Advanced Darkroom Photography

After School Matters Advanced Darkroom Photography – Spring 2021

In this spring session of ASM, while we continued online learning during the pandemic, the Advanced Darkroom Photography group came together each week to explore photography – how it shapes our view of the world and how we can learn new ways of seeing our environment through the camera.

We returned to some fundamental photographic concepts, with assignments to explore the use of Negative Space in a composition, or focusing on Line & Shape in our photographs. We learned about the photographic history of categorization, known as a Typology, by looking at many photographers who have utilized this method, such as Bernd & Hilla Becher, David Schalliol, Tom Kiefer, and Medina Dugger. In a group activity and an individual assignment, teens were encouraged to try this method for creating a photographic series. To encourage putting our photographs into unique physical forms, we tried making a couple types of handmade books. This session also included visits from guest artists Oscar Arriola of ZINEmercado, and multidisciplinary artist Larsen Husby.

For their final projects, each teen created a series of photographs inspired by a writing activity, prompted by Larsen Husby's presentation. While we all feel stuck at home during the pandemic, this was a way of reframing how we can think of "home" and use photographs to interpret these new descriptions. By incorporating the use of text with their photographs, while improving technical skills, the teens learned new ways to present photographs in a series, becoming more intentional in their creative decisions.

Instructors: Kristie Kahns and Roberto Nieves