Photographs of People, Portraits, as Art


This may/will be our first attempt at taking photographs as "art" which may not be the same thing as taking photographs for your family/friends to share on social media. We will assume that it will be presented to "viewers" who may not know you. That is, the work must present enough context/information for a general audience.

Consider the artists and photographs, and specifically strategies you've seen in class and in the readings, specifically Chapter 5 "Intimate Life" and Chapter 2 "Once Upon a Time" of Cotton's book Photograph as Contemporary Art.

Be prepared to provide an explanation of how you think your photographs work. (eg. Why and how are these good photographs in your view?).

Technical

Make conventionally good prints. All photographs should be well exposed. No dust marks, no intentionally messy photos. Clean, uniform prints that do not draw attention to bad print quality.

Conceptual

Think about how one could organize multiple photos to cohere as one. How does that work? Repetition/serial? Chronological? Random? Poetic? This is the first of many attempts at making an argument and communicating with photographs.
It may take a semester (most likely more) to figure out what kinds of strategies work for you. It will be an incremental learning process:
→ you show work → you receive feedback → repeat


At least 5 darkroom prints that you consider part of the project. I ask that you print and present 2 additional different photographs that you considered to be part of the work but did not select as the final 5. So at minimum, you should have 7 prints (5 that made the cut, and 2 rejects).

Present the extra 2 separately (clearly marked as not making the cut). This is so that selecting is part of the process to the end and can be part of the conversation. It will become more important as we go along. (There is a reason why we have photo editors!)