I am taking the coolest class at Yale. Located in the Digital Media for the Arts Center by the Yale Repertory Theater, my digital photography class has been an immersion in learning and appreciating art.
The closest I’ve ventured to near Yale’s School of Art was Hull’s Art Supplies store early freshmen year to buy posters for my suite. The last time I’ve picked up a paintbrush was middle school art class. Because there were many avid photographers on my trip in Iceland last summer, I decided to investigate the trade further since rumor says that the class at Yale is amazing. Actually realizing the wish is something else as I filled out the slip to officially register with the School of Art and request access to use the media lab 24-7, which has all the software and printing equipment you’d ever want and fancy camera equipment that anyone can check out.
The syllabus is markedly different from other classes. Every week, we shoot on assignment and turn in contact sheets of 100-150 frames. The assignments really make you think. For example, one week the assignment was to photograph other people. Prompts included taking photos of people in a crowd or someone making eye contact. Sprinkled in there are also ones like this: “Photograph someone as if you will not see them again.” One weekend, I took photos every fifteen minutes from the moment I woke up to when I went to bed, and some of the photos gave special attentions to prompts like “Garbage, or something discarded” or “Make a self-portrait WITHOUT you or any other person in it.
The class has also pushed me into the heart of New Haven and gave me an excuse to talk to strangers in the streets. To make portraiture, I took inspiration and encouragement from Humans of New York and approached a handful of people, including a parking lot attendant, a food cart vendor, and a father playing with his child. People are surprisingly nice and generous about being photographed, and some even shared personal experiences with me.
The huge growth in my artistic capacity also comes from how many resources I am surround myself with to learn and absorb art. The Haas Arts Library has a huge collection of photography books that I would spend entire afternoons browsing through. The Yale MFA Photography program is one of the best in the nation, and so many of the well-known contemporary artists graduated from Yale’s program. The library has a complete collection of their MFA portfolios with original prints that we had the chance to pore through. In addition, visiting artists give talks every Tuesday, and we have access to sit in on graduate students’ critics! As students in an introductory photography class, we are treated with the same weight and care that accomplished artists enjoy.
The most important takeaway from this class is a new way of seeing the world and knowing how to visually articulate my emotions, thoughts, and my sense of curiosity. Through my other classes I study family dynamics or inequality in society through readings and research; through art, I have learned to notice new relationships, approach philosophy through art, and ask different questions about how society functions.
