Photography Beyond Its Tropes (ARTS 3118 R)

Term: 2025-26 Academic Year Spring

Faculty

Joel Sternfeld
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Schedule

Wed-Fri, 11:00 AM - 1:30 PM (1/20/2026 - 5/5/2026) Location: SLC HEIM 106

Description

Over its relatively short history, photography has often relied on well-worn conventions—the landscape, the portrait, the snapshot. Like all artistic mediums, every advancement in photography builds upon what has come before. In this course, we will explore how these developments have unfolded within some of photography’s most dominant tropes. Through discussion and practice, we will work toward creating images that radically mutate and reimagine these traditions. We will study the work of artists who have disrupted expectations, challenged formal norms, and redefined what a photograph can be. Students will be encouraged to question their own habits as image makers and to embrace experimentation as a means of pushing beyond the familiar.