Dates: May 16-17, 2026
Meetings: Saturday & Sunday, 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM CST (2 sessions)
Location: Houston Center for Photography
Cost: $780 (HCP members can receive a 10% discount)
Instructor: Eli Durst
Skill Level: Open to All Levels
What is photography's relationship to reality? What about its connection to truth? Long associated with evidence, witness, and documentation, photography has often been positioned as a neutral recorder of the world. This course critically examines that assumption, and delves into the history and contemporary status of documentary photography
Through lectures, discussions, readings, activities, and group critiques, we will blur the boundaries between fact and fiction, observation and authorship, ethics and aesthetics. Participants will learn about artists who challenge, subvert, complicate, or deepen our understanding of this important and longstanding photographic tradition.
Students will respond to prompts designed to think critically about the potential of both observation and intervention in their own practice. Emphasis will be placed on reflection and dialogue, encouraging participants to question inherited assumptions about realism while developing more intentional imagery.
Objectives:
Gain knowledge of contemporary discourse surrounding documentary photography
Challenge, deepen, and complicate your own approach to making images by better understanding cultural assumptions about photography's relationship to reality
Receive thoughtful constructive feedback about your work
Consider stylistic and aesthetic ways of pushing your photographic practice forward
Develop your ability to speak and write articulately about your images
Prerequisites:
Participants should have experience making photographs "out in the world" in some capacity. Students are expected to bring images from a completed or ongoing body of work for discussion and critique.
Course Prep:
Before the first class, students will receive a reading list and will be prompted to make photographs based on observation and ones in which they intervene in the world in some way. Alternatively, if you prefer to bring photographs you already have that fit into these categories, that would work as well.
Dates: May 16-17, 2026
Meetings: Saturday & Sunday, 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM CST (2 sessions)
Location: Houston Center for Photography
Cost: $780 (HCP members can receive a 10% discount)
Instructor: Eli Durst
Skill Level: Open to All Levels
What is photography's relationship to reality? What about its connection to truth? Long associated with evidence, witness, and documentation, photography has often been positioned as a neutral recorder of the world. This course critically examines that assumption, and delves into the history and contemporary status of documentary photography
Through lectures, discussions, readings, activities, and group critiques, we will blur the boundaries between fact and fiction, observation and authorship, ethics and aesthetics. Participants will learn about artists who challenge, subvert, complicate, or deepen our understanding of this important and longstanding photographic tradition.
Students will respond to prompts designed to think critically about the potential of both observation and intervention in their own practice. Emphasis will be placed on reflection and dialogue, encouraging participants to question inherited assumptions about realism while developing more intentional imagery.
Objectives:
Gain knowledge of contemporary discourse surrounding documentary photography
Challenge, deepen, and complicate your own approach to making images by better understanding cultural assumptions about photography's relationship to reality
Receive thoughtful constructive feedback about your work
Consider stylistic and aesthetic ways of pushing your photographic practice forward
Develop your ability to speak and write articulately about your images
Prerequisites:
Participants should have experience making photographs "out in the world" in some capacity. Students are expected to bring images from a completed or ongoing body of work for discussion and critique.
Course Prep:
Before the first class, students will receive a reading list and will be prompted to make photographs based on observation and ones in which they intervene in the world in some way. Alternatively, if you prefer to bring photographs you already have that fit into these categories, that would work as well.
Images: Eli Durst
