This class combines hands-on experience of nineteenth-century photographic processes with the study of surviving images and readings on cultural and scientific forces driving photographic inventions. The goal is to deconstruct the current black box that is digital photography by introducing students to do-it-yourself practices (chemistry and optics) behind multiple types of imagery that are often lumped together retrospectively as “photography.” Students will make their own personal visual statements and may mix hand-made processes with modern intermediaries such as digitally produced negatives.
