Photography: Seeing Creatively Summer Scholars Session I

The University of Notre Dame’s Summer Scholar workshop Photography: Seeing Creatively is designed to help talented high school students find their photographic voice and explore new techniques to express it. The class is designed for beginning students interested in the field of photography. There are no prerequisites for students interested in taking the workshop, but students are asked to have a strong desire for creative thinking and image making. Students in this course expand their creative talents, build a portfolio, and learn about career options.

This comprehensive photography course uses the latest in digital cameras, imaging software, inkjet printers, studio lighting, and traditional darkroom techniques to explore the student’s photographic vision. There is extensive digital training in image capture, file processing, manipulation, and printmaking. Classes focus on photographic composition, subject matter, and a historical and theoretical overview of photography to assist in the student’s image creation. Students are encouraged to use the technical skills they have gained to take an experimental approach to how a photograph is made and what it can look like.

Days are filled with photographic history lessons, hands-on equipment demonstrations, supervised lab exercises, photography field trips, and critiques. Assignments encourage participants to expand their ability to see and respond to the world around them. Students photograph each other, the South Bend and Notre Dame landscape, and city life. Upon completion of the Summer Scholar workshop, students leave with new technical skills, an awareness of their creative potential as image-makers, and a new portfolio of work.

Course Schedule

This course will be offered during Summer Scholars Session I (June 8 - June 22, 2024) on campus.

Academic Director