Photography

Pratt Institute’s MFA in Photography is a two-year (four-semester) terminal degree program. We welcome artists with interests in contemporary art practices – of all varieties – that rely heavily on the role of photographic imagery and imaging. This can include artists who use lens-based cameras; photosensitive materials and/or sensors; re-photography, aggregation, and quotation; and all approaches in the realm of the photographic—including research and critical positions with relation to the histories and practices of photography, both still and moving.
Our pedagogy encompasses both lens- and print-based technologies alongside the history and context for the making of photographic images, objects, and installations in the 21st century. Fluency in the language and currency of images in our cultural and media landscapes is a core value of our program.

STUDIOS AND FACILITIES
Photography and Fine Arts graduate students have individual studios near the main Brooklyn campus in a renovated factory. Individual studios are assigned for both years of the program with dedicated fabrication shops, temporary exhibition spaces, seminar rooms, and a student lounge in the same space. There is a free shuttle that runs during the week and the building is across the street from a subway stop.
The Photography Department, on the main Brooklyn campus, offers a full range of state of the art facilities in support of the MFA in Photography. Equipment includes 35mm, medium and large format film cameras, the latest DSLR and mirrorless cameras, medium format digital cameras, and lighting equipment, exclusively for graduate student use.
A 1,000-square-foot digital photography lab for the MFA in Photography features Epson professional wide format printers ranging in size from 17 to 44 inches wide, a Hasselblad Flextight film scanner, Apple computers with NEC color calibrated monitors, and current industry-standard editing software. This flexible lab-studio classroom space opened in October 2018 and includes flat files, paper storage, and an advanced 25 × 50 inch flatbed scanner.
There is an individual black-and-white darkroom exclusively for MFA use, and an alternative and non-silver process studio shared with the BFA program. Our 1,500-square-foot shooting and lighting studio is equipped with Profoto lighting equipment, dedicated Apple computer stations for tethering, and a plethora of backdrops and rigging equipment. The department also houses a 1,500-square-foot gallery space that features group and solo exhibitions.
FACULTY AND VISITING ARTISTS
Faculty
Core MFA Photography faculty currently include Program Director Sara Greenberger Rafferty, Carlos Jiménez Cahua, and Allen Frame. Affiliated faculty include the Chair of the Photography Department Shannon Ebner, Shirley Bruno, Anna Collette, Milagros de la Torre, Nick Relph, Carissa Rodriguez, Carla Shapiro, and Sara VanDerBeek, in addition to Fine Arts and Photography faculty teaching core and elective classes throughout the interdisciplinary program.

Guest Artists
The Pratt Photography Talk Series and Visiting Artists Lecture Series provide robust opportunities each year for talks and individual studio visits with visiting relevant artists, critics, curators, and writers. Each spring, the MFA in Photography hosts a distinguished artist as a visiting critic.
The MFA program initiated Teaching Photographs in October 2019, which to date includes: Ariella Aisha Azoulay, Fia Backström, Pradeep Dalal, Leslie Hewitt, Matt Keegan, Gelare Khoshgozaran, Anouk Kruithof, Julie Pochron, Josephine Pryde, Stephanie Syjuco, Sara VanDerBeek, Deborah Willis, and Carmen Winant. An archive of this ongoing project lives at teachingphotographs.info.

Chair
Shannon Ebner

Assistant Chair
Shala Miller

Office
Tel: 718.687.5372
gradphoto@pratt.edu
www.pratt.edu/gradphoto

Faculty Bios
https://www.pratt.edu/art/photography/photography-mfa/faculty-and-staff/

PHOT-601 Thesis Statement I - (3 Credits)

This course is focused on producing written documentation to accompany studio work completed in PHOT FA-650, Thesis I and II.

PHOT-602A Analog Workflow - (1 Credit)

This is a technical course covering the proper use and implementation of analog medium and large format cameras as well as professional film scanning techniques. Students will become familiar with multiple film formats, camera types, capture techniques, light metering methods, and scanning workflow that can be applied to variety of photographic practices. Exposure basics, camera and lens function, large format camera movements, and color and black and white scanning techniques will all be covered in this course.

