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Photography Classes Chicago

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Discover the art of capturing the perfect shot with a wide range of photography classes in Chicago. Learn the fundamentals, master advanced techniques, and gain the skills needed to excel in this creative field.

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MoCP at 40

Museum of Contemporary Photography Colum @ 600 S Michigan Ave, Illinois City, IL

The Museum of Contemporary Photography turns 40 in 2016, so of course a celebratory exhibition is in order. Ours, MoCP at 40, showcases contemporary photographic art as we have always seen it: as a wonderful big tent of iconic photographers alongside talented lesser-known image-makers absent from the canonical history books.  All the works on view come from the museum’s permanent collection of more than 14,000 objects. They have...

(3) All levels 16 and older
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Opening Reception: MoCP at 40

Museum of Contemporary Photography Colum @ 600 S Michigan Ave, Illinois City, IL

Join us for an opening reception in honor of our newest exhibition , MoCP at 40. Commemorating the MoCP’s 40th anniversary, this exhibition will highlight a diverse selection of works drawn from the museum’s permanent collection. 

(3) All levels 16 and older
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Symposium: The Unstable Image

Museum of Contemporary Photography Colum @ 600 S Michigan Ave, Illinois City, IL

Discussion, the fading image: Binh Danh, Sylvie Penichon, and Nadine Wietlisbach   Museums work to preserve photographs because they are cultural artifacts, but they are also material objects. From distinct points of view, exhibiting artist Binh Danh, Conservator, Department of Photography at the Art Institute of Chicago Sylvie Penichon, and Director of Photoforum PasquArt in Biel, Switzerland Nadine Wietlisbach will discuss the inherent instability...

(3) All levels 16 and older
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Explore Art Private Group Events

Explore private group events and team building activities ranging from cooking to art, escape rooms, trivia, and more

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Lecture in Photography: Mark Sealy

Museum of Contemporary Photography Colum

Since 1991, Mark Sealy has served as director of Autograph ABP, the Association of Black Photographers, based in Shoreditch, London. He has written for a number of international photography publications, including Foam Magazine (Amsterdam), Aperture (New York), and in 2002, published Different, a book project focused on photography and identity. Sealy is currently a PhD candidate at Durham University, England. His research and curatorial...

(3) All levels 16 and older
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Lecture in Photography: Nadav Kander

Museum of Contemporary Photography Colum @ 618 S MICHIGAN AVE, Chicago, IL

Nadav Kander travels the globe, documenting sites of environmental degradation and places of mass development. His work is held in the public collections of the National Portrait Gallery, London, UK, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK, and the Société Générale, Paris, France and has been exhibited worldwide at venues such as the Palais De Tokyo, the Herzilya Museum of Contemporary Art, Israel, and Camera Work, Berlin, Germany. In 2015, the...

(3) All levels 16 and older
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Opening Reception: Burnt Generation and Midwest

Museum of Contemporary Photography Colum

Join us for an opening reception for our new exhibitions, Burnt Generation: Contemporary Iranian Photography and Midwest Photographers Project: Hossein Fatemi. At 6 pm, hear a talk with Chicago-based photographer Hossein Fatemi and WBEZ Worldview analyst Narimon Safavi. Burnt Generation exhibiting artist Gohar Dashti will also be present at the opening reception.

(3) All levels 16 and older
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MoCP Presents: Picture Me Student Exhibition

Museum of Contemporary Photography Colum

Now in its fifteenth year, this annual student exhibition features works made by teens who participate in Picture Me, an afterschool photography program sponsored by the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago (MoCP) at three Chicago high schools: Curie Metropolitan High School, Juarez Community Academy, and Nicholas Senn High School. Co-taught by teams of working artists, this program cultivates teens as independent...

(3) All levels 16 and older
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Lecture in Photography: Martha Rosler

Museum of Contemporary Photography Colum

Martha Rosler creates incisive social and political analyses of the myths and realities of contemporary culture. Her work explores issues from daily life and the mass media to architecture and the built environment, and in particular, the ways in which these subjects affect women. Her works are in the permanent collections of numerous museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American...

(3) All levels 16 and older
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Lecture in Photography: Joel-Peter Witkin

Museum of Contemporary Photography Colum

Joel-Peter Witkin is renowned as the creator of elaborately constructed and often erotically charged photographic tableaux exploring grand themes of religion, sex and mortality with continual references to art history. Witkin has pursued complex issues of the human condition for more than 40 years through people most often cast aside by society. Witkin’s photographs are in the permanent collections of the Museum of...

(3) All levels 16 and older
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Opening Reception: Viviane Sasssen: UMBRA

Museum of Contemporary Photography Colum @ 600 S Michigan Ave, Illinois City, IL

Join us for an opening reception for Viviane Sassen: UMBRA.  UMBRA is an exhibition consisting of photography and multimedia works by acclaimed fashion photographer Viviane Sassen (Dutch, b. 1972). The work in UMBRA, which means shadow in Latin, emphasizes the play of light and shadow that is characteristic of her work.  The artist is also known for her alluring color photographs in which form and content balance on the...

