Harvard University's Digital Photography Course Online

Image: iStock

Harvard University just made its photography course free to access online. This is a great resource for improving your photography skills. Available on Alison, the course has 12 modules covering the fundamentals of photography – from exposure, optics, colour and histograms to artefacts and software tools. Complete the assessment at the end and receive a certificate. You will need to get a mark of 80 percent or higher to pass.

Course Information

Welcome to Digital Media E-10: Exposing Digital Photography, offered Fall 2015 at Harvard University's Extension School.

DGMD E-10: Exposing Digital Photography

Fall 2015

Instructor: Dan Armendariz
Teaching Fellows: Shelley Westover, Rob McCarthy, Jordan Hayashi, Henry Vega Ortiz
Producer: Jordan Hayashi
Harvard Extension School

Description

This course explores the artistic aspects, scientific foundations, and techniques of digital photography with the goals of enabling students to expand their knowledge of photography as an art form, to develop a deeper and broader understanding of the scientific basis of photography, to improve their photographic technique, and to effectively use photographic software tools. Although the primary focus is on digital photography, many concepts apply to other photographic disciplines including film and video. Topics include quality of light, exposure control, depth of field, aesthetics, composition and patterns, perspective, color science, the human visual system, spatial and color perception, exposure, metering, digital sensors, optics, analogies to biological systems, color filter arrays, file formats, sensor linearity, color spaces and profiles, optical and computational image artifacts, and software tools and techniques for modification and enhancement. Through lectures, hands-on assignments, and critiques, students expand their understanding of digital photography while exploring their creativity to broaden the possibilities and improve the quality of their photographs. Upon successful completion of the course, students can expect to take photographs with an intuition of the camera's behaviour, and its limitations, and an ability to think critically about light and the resulting appearance of a photograph.

Students should have access to a camera with a manual mode and an option for RAW for the duration of the course.

Take the course here