PHOT-602B Digital Workflow - (1 Credit)

This is a technical course covering the proper use of a variety of digital cameras, image adjustment techniques, and inkjet printing methods. Students will become familiar with multiple digital camera types, capture techniques, image adjustment methods, and inkjet printing workflows that can be applied to variety of photographic and artistic practices. Digital exposure basics, camera and lens function, file management, image adjustment, and inkjet printing techniques will all be covered in this course.

PHOT-602C Studio Lighting - (1 Credit)

This is a technical course covering the proper use, maintenance, and implementation of studio lighting equipment. Students will become familiar with all of the equipment available in the Pratt Photography Lighting Studio and learn lighting techniques that can be applied in a variety of situations. Best studio practices, light metering, continuous light sources, strobe light sources, and light shaping modifiers will all be covered in this course.

PHOT-604 Expanded Documentary - (3 Credits)

This course explores contemporary approaches to social documentary photography and related forms in which techniques such as the archive, appropriation, digital platforms, digital manipulation; and conceptual and self-reflexive strategies including the autobiographical, the fictive, and the performative are utilized. Critiques will challenge and support \"expanded documentary\" projects by students. Simultaneously, the class will examine the work of historical and contemporary artists whose work embodies expanded documentary practice.

PHOT-605 Multimedia Installation - (3 Credits)

This course explores the integration of diverse elements such as video, photography, objects, performance and traditional studio media (drawing, painting, and sculpture) into traditional studio media (drawing, painting, and sculpture) into environmental installation. Students are expected to have working proficiency with these media and be willing to experiment with their possibilities on both a visual and conceptual level.

PHOT-611 Acts of Recognition: Ethics Race and Representation - (3 Credits)

This graduate level seminar will introduce students to perspectives on art, ethics, visual culture, race, and equity, focusing on photography and lens-based media and politics of representation through are history, cultural studies, critical race theory, gender studies, queer studies.

PHOT-612 Project Video - (3 Credits)

Project Video is designed for Graduate Photography and Fine Arts majors to undertake significant moving image projects. Students will learn basic digital video production methods and general filmic concepts. They will work collaboratively with faculty to achieve technical skill and to develop personal vision. The curse welcomes diversity of practice, innovation, and experimentation. Students new to video and moving image are welcome.

PHOT-621 Thesis - (3 Credits)

Photography Studio is the core studio class of the MFA in Photography. Taken in each of the four semesters of the MFA program, Photography Studio forms the basis for collaborative studio enquiry around each student's ongoing artistic work-in-progress.

PHOT-625 Alternative Methods in Photography - (3 Credits)

This course offers students experience with non-silver photographic processes (platinum, gum bichromate, etc.) and their extension into non-traditional photographic presentation. Students will experiment with construction techniques and object making in both studio conditions and in daylight, sometimes using models. Incorporation of other media is stressed in both group and individual projects.

PHOT-626 Alternative Methods in Photography - (3 Credits)

This course is an examination of non-silver processes (platinum, gum bichromate, etc.) and their extension into non-traditional photographic presentation. Construction techniques and object-making, done in both studio conditions and daylight, as well as the use of lighting set-ups and the human form to study the experimental tradition in photography will be examined. Incorporation of other media is stressed in both group and individual projects.

PHOT-650 Photography Studio - (3 Credits)

PHOT-650A Thesis I - (3 Credits)

In Thesis I students establish a rigorous studio practice. Individual and group critiques and a public review will offer clarity and focus going into their final semester. Students pursue a consistent and focused body of work in preparation for preview.

PHOT-650B Thesis II - (3 Credits)

This course culminates with a Thesis exhibition of creative work.

PHOT-660 Lens, Sculpture, and Performance - (3 Credits)

This class explores the camera as a thread that connects all of the visual and performing arts. Students will create sculptures, installations and performance and document these in still or moving images.

PHOT-669 Contemporary Photo Seminar - (3 Credits)

In this seminar students will investigate contemporary photographic work and critical issues through current museum and gallery exhibitions, magazine reviews and recently published books. Emphasis will be on developing a critical viewpoint and vocabulary, but relevant technical issues will not be slighted. In addition to oral and written reports, students may expect assignments in techniques and procedures not generally used but which are employed by certain contemporary photographers.

