Academic Catalog

PHOT 7C: DARKROOM III

Foothill College Course Outline of Record

Foothill College Course Outline of Record
Heading Value
Effective Term: Summer 2025
Units: 4
Hours: 3 lecture, 3 laboratory per week (72 total per quarter)
Advisory: PHOT 7A and 7B or equivalent experience; this course is included in the Analog Photography family of activity courses; not open to students with credit in PHOT 3 or 50.
Degree & Credit Status: Degree-Applicable Credit Course
Foothill GE: Non-GE
Transferable: CSU/UC
Grade Type: Letter Grade (Request for Pass/No Pass)
Repeatability: Not Repeatable
Formerly: PHOT 3

Student Learning Outcomes

  • A successful student will demonstrate the ability to apply advanced-level analog black and white photographic and darkroom techniques that effectively communicate artistic vision and intent.
  • A successful student will develop an advanced-level portfolio of high quality black and white analog prints suitable a fine art exhibition or commercial display.

Description

Exploration of advanced photographic principals and skills, including more complex processing and printing techniques. Emphasis on refining personal style and approach to photography and creating professional portfolios appropriate for presentation for galleries, museums, and portfolio reviews. Continued instruction in the Zone System; introduction to analog 4x5 cameras, film, processing, and printing, as well as specialty films and camera-less photography. Instruction in combining analog and digital production practices, including film scanning, as well as digital post-processing and printing. Continued examination of historical contributions, styles, and work created by influential photographers from diverse backgrounds and cultures.

Course Objectives

The student will be able to:

  1. Prepare and use basic photographic chemicals.
  2. Appropriately select and properly use a variety of camera lenses with technical skill and visual effectiveness.
  3. Demonstrate an awareness of the creative potential of advanced photographic processes and printing techniques, including digital processes.
  4. Calibrate equipment, select materials, and refine processes to produce precise, predictable results.
  5. Attain an advanced degree of skill in pre-visualizing a photograph and using principles of the Zone System to relate exposure, development, and printing to the image.
  6. Demonstrate the effective use of specialized films for creative expression.
  7. Present professional-level matted, finished prints.
  8. Describe the historical contributions, styles, approaches, and techniques used by influential photographers from diverse cultures and backgrounds.

Course Content

  1. Use of basic and specialized photographic chemistry
  2. Use of specialty films and processes
    1. High contrast, infrared, ortho, mono, and panchromatic films
    2. Historical processes, such as tintypes and ambrotypes
    3. Cameraless photographic processes: cyanotypes, photograms, radiographs, luminograms, and chemigrams
    4. Digital scanning, post-processing, and printing techniques
  3. Preparation, use, and proper storage of photographic chemicals
    1. Replenishment, formulation, and testing photographic chemistry
    2. Compensating and two-solution developers, monobaths, reducers, and intensifiers
    3. Toners and dyes
  4. Use of photographic darkroom equipment
    1. Cleaning and maintaining photographic equipment
    2. Calibration of equipment, tests for standard printing conditions, testing for exposure indexes, individual development times
  5. Fine art photography and archival considerations
    1. Archival negative and print processing
    2. Selenium toning and negative intensification
    3. Special printing techniques for expressive effects
    4. The Zone System
  6. Use of photographic image-making equipment
    1. Selection and use of photographic lenses
    2. Normal, wide-angle, and long focus length lenses, zoom lenses
    3. Enlarging lenses
    4. Simple testing and care of lenses
  7. Examination of photographic styles and techniques drawn from influential photographers from diverse cultures and backgrounds

Lab Content

  1. Field trips to museums/galleries to see examples of photographic artwork
  2. Printing in the darkroom using basic, as well as specialized chemistry
  3. Processing different film sizes and types, including medium (120 and 220) and sheet (4x5) films
  4. Experimentation with cameraless photographic processes
  5. Professionally finishing artwork with archival matting, mounting, and framing

Special Facilities and/or Equipment

1. A lecture room equipped for presenting multimedia content and critiquing photographic prints.
2. Cameras and other needed equipment.
3. Laboratory areas equipped for processing film, making enlargements, and finishing prints.
4. All required chemicals and facilities for mixing and storing same.
5. For all sections of this course, students will need access to a computer with internet connectivity and access to the college's learning management system.

Method(s) of Evaluation

Methods of Evaluation may include but are not limited to the following:

Photographic assignments
Written paper
Final portfolio
Exam(s)

Method(s) of Instruction

Methods of Instruction may include but are not limited to the following:

Lectures on creative analog and digital methods of photographic production
In-person and virtual discussions, critiques, and/or chats
Demonstrations of analog and digital photographic techniques and post-processing procedures
Field trips to artist studios, galleries, and/or museums

Representative Text(s) and Other Materials

Faculty handouts, websites, darkroom guides, and library resources, as needed.

Types and/or Examples of Required Reading, Writing, and Outside of Class Assignments

  1. Gallery/museum visits and written exhibition reviews
  2. Review of handouts and relevant reading material
  3. Research and planning of individual creative projects
  4. Write an artist statement describing the work you are making and why, your processes and materials, and how your work fits into the broader discussion around the history of photography and contemporary visual art
  5. Photo critique print exchange: Using the language of photography, write a detailed critique and feedback paper on a fellow student's photograph; exchange critiques and discuss

Discipline(s)

Photography