Postcards from the City: Exploration with Artistic Photography
ART-40165
Postcards from the City: Exploration with Artistic Photography
9 Weeks | $425 | Online
Learn to take photographs of urban scenes and display your work in a form that is almost as old as photography itself—the photographic postcard. In Postcards from the Street, you will investigate our relationship with urban landscapes. Our senses are heightened when we are standing on a street corner, in a world that is constantly changing,transforming itself with every change of the traffic signals. This can be exciting and terrifying but never uninteresting. In order to learn effective Street Photography technique, we will be using a modified gear kit, a scaled down photographic arsenal, to both interact and document the light, color, shapes and shadows of our city as it reveals itself to us. We will study the origin and evolution of what is now called street photography and learn about the outstanding practitioners of this genre. We will also look at the nature of postcards to better understand how words and pictures, over time, have been a vehicle for communication and virtual experiences. This course will also have numerous, though not complicated, homework assignments as well as in-class assignments. A final class will feature a culmination of student vision and creativity from this fun and inspiring class. Our subject is the San Diego urban scene: streets, markets, buildings, parks, bridges and people in the landscape. This non-darkroom class is designed for beginning to advanced students. Instruction includes illustrated lectures, field trips, and critique sessions. You will make, write, and mail your own postcards to communicate..."Wish you were here!"
What You Will Learn:
- Recognize Street Photography style in all aspects of photography they encounter going forward.
- Incorporate that style into their own in both color and black-and-white photography, including implementing proper aperture and shutter speed and aperture settings to achieve desired tonal outcomes in black-and-white images as well as rich saturation in color images.
- Develop a new appreciation for the unique nature of postcards as both a communication tool and historical documentation of societal interpersonal norms.
Quarters Offered: Winter | Online
Course Fee: $425
Prerequisite: Photo I: Aperture, Shutter Speed, and ISO (ART-40629).
Materials/Software/Hardware: Fully adjustable DSLR camera or prosumer camera. Creative Cloud Photography Plan required (or full Adobe Creative Cloud plan). Lightroom Classic needed (not Lightroom Creative Cloud) and Photoshop needed. Tripod and external hard drive recommended.
Note: Elective for Photography: Images and Techniques professional certificate.
Contact: For more information about this course, please email unex-digital@ucsd.edu.
Course Information
Course sessions
Section ID:
Class type:
This course is entirely web-based and to be completed asynchronously between the published course start and end dates. Synchronous attendance is NOT required.
You will have access to your online course on the published start date OR 1 business day after your enrollment is confirmed if you enroll on or after the published start date.
Textbooks:
No information available at this time.
Policies:
- No refunds after: 1/10/2025
- Early Enrollment Discount: $400 ($425 if enrolled after 12/9/2024)
- Early enrollment advised
- No UCSD parking permit required
- No visitors permitted
Note:
Schedule:
Instructor:
Melanie Fiander
Melanie's work has been featured in Destination Weddings & Honeymoons Abroad, New York Weddings, PDN, The Vendor Report, Scotland Wedding, Tie the Knot Scotland, Ländle Wedding's "Seasons of Yes", Whimsically Wed, Bermuda Weddings and Honeymoons, Bermudian Weddings, How They Asked by The Knot, The Gray Collective, Wedding Wire, United With Love, National Geographic, It Started With Yes, Glittery Bride, 100 Layer Cake, Lets Bee Together, The Newport Bride, and Wedding Chicks.
Melanie has also shown her fine artwork at Masterworks Museum and the Bermuda Society of Arts in Bermuda, The Dunes in Washington D.C., Jason Simon’s One Minute Film Festival in New York, The Institute of Contemporary Art at MECA, The Salt Institute for Documentary Studies, Space Gallery, and Portland Museum of Art in Maine.
Although still photography is her passion, she also has experience in time-based media and video. A large portion of her work created during graduate school was centered around video and audio; one of which was shown at the Portland Museum of Art in Maine.
Melanie has also hosted and curated a short film festival called the "Fiander Film Festival" in February of 2012, a sold-out event that was held at The Dunes in northwest Washington D.C. Artists and directors from all over the US, England, Italy, and Bermuda were screened at the festival including her video created in collaboration with her husband, Jim West, titled "Heartbeats". Directors with many different levels of experience in film entered their pieces into the Fiander Film Festival.
Melanie has worked as a photography professor at The Art Institutes, Sessions College, Southern Maine Community College, and McIntosh College.