Florence, Italy - Course Descriptions - Discovering Florence through Photography

Course Information

Contact Hours and Credits

Availability

Summary

Students will explore the history and craft of photography while developing their personal vision against the backdrop of Florence and Tuscany. The class will examine such topics as urban and rural landscape, portraiture, and digital techniques. Open to students of all levels of photo experience. Beginners will master the basics of camera usage, film development, and black and white printing while advanced students will work on projects more concerned with personal vision. The digital component of the class will be developed on an individual basis according to interest and previous experience. The class will be structured to profit as much as possible from our time in Florence--photographing in and around Florence as well as visiting museums and galleries. In addition to these field trips, class time will be used to work in the lab, for technical demonstrations, individual and group critiques.

Full Description

The Santa Reparata darkroom

Students will explore the history and craft of photography while developing their personal vision against the backdrop of Florence and Tuscany. The class will examine such topics as urban and rural landscape, portraiture, and digital techniques.

Open to students of all levels of photo experience.

Beginners will master the basics of camera usage, film development, and black and white printing while advanced students will work on projects more concerned with personal vision. The digital component of the class will be developed on an individual basis according to interest and previous experience. The class will be structured to profit as much as possible from our time in Florence--photographing in and around Florence as well as visiting museums and galleries. In addition to these field trips, class time will be used to work in the lab, for technical demonstrations, individual and group critiques.

Prerequisites

None. This course is open to students of all levels.

Instructor

Michael McCarthy was born in Ithaca, New York. He received a BA at the University of Vermont where he studied history, philosophy and art. Two years were spent studying art in Paris followed by several years of travel/work in the U.S. that included stops in Seattle, San Francisco and New York. Mr. McCarthy received an MFA in Photography from the Tyler School of Art. He has since taught photography, computer graphics and printmaking classes at a number of institutions, most recently at Ursinus College where he was Director of the Photography program. His work has been exhibited widely in galleries and museums in the U.S. Currently living in France working on independent projects in photography and printmaking, his artwork crosses boundaries between photo, drawing and printmaking and deals with a range of subjects from the relatively straight street photograph, to the purely abstract to the figurative and painterly. You can see some of Michael's work at: http://www.michael-mccarthy.com.

Facilities

The darkroom is equipped with a wide array of photographic equipment

The darkroom at Santa Reparata has 6 Durst and 3 Omega enlargers, including a Durst 5" X 7" Professional, and 4" X 5" format Omega D-2, darkroom fully air conditioned with full ventilation and air exchange unit, island developing sink 1 x 2.5 meters.

Production area has 6 film developing stations, large tables and counters,2 electric film dryers, electric RC paper dryer, 50cm X 180cm light table, Dahle paper cutters, silver recovery unit, locker space for each student, and a fully ventilated film processing area. Critique and production area suitable for up to 14 students.

A computer lab of 11 Macintosh computers will be used to work with scanning, image manipulation in Photoshop, surfing the web and sending e-mails during normal school hours.

Required Supplies and Course Fees

Photo supplies are not included in the tuition. Students will be supplied with a complete list of required and optional materials that can be purchased in Florence (approximately 75-100 Euro). Students must bring a 35 mm camera with them and may wish to bring other supplies with them as well.