Cityscapes – Abstracts & Details (CAD)

Explore the globally-renowned, award-winning cityscape of Chicago with a 7 week class focused on capturing the beauty of the city through abstracts and focused details. Throughout this course, students will move beyond documenting the city to creating expressive, abstract, and detail-driven imagery. Each week builds specific visual skills including foundational pattern identification, preemptive lens techniques, and post-processing workflows. This class will challenge students to slow down and appreciate details in a new light, see the world around from different angles, and strengthen their ability to visualize in the abstract.

The class offers an engaging mix of traditional in-class lectures, hands-on instruction in the field, editing tips, and group critiques. Throughout the 7 weeks, practical in-field guidance and classroom discussions will cover the following:

• Learn techniques to view a scene abstractly and utilize vocabulary to describe imagery.
• Understand the difference between recording a scene and composing an image.
• Consider color, texture, and tone to enhance the strength of a photographic composition.
• Recognize how focal length changes spatial relationships and the optical differences between wide angle versus telephoto compression.
• Learn about the equipment needed for different scenes and effects.
• Practice virtually scouting and planning a cityscape shoot (whether in Chicago or abroad).
• Enhance images in post editing using tone curves, selective adjustments, B&W imagery, and other tools.

Date and Time: Fridays, 10:30am

Week 1: In-person at the Ravenswood location

Week 2 & 3: Shooting together in the city

Week 4: In-person lab at the Ravenswood location

Week 5 and 6: Shooting together in the city

Week 7: Final projects and critique

Prerequisites: Photo II (or equivalent camera knowledge). Mobile phone users also welcome.

Gear: Camera or phone with the ability to zoom. Ideal range would be 35mm – 200mm ++