{"id":33181,"date":"2014-09-11T10:49:10","date_gmt":"2014-09-11T14:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/?p=33181"},"modified":"2022-09-26T10:58:23","modified_gmt":"2022-09-26T14:58:23","slug":"photo-synthesis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2014\/09\/11\/photo-synthesis\/","title":{"rendered":"Photo synthesis"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photography<\/a>

Historic photographic processes and study of the view camera are part of the curriculum in Wright State\u2019s Department of Art and Art History’s photography program. Tracy Longley-Cook has been a driving force in the program.<\/p><\/div>\n

It was the power of the photograph. Mesmerized by a famous Alfred Eisenstaedt photo of Adolf Hitler shaking hands with Italy\u2019s Benito Mussolini in 1933, Tracy Longley-Cook began collecting memorable photos in high school.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just a two-dimensional piece of paper. Why does it have so much impact?\u201d she recalled asking herself. \u201cI just had this pull toward images.\u201d<\/p>\n

That pull propelled Longley-Cook into a career in photography and teaching.<\/p>\n

Today, she is an associate professor of art and art history<\/a> at Wright State and a driving force behind the growth of the university\u2019s photography program.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a very strong photography program that has been getting better every year,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat we offer here is a very strong foundation of photography. The things you learn here can be applicable to any field that you want to go into.\u201d<\/p>\n

Born and raised in San Diego by her engineer parents, Longley-Cook\u2019s introduction to the arts was slow. But when she finally discovered photography, something clicked.<\/p>\n

After graduating high school in 1991, she moved to Seattle and began studying photography at Shoreline Community College, later transferring to the University of Washington.<\/p>\n

\"Photography<\/a>

Tracy Longley-Cook says she\u2019s interested in exploring ideas through photography and the power of an image through visual metaphor.<\/p><\/div>\n

She took a year off to attend the Maine Photographic Workshops in Rockport, Maine, where the small classes and intensive study of the history, craft and processes of photography changed the course of her life.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was when I really blossomed and found a voice in the work,\u201d she said. \u201cI became interested in exploring ideas through photography and exploring that power of the image through visual metaphor.\u201d<\/p>\n

After graduating from the University of Washington with a bachelor\u2019s degree in fine arts, she took multiple jobs to pay the bills \u2014 working for a book artist, as a business manager for photographer Robert Lyons and at the aptly named Still Life Cafe in Seattle.<\/p>\n

Then employment and educational opportunities had Longley-Cook hopscotching around the country. She worked at the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego, taught photography at the Waterford School in Sandy, Utah, obtained her master\u2019s degree in fine arts from Arizona State University and took a teaching job at Florida State University.<\/p>\n

In 2008, she joined the faculty at Wright State.<\/p>\n

Photography at Wright State is a fine-arts program, as opposed to photojournalism or commercial or scientific photography.<\/p>\n

Students learn the technical aspect of photography such as historic processes, studio lighting, wet darkroom developing, digital techniques and various camera formats. But there is also a heavy emphasis on the aesthetic aspect of photography and its use to create ideas and convey messages.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe give you a lot of leeway for exploration,\u201d said Longley-Cook, who did a workshop in Italy over the summer. \u201cWe\u2019re here to promote creative thinking, to promote creative problem solving.\u201d<\/p>\n

Honeycombed in the basement of the Creative Arts Center is a darkroom, developing area and photo lab, where enlargers line up like soldiers.<\/p>\n

Fanned out on a table in the photo lab this day are black-and-white photos of Longley-Cook\u2019s work \u2014 a woman at the end of a pier, a woman holding a tree branch to the sky. And then there is an abstract photo difficult to identify.<\/p>\n

That photo is her effort to push the medium of photography with as few tools as possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been taking photographic chemistry, putting it on my skin, pushing it on film, developing that and having this one-of-a-kind stamp of parts of my body,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t want it to be immediately recognizable. It\u2019s something you should sort of come to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Longley-Cook said the camera is merely an extension of how a people see and record the world around them. The words \u201cphoto graphy\u201d have Greek origins meaning \u201cdrawing with light.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are people who are very good at just naturally composing things,\u201d she said. \u201cThose with an artistic and aesthetic eye see things in a way that is balanced and composed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Longley-Cook is holding on tight to teaching the skills of developing film in a wet darkroom in addition to digital, even though many college programs are going completely digital.<\/p>\n

Digital photography uses electronic photodetectors to capture images focused by the lens, as opposed to an exposure on photographic film that is later developed in a wet darkroom. The captured image is then digitized and stored as a computer file ready for processing, viewing or printing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are some things in the darkroom that still cannot be quite mimicked digitally,\u201d said Longley-Cook. \u201cThe product is very, very different. Each process requires a different type of thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Longley-Cook said the Internet and social media have diluted the power of the photograph because people are bombarded with so many images.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cycle through images faster and faster without thinking about them, without spending time with them,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s probably one of the largest challenges I have with students \u2014 asking them to stop and look and critically think about a photo for 10 minutes. It\u2019s like I asked them to do a week of silent meditation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The challenge, she said, is to teach students to make photos that have an arresting, stop-you-in-your-tracks effect on the viewers.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do you find your voice \u2014 your specific voice \u2014 as an imagemaker in that arena?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The photography program at Wright State has been growing. There are currently about 60 students in the program, with 15 students per class on average.<\/p>\n

Graduates typically go into journalism or commercial fields such as wedding and portrait photography; or they go on to graduate school or teach. Last year, one of the program\u2019s graduates, Heather Ballard, won first place and honorable mention in a competition sponsored by the Three Arts Scholarship Fund in Cincinnati, taking home $8,000 in prize money.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never really had to sell our program,\u201d Longley-Cook said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since joining Wright State\u2019s Department of Art and Art History, associate professor Tracy Longley-Cook has been a driving force behind the growth of the photography program. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":33184,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[722,2037,2023,336,4859,725,747,715],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","category-arts-scene","category-faculty","category-features","category-fine-and-performing-arts","category-home-news-sidebar","category-liberal-arts","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33181"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":129558,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33181\/revisions\/129558"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}