Students will learn about the earliest photographic technologies and how innovators had tried to fix images of the world around them for centuries prior to the invention of the earliest cameras!  Technologies including the camera obscura, glass lenses, and more will be discussed leading to the development of the first camera and earliest surviving images. A large focus will be placed on the Daguerreotype and how images were sealed to metal plates during the late nineteenth century. 

 Week two of the course explores the first uses of photography in documenting the world and reality through photojournalism. In this class, students will discuss the development of more portable camera technologies, celluloid film rolls,  and how photography was viewed as a way to capture the world in its purest form. We will look at a few iconic images for the earliest decades of photojournalism and discuss how reality was often staged and manipulated to get the shots the photographers desired. 

 Students will explore a few photographers who sought to use the medium to expand the idea of photography as art and to depict uncommon subject matter. Artists like Ansel Adams, renowned for his nature photography, Diane Arbus and her photographs of marginalized communities, and Henri Cartier-Bresson, considered the father of candid photography, will be the focus of the class. Each photographer approached the world around them in a unique way and played with photographic technology! 

 Week four of the class explores the use of photography across two major world events--the Great Depression and World War II. In class, students will analyze iconic images from these events, including the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima, the navy kiss in Times Square, and Dorthea Lange's Great Depression photography and discuss the impact of these images on international audiences and why they are controversial today. Students will evaluate the importance of photojournalism in a time of crisis.