Harvard Free Online Digital Photography Course

Harvard Free Online Digital Photography Course

Harvard university’s online digital photography course is now available for free. The course is in 12 modules and would take between 10 and 15 hours to complete. The course will teach a wide range of topics in digital photography, including exposure settings, reading histograms, learning about light, how sensors and lenses work, and how to post-process photos.

Course 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, colour science, the human visual system, spatial and colour perception, exposure, metering, digital sensors, optics, analogies to biological systems, colour 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.

The full course can be accessed here, http://digitalphotography.exposed/

The 12 modules of the course can be viewed on youtube here, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1I2J3eFr6XgIxPgFewb8BA