Land Matters: Photography, Landscape, Environment (Nov 5-Dec 17)
Dates: November 5 - December 17, 2025 (no class November 26)
Meetings: Wednesdays, 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM CST (6 sessions)
Location: Online Zoom Classroom
Cost: $640 (HCP members can receive a 10% discount)
Instructor: Liz Wells
Skill Level: Intermediate-Advanced
Through examination of photographic practices relating to land, landscape, place and environment, historically and now, we shall critically reflect on ways in which photographers have deployed photography and associated media to question, investigate and respond to places and scenarios, ideas and challenges. Students will consider the qualities, strengths and limitations of varying practices for documenting, communicating and intervening in cultural discourses relating to land and landscape now.
Our focus will be on environmental images, issues and interventions. Themes will include, landscape as a genre in painting and photography; geography, biography and aesthetics in landscape photography; systematic documentation vs immersive explorations in botany and ecologies; sense of place: land, landscape, nation and identity; tourism: visual impact, cultural implications and environmental concerns; environmental photography now: issues, activism and modes of intervention.
Sessions will open with a presentation from Liz Wells. This will be followed by discussions of set (short) articles that will be circulated in advance. Students will also be asked to prepare brief critical presentations on work by other photographers or photo-collectives (their projects, websites, exhibitions, and publications).
Objectives:
Familiarize yourself with critical debates relating to photography and environment.
Habitually situate questions of land and environment within broader socio-political contexts and cultural currencies.
Extend your knowledge of photographers, their research methods and practices nationally, and internationally.
Critically reflect on intentions, photographic methods, aesthetic strategies, contexts of working, and modes of visual communication.
Prerequisites:
As photographers, writers, administrators, critics, and curators, you should be interested in and/or engaged with photographic practices relating to land, landscape, place and environment.
Course Prep:
At the first session you will be asked to briefly introduce yourself and your practice (as photographers - writers - curators...), to say why you signed up for the course and what you hope to get from it, and to name two photographers or projects relating to the themes of the course whose work interests you and why.
Dates: November 5 - December 17, 2025 (no class November 26)
Meetings: Wednesdays, 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM CST (6 sessions)
Location: Online Zoom Classroom
Cost: $640 (HCP members can receive a 10% discount)
Instructor: Liz Wells
Skill Level: Intermediate-Advanced
Through examination of photographic practices relating to land, landscape, place and environment, historically and now, we shall critically reflect on ways in which photographers have deployed photography and associated media to question, investigate and respond to places and scenarios, ideas and challenges. Students will consider the qualities, strengths and limitations of varying practices for documenting, communicating and intervening in cultural discourses relating to land and landscape now.
Our focus will be on environmental images, issues and interventions. Themes will include, landscape as a genre in painting and photography; geography, biography and aesthetics in landscape photography; systematic documentation vs immersive explorations in botany and ecologies; sense of place: land, landscape, nation and identity; tourism: visual impact, cultural implications and environmental concerns; environmental photography now: issues, activism and modes of intervention.
Sessions will open with a presentation from Liz Wells. This will be followed by discussions of set (short) articles that will be circulated in advance. Students will also be asked to prepare brief critical presentations on work by other photographers or photo-collectives (their projects, websites, exhibitions, and publications).
Objectives:
Familiarize yourself with critical debates relating to photography and environment.
Habitually situate questions of land and environment within broader socio-political contexts and cultural currencies.
Extend your knowledge of photographers, their research methods and practices nationally, and internationally.
Critically reflect on intentions, photographic methods, aesthetic strategies, contexts of working, and modes of visual communication.
Prerequisites:
As photographers, writers, administrators, critics, and curators, you should be interested in and/or engaged with photographic practices relating to land, landscape, place and environment.
Course Prep:
At the first session you will be asked to briefly introduce yourself and your practice (as photographers - writers - curators...), to say why you signed up for the course and what you hope to get from it, and to name two photographers or projects relating to the themes of the course whose work interests you and why.
Dates: November 5 - December 17, 2025 (no class November 26)
Meetings: Wednesdays, 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM CST (6 sessions)
Location: Online Zoom Classroom
Cost: $640 (HCP members can receive a 10% discount)
Instructor: Liz Wells
Skill Level: Intermediate-Advanced
Through examination of photographic practices relating to land, landscape, place and environment, historically and now, we shall critically reflect on ways in which photographers have deployed photography and associated media to question, investigate and respond to places and scenarios, ideas and challenges. Students will consider the qualities, strengths and limitations of varying practices for documenting, communicating and intervening in cultural discourses relating to land and landscape now.
Our focus will be on environmental images, issues and interventions. Themes will include, landscape as a genre in painting and photography; geography, biography and aesthetics in landscape photography; systematic documentation vs immersive explorations in botany and ecologies; sense of place: land, landscape, nation and identity; tourism: visual impact, cultural implications and environmental concerns; environmental photography now: issues, activism and modes of intervention.
Sessions will open with a presentation from Liz Wells. This will be followed by discussions of set (short) articles that will be circulated in advance. Students will also be asked to prepare brief critical presentations on work by other photographers or photo-collectives (their projects, websites, exhibitions, and publications).
Objectives:
Familiarize yourself with critical debates relating to photography and environment.
Habitually situate questions of land and environment within broader socio-political contexts and cultural currencies.
Extend your knowledge of photographers, their research methods and practices nationally, and internationally.
Critically reflect on intentions, photographic methods, aesthetic strategies, contexts of working, and modes of visual communication.
Prerequisites:
As photographers, writers, administrators, critics, and curators, you should be interested in and/or engaged with photographic practices relating to land, landscape, place and environment.
Course Prep:
At the first session you will be asked to briefly introduce yourself and your practice (as photographers - writers - curators...), to say why you signed up for the course and what you hope to get from it, and to name two photographers or projects relating to the themes of the course whose work interests you and why.
Images:
Land Matters (2011), Book Cover
Facing East (2004), Exhibition Pamphlet
Futureland Now (2012), exhibition catalogue/photo-book
Landscapes of Exploration (2012), Exhibition Catalogue
