Master
Refine your craft and your vision: advanced composition, critique, personal style and a body of work you are proud of.
Modules
Module 75Advanced Composition & Visual Design20 lessons · about 123 min
Module 76Gestalt & Visual Perception6 lessons · about 38 min
Module 77Reading Photographs: Visual Literacy6 lessons · about 38 min
Module 78Photo History: Movements That Shaped Photography6 lessons · about 38 min
Module 79Critique & Self-review: Seeing Like an Editor6 lessons · about 36 min
Module 80Ethics, Consent & Representation6 lessons · about 38 min
Module 81Finding Your Style & Voice6 lessons · about 38 min
Module 82Building a Body of Work7 lessons · about 46 min
Module 83Editing & Sequencing a Portfolio6 lessons · about 38 min
Module 84Exhibitions, Zines & Photobooks6 lessons · about 38 min
Module 85Competitions & Awards6 lessons · about 38 min
Module 86Capstone: A Four-week Personal Project6 lessons · about 37 min
Advanced Composition & Visual Design
Design photographs deliberately using visual weight, balance, structure and eye path, and know when to break the rules.
By the end you can
- Judge and control visual weight and balance in any frame
- Use thirds, diagonals and dynamic symmetry as structural checks
- Build layered, merger-free compositions with clean edges
- Plan a clear reading order through an image
- Apply and critically evaluate named composition techniques, from the phi grid to deliberate rule-breaking
Lessons
- 1Designing the frameLesson · 10 min
- 2Layers and clean edgesTechnique · 8 min
- 3The golden ratioComposition · 6 min
- 4The golden spiralComposition · 6 min
- 5Golden trianglesComposition · 6 min
- 6S-curvesComposition · 6 min
- 7Left-to-right readingComposition · 6 min
- 8Contrasting ideasComposition · 6 min
- 9Colour contrastComposition · 6 min
- 10Odd numbers and groupsComposition · 6 min
- 11Showing scaleComposition · 6 min
- 12Light and dark contrastComposition · 6 min
- 13Showing depthComposition · 6 min
- 14Shapes and geometryComposition · 6 min
- 15Edges and croppingComposition · 6 min
- 16Breaking the rulesComposition · 6 min
- 17Real-life examplesWorked examples · 8 min
- 18PracticePractice · 5 min
- 19QuizQuiz · 4 min
- 20Cheat sheetCheat sheet · 4 min
Gestalt & Visual Perception
Use the way the brain groups and separates shapes to make subjects stand out and frames read clearly.
By the end you can
- Explain figure–ground and the main Gestalt grouping principles
- Diagnose why a subject gets lost and fix it with tone, colour or focus
- Use spacing, similarity and shared motion to organise busy scenes
- Account for simultaneous contrast and colour constancy when judging images
Lessons
Reading Photographs: Visual Literacy
Read any photograph in layers, from what it shows to how framing, captions and context shape what it means.
By the end you can
- Separate denotation, connotation and context when reading an image
- Explain how captions, crops and sequence change meaning
- Use Szarkowski's five qualities and Barthes's studium and punctum as reading tools
- Write an evidence-based close reading of a photograph
Lessons
Photo History: Movements That Shaped Photography
Trace photography's major movements from Pictorialism to digital, and use their visual rules as tools in your own work.
By the end you can
- Place key processes and cameras on a timeline and explain their influence
- Describe the main movements and what each reacted against
- Recognise Australian photographers within the wider history, and find your own country's equivalents
- Translate a movement's visual grammar into modern camera settings
- Identify common nineteenth-century photographic processes from physical clues
Lessons
Critique & Self-review: Seeing Like an Editor
Judge your own photographs with an editor's distance, using a structured critique method and a fast, repeatable culling workflow.
By the end you can
- Apply the describe, analyse, interpret, judge method to any photograph
- Separate technical craft from visual impact when selecting work
- Run a multi-pass cull using flags, ratings and comparison views
- Write specific, actionable critiques of your own frames
Lessons
Ethics, Consent & Representation
Photograph people with informed consent, weigh vulnerability and harm, represent people fairly and edit and caption truthfully.
By the end you can
- Match the level of consent to identifiability, vulnerability and use
- Apply a repeatable ethical decision process before shooting and publishing
- Recognise accepted and unacceptable edits in documentary work
- Represent people fairly and respect cultural protocols
Lessons
Finding Your Style & Voice
Identify the choices that make your photographs yours, audit them honestly and turn them into a deliberate, testable style.
By the end you can
- Distinguish visual style from photographic voice
- Run a style audit across seven dimensions of choice
- Turn influences into a personal synthesis rather than imitation
- Write a testable style statement and shoot to it
Lessons
Building a Body of Work
Choose a strong project, write a working brief and grow a coherent body of work through planned shooting and review cycles.
By the end you can
- Explain the difference between a single image, a series and a body of work
- Test project ideas for care, access, specificity and stamina
- Write a project brief with a question, scope, rules and output
- Plan and run shoot-review-refine cycles over twelve weeks
- Diagnose a stalled project and turn a review into a shot list
Lessons
Editing & Sequencing a Portfolio
Cut a body of work down to its strongest frames and sequence them into a portfolio that holds a viewer from opener to closer.
By the end you can
- Edit a project in clear passes, each asking one question
- Cut near-duplicates and darlings with confidence
- Sequence frames using pairs, rests, a peak and a considered closer
- Build purpose-specific portfolio edits from one master selection
Lessons
Exhibitions, Zines & Photobooks
Choose the right format for a body of work, then plan an exhibition wall, make a correctly imposed zine and develop a photobook dummy.
By the end you can
- Compare exhibitions, zines and photobooks and choose a format early
- Plan a wall with a shared centre line and consistent spacing
- Impose, print and bind a saddle-stitched zine without page-order errors
- Sequence images in spreads and test them with printed dummies
Lessons
Competitions & Awards
Choose competitions that suit your goals, read their terms, and select and prepare entries that survive every round of judging.
By the end you can
- Explain how competition judging rounds usually work
- Assess a competition's terms, rights and editing rules before entering
- Select entries using a thumbnail test and close inspection
- Prepare files precisely to each competition's specification
Lessons
Capstone: A Four-week Personal Project
Plan, shoot, review and present a finished four-week personal project of 10 to 15 sequenced photographs with a short statement.
By the end you can
- Write a specific, achievable project premise with useful constraints
- Run a four-week plan with a review at the end of each week
- Use contact sheets to find gaps and plan the next shoot
- Edit, sequence and present a finished set with a statement