PHOT-671 Project Photo - (3 Credits)

Project Photo is designed for Graduate Fine Arts majors to undertake significant photographic projects. Students will learn basic digital printing methods and general photographic concepts. They will work collaboratively with faculty to achieve technical skill and develop personal vision. The course welcomes diversity of practice, innovation, and experimentation. Students new to photography are welcome.

PHOT-678 Comedy As Artistic Strategy - (3 Credits)

This course studio course is structured around the tropes of comedic aesthetics: Stand-up, slapstick, situations, puns, pratfalls, and pity. Artists will integrate this mode of thinking into their existing studio production. Taking aesthetic and thematic cues from comedians and funny situations rather than from a specific artistic medium or technique, students will utilize photographs, video, audio, diagrams, performance, and sculptural props to create and document new artworks that are informed by the aesthetics and practices of humor.

PHOT-682 Adventures in Reproduction - (3 Credits)

This graduate studio course explores contemporary art making by emphasizing reproduction and quotation within unique and editioned works. Students will combine unique and mechanically reproduced marks, gestures, surfaces, and imagery using logics of pictorial space, pattern, reference, and self-reference. Class meetings will be devoted primarily to discussions, critiques, workshops, and presentations.

PHOT-685 Traditional Photographic Processes - (3 Credits)

Traditional Photographic Processes is designed for students who have an interest in learning basic photography techniques and concepts in the context of their major areas of emphasis. The course will explore both traditional darkroom techniques and digital photography methods. The class will culminate in portfolio presentations/critiques and a research paper.

PHOT-688 Critical History of Photography 1839-1960 - (3 Credits)

This course introduces students to the critical issues surrounding the invention of photography and its development as a medium and a phenomenon during the 19th century. The course will focus on photography's relationship to the other arts as well as to the events it recorded.

PHOT-695A Photography Studio I - (3 Credits)

In this studio course students pursue work in their chosen area of emphasis. Through group and individual critiques with faculty, students will test their expressive concepts, research methods and technical possibilities. In the area of Photography, the world of the still photo will be opened up to include time, sound, sculpture space, and installation.

PHOT-695B Photography Studio Context - (3 Credits)

This studio course continues to foster the student's individual development while focusing on the relationship of one's own artistic practice to the greater cultural environment. Students will sharpen their practice by engaging in critical dialogues about their work with peers, faculty and visiting artists. In this particular section a special emphasis will be placed on learning the paradigms and cultural context of contemporary photography. We will examine the variety of practices that are available to contemporary photography.

PHOT-695C Photography Studio II - (3 Credits)

In this studio course students continue to pursue advanced work in their chosen area of emphasis. Through group and individual critiques students will further refine their concepts, research and technical capabilities. Students should be working toward the creation of a consistent and focused body of work in preparation for Survey and Thesis the following year. In the area of Photography, the critiques will take place in smaller groups, with an emphasis on editing, sequencing and presentation.

PHOT-699A Symposium I - (3 Credits)

SYMPOSIUM courses span the second semester of the first year and the first semester of the second year of the MFA programs. This pedagogical core provides MFA candidates with a broad and deep engagement with the interdisciplinary field of contemporary practice with an eye to their development as artists, thinkers, and effective communicators. These courses are taught collaboratively and across disciplines. MFA candidates meet in small groups with individual faculty and also collectively with all four faculty members for lectures, presentations, visitors, and some discussion. Symposium 1 is designed for MFA candidates in their first year. Herein, candidates will develop tools and methods to engage and reflect on their own practices and the practices of others. These tools and methods are structured in 2 modalities: internal and external.

PHOT-699B Symposium II - (3 Credits)

SYMPOSIUM courses span the second semester of the first year and the first semester of the second year of the MFA programs. This pedagogical core provides MFA candidates with a broad and deep engagement with the interdisciplinary field of contemporary practice with an eye to their development as artists, thinkers, and effective communicators. These courses are taught collaboratively and across disciplines. MFA candidates meet in small groups with individual faculty and also collectively with all four faculty members for lectures, presentations, visitors, and some discussion. Symposium 2 is designed for MFA candidates in their second year. Herein, candidates will utilize the tools and methods they encountered in Symposium 1 to engage and reflect and present their own practices and the practices of others. These tools and methods are structured in 2 modalities: internal and external.

Academic Catalog 2024-2025

Photography

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