Week 1
Lesson 1
Introductions and Early Photographic Technologies
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 2
Lesson 2
Cameras and Photojournalism 
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. 
 Week 3
Lesson 3
Photographic Aesthetics and the Early 20th Century
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 4
Lesson 4
Photography and Crisis
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.
 Week 5
Lesson 5
Post-War Street Photography
Week five of the class focuses on the rise of on the street, candid photography in the post-War era, emphasizing gritty urban lifestyles and the rise of consumerism through the 1950s and 60s with photographers like Ed Ruscha. Additionally, we will discuss photography and major world events at the time, including the Civil Rights Movement, Korean and Vietnam Wars and more, highlighting a shift in photographic values from idealization to realism in historical events.
 Week 6
Lesson 6
Storytelling Through Photography
We will evaluate the transition to photography being used for storytelling, comparable to film and motion pictures. Through the 1960s and 70s, artists began seeing photography as a method of performance, contradictory to the idea that photography had to portray absolute reality. Through artists like Cindy Sherman, Carrie Mae Weems, Andy Warhol, Lorna Simpson, Robert Mapplethorpe and more, we will discuss how fantasy and reality blend together alongside the rise of performance art. 
 Week 7
Lesson 7
The Rise of Digital Technologies
Students will evaluate the shift in technologies available for photographers through the 2000s, including the evolution of digital technologies like digital cameras and the fall of Kodak film cameras, photoshop programs, and the camera phone, surveillance technologies and how that impacted photographers, both in journalism and in the art field. We will discuss the controversies surrounding many of these technologies and highlight photographers that both embraced and rejected them.
 Week 8
Lesson 8
Photography and Art Today 
In our last class, we will explore some of the famous photographers of the present day and how the history of photography ahs influenced their own practice. Many artists like Ai Weiwei, Shirin Neshat, Annie Leibovitz, David LaChappelle, Andreas Gursky, and more! Students will have an opportunity to share an image that stands out to them in this last class as well to provide time to chat and reflect on the last few weeks.