Required Seminar Series: CrossCurrents

The CrossCurrents program is a series of required seminars offered during year two of the Professional Photography Program. These seminars cover a range of topics not broad enough to fill a course, but that are valuable additions to a professional photographer’s repertoire. Delivered by outside subject-specific experts, the CrossCurrents program enhances the learning experience while providing networking opportunities within a familiar academic environment.

 

Supplemental Courses: reinforcements to the year two curriculum

 

Alternative Process :: 3 units
Historical photographic processes are experiencing a resurgence in many areas of professional photography. Today, many fine art and commercial photographers are exploring alternative processes and finding ways to use them in their work. Processes taught include platinum, Vandyke Brown, cyanotype, palladium, pin-hole camera, emulsion lifts, salt prints and paper negatives. Class critiques address technical and aesthetic aspects of the student images. 
This course is offered as an elective to all second-year students.

 

Advanced Business Development :: 3 units
This course is offered as a complement to our full-time Professional Photography Program. Students develop a knowledge base in key areas, such as management, studio operations, advertising and marketing, pricing, selling and finance. Through lecture and hands-on assignments, students define their personal business plan and put into practice the first stages of a working professional photographic operation. During the final class meeting, students will present their completed business plans and supplemental materials to the group. This course is offered as an elective to all second-year students. 

 

Electronic Marketing for Photographers :: 3 units
In this course, students learn the underlying fundamentals necessary in developing a successful electronic marketing strategy. Hands-on experience with a range of electronic tools available today allows students to develop an electronic business presence for modern success. Weekly lectures and demonstrations help students learn to use social media and social marketing to present their marketing campaigns, join and build electronic communities and learn effective search engine optimization. Students are required to identify their target client base and their product or service benefits; therefore, successful completion of the previous Advanced Business Development class is required to enroll in 
this course.

 

Creating Digital Presentations :: 3 units
Moving images have quickly become an integral part of the photographic industry. Using the powerful video editing software, Final Cut, students learn to integrate their still photographs with audio, text and video, creating dynamic multi-media presentations. The importance of editing and sequencing is addressed as students work on a term-long project and explore the many tools within the Final Cut software. This is a mandatory supplemental course for any student in the second-year Visual Journalism program. It is offered as an elective for any second-year student not enrolled in Visual Journalism.

 

Business and Marketing for Weddings :: 3 units
This intense course provides students with the advanced business and marketing skills specific to the wedding photography industry. Guest lectures and studio visits offer many different approaches to running a successful wedding photography business. From consultations, contracts and pricing to self-promotion, marketing and working with vendors, all aspects of the business of wedding photography are addressed. This course is offered as an elective to all second-year students.

 

Zone System :: 3 units
This course focuses on the science of how black & white film works by regulating exposure and development. Through weekly experiments and film tests, students develop an in-depth understanding of this technique. An emphasis on controls gives students the ability to calculate and manipulate the medium to achieve the highest level of black & white arts. This is a mandatory supplemental course for any second-year student in the Fine Art—Black & White program. It is offered as an elective for any second-year student not enrolled in Fine Art—Black & White.

 

Art Since 1945 :: 3 units
This intensive fine art theory course surveys the history of art since 1945. Students explore important movements during that time period from Modernism to Post-Modernism, including DADA, Bodyworks, Earthworks and other mixed-media approaches. Through slide lectures, short films and intensive readings, the course measures the changing impetus of culture through art, looking not just at photography, but also painting, film, performance and installation art. Students will be responsible for a weekly critical response paper and the term will culminate in a visual/lecture presentation on a featured artist of the student’s choosing. This course is offered as an elective to all second-year students.

 

Portfolio Review :: do you have what it takes? 

Year two of the Professional Photography Program ends in individual student portfolio reviews. Portfolio review is a time dedicated to you in which you must present and defend your professional portfolio to the second-year faculty. You must have your résumé and business card ready, website running and a portfolio (of typically 20 images representing your major and 10 images representing your minor) displayed for faculty viewing, in-depth questioning and critique. To graduate, your portfolio must be accepted by at least a two-thirds vote of the second-year faculty present at the review. 

 

Your success in the Professional Photography Program does not guarantee success at portfolio review. That is why portfolio review is so critical and beneficial to you—and ultimately, your future clients. Meredith Carlisle, Class of 2004, recalls her portfolio review as, “...one of the most exciting and stressful periods of time for me at NESOP. It was the culmination of my two years of learning compressed into a presentation to the entire second-year faculty. I received intense feedback, and I felt that the faculty was incredibly focused and helpful—even the instructors outside my major and minor. In addition to critiquing my work, they pointed out other photographers I might research for further direction and continued growth.”

 

The week of portfolio reviews and those surrounding it are charged with excitement and emotion. This is essentially your final assignment—the one that your two years of study have been leading up to, and one that determines whether or not you will graduate. Portfolio review is very different from the group and individual critiques you receive throughout your NESOP education. 

 

When you present your work and yourself for the first time as a professional photographer, you take away job interview skills, new and focused criticism of your work and areas for continued exploration and development. Most important, you come away with the confidence of knowing you can produce and defend a portfolio that experienced professionals find competitive.