Assignment: PGY 4410c (photo 2) and PGY 4440c (photo topics) Students from both classes should listen to this broadcast online and learn something about this photographer for class discussion. Listen to how to "read" a photograph. Can you "read" your own photographs and critique it in the same way?

Photo Op: John Szarkowski's Art Vision
Chris Rainier, a staff photographer for National Geographic, talks with NPR's Alex Chadwick about a retrospective of photos taken by John Szarkowski, who worked as photo curator for New York's Museum of Modern Art from 1962 to 1991. Szarkowski was influential in making people see photos as art, and not just snapshots.

Before he became one of the most influential photography curators of the 20th century, John Szarkowski was himself an accomplished photographer. Since his retirement from New York's Museum of Modern Art in 1991, he has returned to his art.

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(added 12 Mar., 2005)
"[John] Szarkowski's thinking, whether Americans know it or not, has become our thinking about photography". Christopher Sieving for Univ. of Wisc. Arts Institute's Interdisciplinary Arts Residency Program [read more]

PGY 4440c Topics Assignment: After seeing selections from the Jaffe Collection our possibilities for image making have broadened. The possibilities of combining film and digital images gives rise to thoughts about the future of photographic media. The below article is the second assigned reading for our class. Please read the article so that we can discuss it in class on 15 Feb., 2005. Even though the idea of postmodernism itself will be raised with later readings, this article should be a stimulus for thinking about your image making.

Postmoderism and the Future of Traditional Photography Most of us began by using the camera, lens, processing methods, and materials in a straightforward manner with silver images and only a nominal amount of traditional manipulation. However, for those who hope to exhibit or publish their work or subject it to critical review, there will eventually be the voice of the postmodernists to consider. What does that voice say about so-called "straight" or "modern" photography? What does it say about the idea of making original, personal images using traditional procedures in photography?