Picture This: Photography Essentials for Teens

This workshop asks students to engage in close readings of image, sound, and text in order to develop their own creative practice. Authors and artists examined include Roy DeCarava, Langston Hughes, Robert Frost, Dawoud Bey, Tina Campt, Baldwin Lee, Susan Sontag, James Baldwin, Endia Beal, and Joni Mitchell. Students will explore questions such as, How are history, region, identity, social location, sound, and disposition communicated through image? How can narrative be a co-creative endeavor alongside image? How does the body of the photographer figure in images even when not visible? What ethical principles ought to guide visual and narrative storytelling? Class sessions will include writing exercises and peer critiques.

Photography is by definition an act of time travel, but this workshop in wet-plate collodion process adds a unique and creative aspect to modern practice. The course explores making tintypes, glass negatives, and ambrotypes with a variety of formats, including 6x6 plates made with Holga cameras and using supplied 4x5 cameras. Whether new to the process or honing basic skills, this workshop is a great fit for anyone interested in early hand-crafted photography.

Students explore a wide range of traditional and experimental screen printing techniques, examining the expressive potential of digital and mechanical mark-making, richly layered color, and dynamic variable editions. Processes covered include drawing fluid and screen-filler stencils, photo-chemical stencils created from both hand-drawn and digital imagery, monoprints/monotypes, and the integration of found collage materials — all paired with hybrid approaches that merge analog and digitally produced images.