ART 311 - Advanced Portrait Photography: Identity and Social Justice

Credit Hours: 4
Frequency of Offering: Offered in alternate years

This course is a comprehensive exploration of portraiture through photography. Students will learn how to create portraits both in the studio and on location with professional strobe lights and digital retouching tools. Through studio projects, assigned readings, and critiques, students will examine how portrait photographs not just record one’s likeness, but also communicate critical issues of identity, such as gender, politics, class, and race. The course will also examine how portraiture photography has been used to perpetuate biases and social injustices through history, and in turn, students will explore using the same medium to advocate for a more equitable and just future. Studio sessions, directed and self-proposed projects at the advanced level that build on previous art course experiences, lecture and discussion, group and individual feedback and critiques.

Prerequisite(s): ART 212, or ART 211 or by permission of the instructor.