The class will examine the canon of great architectural photography, including at a minimum works by the following artists :

Classic: Eugene Atget, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans, László Moholy-Nagy, Julius Shulman, Ezra Stoller

Contemporary: Fine Art, Berndt & Hilda Becher, William Eggelston, Andreas Gursky, Jenny Okun, Stephen Shore

Contemporary – Commercial: Peter Aaron, Helene Binet, Hedrich Blessing, Norman McGrath, Judith Turner