Home / PHOTOGRAPHY: INTRODUCTION TO CRITICAL READING

PHOTOGRAPHY: INTRODUCTION TO CRITICAL READING

Course Code:

Π-1010

Semester:

1st Semester

Specialization Category:

ΜΕΥ

Course Hours:

5

ECTS:

5


Learning outcomes

  • Understanding the necessity of photographic theory and its evolution to date. 
  • Understanding the concept of the genre and its important role in communication.
  • Understanding and critical study of the canon and its role of the museums and private collections as well as in the writing of photography history books.
  • Understanding the specificity of the photographic image in relation to other forms of representation. Understanding the relationship between memory and photographic image and the role of photography in collective memory.

 

General Competences

  • Research, analyse and synthesize data and information, using the necessary technologies
  • Adapt to new situations
  • Decision making
  • Autonomous work
  • Teamwork
  • Working in an international environment
  • Exercise of criticism and self-criticism
  • Project design and management
  • Respect for diversity and multiculturalism
  • Showing social, professional and ethical responsibility and sensitivity to gender issues
  • Promote free, creative and inductive thinking

 

Course Outline

THEORY

  • Introduction to the theory of photography and a brief overview of its evolution to date. The development of new ways of thinking through the theory of photography for the use of the image in a wider social context.
  •  The concept of genre and its role in communication. Genres that photography adopted from academic painting and genres that evolved due to photography’s tautological relationship with reality
  •  Photography’s history books following the canon, the role the museums and private collections in creating them. From painting to photography. The discussion on photography as art
  • Optical memory and photo image. Photography as a souvenir. Photography’s reproductive substance. Photography and Memory: Study example Roland Barthes’ Camera Lucida. Photography and the collective memory: Study example of photographic archives
  • The photographed reality. The belief that photography should resemble the visible reality. The concept of it has been at the time of Roland Barthes’ photography shooting. Study example of reportage photos in the press and the texts accompanying them

 

PRACTICE PART OF THS COURSE

  • The practice part of the course aims at deepening the relationship between visual perception and photographic imaging by creating abstract compositions where shapes, textures, perspectives, natural light, scale, field depth and clarity retain a primary role
  • In the second assignment of the practice part of the course, the selection of images from the internet is required, which will demonstrate the insight that photography should look like the visible reality more through its caption and less through what it depicts

 

RECOMMENDED BIBLIOGRAPHY

  • Antoniadis Costis, Latent Image, Hellenic Center of Photography, 3η  Revised Edition, 2014.
  • Bate, D., Photography – Key Concepts, Berg, 2009.
  • Barthes, R., Camera Lucida, Jonathan Cape, 1982.
  • Barthes,R., Image-Music-Text, Fontana Press, 1977.
  • Berger John, Ways of Seeing, Metaixmio, 2011.
  • Benjamin, W., For the Work of Art, Plethron, 2013.
  • Benjamin, W., The Author as Producer, Plethron, 2017.
  • Bright Susan, Art Photography Now, Thames and Hudson, 2011.
  • Campany, D., Art and Photography, London: Phaidon Press, 2003.
  • Cotton Charlotte, The Photograph as Contemporary Art, London: Thames and Hudson, 2004.
  • Freund, G. Photography and Society. [1st Edition 1974]. London: Gordon Fraser, 1980.
  • Frizot, M. (επιμ.), A New History of Photography, Koln: Koneman, 1994.
  • Jaeger, Anne-Celine, Image Makers Image Takers, Thames and Hudson, 2007
  • Lemagny, J.C. and Rouille, A. (ed.) A History of Photography. London: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
  • Markidou Natassa, Photography Critical Readings, Private  Publishing, 2015.
  • Mora, G. Photo Speak: A Guide to the Ideas, Movements, and Techniques of Photography, 1839 to the Present, New York: Abbeville Press, 1998.
  • Sontag Susan, On Photography,Penguin 1977.
  • Frizot, M. (ed.) A New History of Photography. Koln: Koneman, 1994.
  • Lemagny, J.C. and Rouille, A. (eds) A History of Photography. London: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
  • Rosenblum, N. A World History of Photography.  New York: Abbeville Press, 1984.
  • Wells, L. Introduction to Photography, Plethron 2007.