Landscape Studies 245 - PHOTOGRAPHY AS METHOD

Photography and landscape are intertwined. Scholars, design professionals, artists, and journalists use photographs as evidence, as a means of representing sites, as a design tool, as source material for project renderings, and as a device for documentation and record keeping. This course focuses on how photography is a part of field observations and research techniques, how photographs are used in landscape studies, and how text and image are combined in different photographic and scholarly genres. Students will take their own photographs and examine the works of photographers, including landscape architects, urbanists, artists, and journalists. The course will include field exercises in combination with workshops, discussions, and research at the Smith College Museum of Art. Major themes include cultural landscapes, topography and land forms, transportation, sense ofplace, aerial and satellite photography, suburbia, patterns on the land, abandonment and decay, and the image of the ci