Saturday & Sunday

May 25 & 26

10AM - 6 PM

Class Size Max: 4

This large format class covers the use of the view camera on the most practical level, as well as the aesthetic plane. The view camera can transform how a person, object, or landscape looks by using a range of camera movements, controlling where the focus lies, and correcting or exaggerating the perspective to give the photographer complete discretion over the final image.

This weekend workshop guides students through the basics of large format photography through hands-on learning, lectures, and informal critiques. Students will learn how to shoot 4x5 black and white film in Penumbra's northlight studio. Then, students will learn to tray develop their film and enlarge their new negatives. Light metering and understanding depth of field (including the important scheimpflug principle) are part of the technical aspects of the class. Students will have the opportunity to gain inspiration and examine large format photographs, from the 19th Century to the contemporary, presented through original prints, slides, and books.

Students are welcome to bring their own 4 x 5 cameras to shoot, but there will be some provided. 

4x5 film, all necessary chemistry, and 11 x 14 fiber paper will be provided. 

Tuition includes a $115 materials fee

If your desired tuition option is unavailable, please email info@penumbrafoundation.org and we will do our best to accommodate you. If the entire class is sold out, we can add you to the waitlist.

Lois Conner is known for her large-scale panoramic photographs, made with large format cameras. The recipient of numerous grants, she exhibits widely, and is published often. In 2020, Conner received the Pollock-Krasner Award for Artists. She was awarded the Anonymous Was a Woman Fellowship (2007), and grants from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation (1984), the New York State Council on the Arts (1983) and the National Endowment of the Arts (1979). Conner’s work is currently on view in the traveling group exhibition Civilization, The Way We Live Now.  Her work was included in the inaugural exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston (2020). Conner has had numerous solo shows in Europe, Asia and the United States. Her work was featured in group exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2012 and 2017) and in the exhibition Pictures by Women: A History of Modern Photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (2010). Recent books include Lotus, Trees and the Jiangnan Landscape, Hangzhou (2019), A Long View, Shanghai Center of Photography (2018), and Lotus Leaves, Wairarapa Academy, New Zealand (2018). Conner has been teaching photography for over forty years and will be a visiting artist at Queens College next fall. She taught at the Yale University School of Art for more than a decade, and at other institutions including Princeton University, Sarah Lawrence College, Cooper Union, Fordham University, Bard College, Stanford University, the New School, the School of Visual Arts and the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, China.