(3) All levels 16 and older
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Lecture in Photography: Barbara Tannenbaum

Museum of Contemporary Photography Colum @ 600 S Michigan Ave, Illinois City, IL

Will Success Spoil Photography? Why is an Andreas Gursky photo currently worth fifty times more than an Emmet Gowin or a Cindy Sherman fourteen times more than an Aaron Siskind? How – and why – did this escalation in price and status occur?  Photography’s move into the same marketplace as painting and sculpture has altered our perception of the medium’s dual nature as object and as image. What do these changes bode for the future of...

(3) All levels 16 and older
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Lecture in Photography: Jennifer Blessing

Museum of Contemporary Photography Colum @ 600 S Michigan Ave, Illinois City, IL

Jennifer Blessing is senior curator of photography at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. Throughout her career, she has curated many photography-based exhibitions, including Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video (2014), Rineke Dijkstra: A Retrospective (2012), and Francesca Woodman (2012).  Most recently Blessing curated Photo-Poetics: An Anthology (2016), a group exhibition...

(3) All levels 16 and older
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Digital Photography II Camp (Ages 12-14)

Evanston Art Center @ 1717 Central St, Evanston, IL

Intended for more experienced photographers (ideally who have taken photography at EAC before). Build your photography skills and add to your confidence. If you have a manual camera, explore analog photography. Learn more advanced Photoshop skills that will make your photos pop. No cameras are provided. Campers will select 5 prints to be printed on EAC’s photo ink jet printers, which will be mailed following the camp. Campers must have access...

(83) Intermediate 12 - 14 years old
No upcoming schedules
$325

5 sessions

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Lecture in Photography: Deana Lawson

Museum of Contemporary Photography Colum

For nearly a decade, Lawson has been investigating the visual expression of global black culture and how individuals claim their identities within it. Her staged portraits draw upon Western and African diasporic conventions of self-presentation, popular culture, mythology, and religious rituals and beliefs—emphasizing dialogues among the past, present, and future of black culture.    Lectures in Photography are...

(3) Advanced 16 and older
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Intermediate Digital Photography

Evanston Art Center @ 1717 Central St, Evanston, IL

Gain a deeper understanding of digital photography with an emphasis on the skill-sets needed to create high-quality images. Understand best practices for image capture, shooting and processing of camera RAW images (using Lightroom and/or Photoshop), simple retouching, specific student-driven issues, and more!  Classes will be divided into a lecture and discussion, technique demonstration, time for students to work on images, (including individual...

(83) Intermediate 16 and older
No upcoming schedules
$200

5 sessions

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Digital Photography: Get Off Auto (Ages 16+)

Evanston Art Center @ 1717 Central St, Evanston, IL

Break away from relying on your camera’s automatic settings and begin to manually control each variable that makes a photograph “work” including the ISO, the shutter speed, and the aperture. Along with learning how to manually control your camera, you will learn techniques on how to organize and edit your photos with Adobe Bridge and Photoshop.  This course will consist of online presentations on how to control your camera manually, along...

(83) Beginner 16 and older
No upcoming schedules
$150

4 sessions

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Exploring Exposure

Evanston Art Center @ 1717 Central St, Evanston, IL

Learn how to manually control your own DSLR camera’s exposure when making digital photos, learning how to control the 3 main components of exposure: ISO, shutter speed, and aperture.  The first half of the workshop will focus on the technical components of exposure, while the second half will consist of an in-class shooting assignment. Leave with a basics understanding of how exposure works, how to manually control your DSLR camera, and basic...

(83) Beginner 16 and older
No upcoming schedules
$115
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Digital Photography II Camp (Ages 9-11)

Evanston Art Center @ 1717 Central St, Evanston, IL

Intended for more experienced photographers (ideally who have taken photography at EAC before). Build your photography skills and add to your confidence. If you have a manual camera, explore analog photography. Learn more advanced Photoshop skills that will make your photos pop. No cameras are provided. Campers will select 5 prints to be printed on EAC’s photo ink jet printers, which will be mailed following the camp. Campers must have access...

(83) Intermediate 9 - 11 years old
No upcoming schedules
$325

5 sessions

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Digital Photo Refresher

Evanston Art Center @ 1717 Central St, Evanston, IL

December 7, 2019 Have you taken a photo class at EAC before and want a refresher, or do you want to take a higher level class to be challenged in new ways? This workshop is meant to refresh any information covered in the level one course, and prepare you for a higher level course.  Required Material: Please bring your DSLR camera. January 18, 2020 Whether you are traveling to an exotic destination or somewhere closer to home, you'll want...

(83) Intermediate 18 and older
No upcoming schedules
$115
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Learning to Photograph Your Artwork

Evanston Art Center

This two-day workshop will demonstrate how to photograph both your 2D + 3D artwork. Lighting styles as well as compositional techniques will be explored. This workshop will cover lighting 2D artwork such as: paintings and drawings, and all 3D artwork including;  jewelry, sculpture, ceramics & pottery, metalwork & furniture. Knowledge of digital cameras and Adobe’s Lightroom 5 will be helpful, but not mandatory. Students will participate...

(83) Intermediate 18 and older
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