Painting & Printmaking :: Photography
The Photography program is an integral part of the Painting and Printmaking emphasis. Our mission is to prepare students for graduate level study and for real world conditions facing the professional fine artist.
We offer beginning through advanced silver-gelatine, black and white, and color classes. Our philosophy and practice define the photographic processes as fine art media, and concern only the vocation of the fine artist. Prerequisites for entrance into the photo area include all Art foundation drawing and design classes. Beginning painting and printmaking classes are also encouraged as being useful for entering photo students.
One may concentrate in photo, printmaking, or painting as an upper division student with electives drawn from any other areas in the department (digital media, sculpture, furniture, etc). We offer training in silver-gelatin-based processes and negative based color photo. We also encourage interdisciplinary work involving photography used in conjunction with other art media. It is not uncommon for advanced projects to incorporate photo in sculptural and installation-based works.
| Undergraduate Program | Graduate Program |
| Area Facilities | Faculty Bios |
| Student Gallery | Faculty Gallery |
Undergraduate Program
Undergrad Photography at SDSU is taught as a fine art medium. We stress good technique as essential, but content and concept are utimately the deciding factors in evaulating student's work.
We offer beginning, intermediate and advanced levels of black and white silver-based photography courses as well as color photo (C-41) at the intermediate and advanced levels. Some classes overlap, so there is a consistent feedback loop of information between beginning and advanced students.
Photo students are required to complete the same basic core courses as all other art students, i.e. beginning and intermediate drawing and design before entering the Photography program.
Graduate Program
Consistent with all of the art emphasis areas is the primary goal to educate our students in the highest criteria of art as it is practiced today by creating a studio art discipline which reflects contemporary art discourse. Our graduate photography area requirements are consistent with all other fine art emphasis areas (i.e. painting, sculpture, etc.) Our goal is to prepare graduate photography students as professional fine artists.
We encourage the exchange of ideas between the disciplines, through which students can begin to work productively within a truly multidisciplinary learning context. We strive to establish an environment that bridges disciplines that have historically been seen as separate artistic endeavors, by providing access to all of the intellectual and physical resources within the school.
Click here for more information on SDSU Studio Art Graduate Programs.
Area Facilites
SDSU has excellent darkroom facilities dedicated specifically to our fine art area. Students may use this facility at all hours. We have 16 4”x5” enlargers and a separate facility for producing very large-scale photos. Our color darkroom has eight 2-1/4” and 4”x 5” enlargers and an Ilford 24” color processor. We have a studio facility for documenting 2D and 3D artwork. Photography and fine art students also have access to the school's computing labs and include both Macintosh and PC computers, digital imaging software and various input and output devices including several flatbed and film scanners, a film recorder and a large format Epson printer.
Faculty Bios
Kim Stringfellow
Stringfellow’s most recent work addresses ecological and historical issues related to land use and the built environment through “hybrid documentary forms” involving, but not limited to digital media, photography and installation. The majority of these projects address land use practices and repercussions of human development within the western United States.
Her projects are designed as both virtual and physical installations and have been commissioned by leading organizations including the San Francisco-based Creative Work Fund, the Seattle Arts Commission and Cornish College of the Arts. She has won numerous awards including Best-Art Related Web Site at the 1999 South-By-Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Festival for The Charmed Horizon, a web-based project dealing with the nature of desire as subject. Her work has been exhibited at ISEA, SIGGRAPH, San Francisco Camerawork, Rachel Carson Institute at Chatham College, Loyola Marymont University and Washington State University. In 2000, she attended the prestigious Civitella Ranieri Center residency in Umbria, Italy organized through the Atlantic Center of the Arts.Publications include Sculpture, Photo Metro, Leonardo, Art Alternatives and SF Camerawork Quarterly. In 2002, she took part in Paisajes Toxicos, a group exhibit organized by the Puffin Foundation at the José Martínez National Library in Havana, Cuba.
Kim Stringfellow received her MFA in Art and Technology at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2000. Her online projects and photography can be viewed at www.kimstringfellow.com.