General Course Listing

The courses that follow reflect the offerings for the 2024-2025 academic year. For additional course details please visit the Registrar page and click on the Graduate Course Listing.

PFG-5140 / PFG-5145

Fashion Photography Critique I and II

Fall and spring semesters: 3 credits per semester

At the conceptual core of the program is the weekly discussion of each participant’s images, followed by a rigorous and thorough analysis of those works. As an intimacy with one another’s work and objectives develops, the work becomes refined through being challenged. A vigorous participation in the conversation about each person’s work, and a balance of generosity and useful criticism is expected.

PFG-5170-A

Symposium I and II

Fall and spring semesters: 3 credits per semester

Throughout the year of study, Symposium acts as a weekly gathering of program participants for an array of activities: guest lectures and critiques, and field trips to museums and gallery exhibitions. The emphasis will be on bringing a broad range of cultural ideas to the conversation, and to partake in the resources that New York City has to offer.

PFG-5330

History of Fashion Photography

Fall semester: 3 credits

Serving as a chronological examination of fashion photography, this course will begin with its inception as society reportage and its early flowering alongside pictorialism, surrealism and modernism in the 1920s and ’30s. We will then follow the creative developments of the genre both during the Second World War and the postwar era, when the American fashion industry emerged, and through the great social and stylistic changes of the 1960s and ’70s. Finally, the course will consider the influence of social liberalization on fashion imagery; the growth and globalization of the fashion image; and the impact of digital photography, the Internet and Photoshop from the 1990s to the present.

PFG-5510

Fashion Photography Today

Spring semester: 3 credits

Today’s fast-changing commercial world and our increased consumption of images pose new challenges for emerging photographers. The democratization of photography and its craft is changing how we answer commercial briefs. Through discussion, practice and assignments, students will learn how to navigate this fast-paced and changing business, and will be better equipped to produce images that answer the briefs they face and fulfill client demands.

PFG-5530

Collaborative Process

Spring semester: 3 credits

Similar to cinema, fashion photography is a collaborative medium and its success lies in a photographer’s ability to work with a crew of individuals to produce the desired image. This course will address the logistics of that effort, and will emphasize the importance of creative collaboration. Each student, based on their sensibility and aesthetic, will form a creative team from the ranks of the professional photographic community.

PFG-5570

Ideation

Fall semester: 3 credits

This course centers on developing ideas. Leading students through different spaces, places and conversations, it will encourage them to see the world in their own way and, in turn, influence the ideas that underpin their photographic practice. Beginning with dismantling preconceived notions of fashion photography, it will outline the ideas and references behind some of the most iconic fashion images. Lectures and field trips will focus on places of inspiration, and we will journey through contemporary dance, film, architecture and other artists’ work to give students a foundation in creative thinking and how to incorporate this into their work.

PFG-5630 / PFG-5635

Fashion Film I and II

Fall and spring semesters: 3 credits per semester

Partly as a result of the rapid transformations in media and publishing, and the influence of the Internet and social media, fashion film has become increasingly important and the subject of much speculation. As a fashion venue, it increases narrative and contributes sound, music and motion. These courses will focus on the production of a short fashion film. Sessions will include digital lab time with editing instruction.

MPS Fashion Photography Curriculum