Prior to the start of Summer Intensive 2011, the chatter on our enrolled-student website, the Career Training Bulletin Board, was loud and frequent. People from all corners of the globe were sharing their thoughts and feelings about embarking on a journey in Missoula, MT. One student wrote, "I was constantly waiting for my life to get better. Now I'm done waiting. I'm ready to take control and start doing what I love." Yet another offered up, "I only started getting into photography a few years ago and I love the technical side of things but am so worried I won't be creative enough!"

This emotion and determination is what makes Summer Intensive such a valuable experience for our students. Real people who share common goals and are motivated to accomplish them come together to collectively grab life by the horns. As many graduates can attest, the SI experience becomes a part of who you are, and like any lasting experience, it can never be taken away from you.

SI helps build your foundation in photography by starting at square one and progressing from there. The curriculum is broken into the following five areas of study.

Spanning the entire 11 weeks of the program, the PHOTOGRAPHIC STUDIES series of classes teaches you the building blocks of photography. We begin with the basics—shutter speeds, f-stops, ISO—and how they relate to one another to determine exposure. You also get a primer on the Zone system of exposure, a technique developed by Ansel Adams. You are introduced to your camera’s histogram, metering modes and white balance and learn to use each to influence the look of your images. In fact, you receive an in depth education on camera bodies, lenses and tripods and learn which tools work better in certain circumstances such as photographing portraits, wildlife, weddings, products or landscapes. Supervised shoots in the studio and on location allow you to experiment with your equipment alongside your instructor and assistants. Lectures provided by visiting photographers offer additional benefit to this series.

Photographers dream about it in their sleep. Some spend their entire lives in pursuit of it. It can make or break any photograph. Of course we are talking about LIGHT. In this series of classes you explore the unique characteristics of light so that you can begin to make it work for you. Whether natural or artificial the color, direction, temperature and size of a light source all play a role in how you use it. Along with learning to work with natural light, you gain experience using hot shoe-mounted flashes and studio lights in the studio and on location. Using radio slaves, power packs and flash heads you learn to produce light anywhere. Then you control it with modifiers such as softboxes, grids, snoots, barn doors and flags. Regardless of your chosen niche—portraiture, fine art, food and product or landscape—understanding light is essential to your success.

If there is one word that defines everything that comes after you have created an image with your DSLR, it’s workflow. In the IMAGE EDITING classes, you develop an organized workflow and learn to manage, edit and enhance your images on your computer. Using the latest version of Adobe^® Photoshop^® Lightroom^® we teach you how to import images into a catalog and then rate, keyword, categorize and then add them to collections based on whatever criteria you choose. Lightroom allows you to perform non-destructive edits to your image files including converting to black and white, adjusting exposure after capture and changing the color temperature. Further color correcting and retouching is done in Adobe Photoshop, which provides you the opportunity to apply your personal creativity by allowing you to make specific enhancements to a portion of an image. By working with layers, masks, smart objects, filters, blending modes, compositing methods as well as scripts and actions, you begin to take control of your creative process, which proves invaluable as you move into Professional Studies and Advanced Intensive. For portrait photographers, Photoshop is the tool of choice for making skin look smooth and teeth look white. Landscape photographers love it for its ability to replace a drab sky with a stunning sunset and to create panoramas. Whatever the desired outcome, being able to make Photoshop work for you increases your marketability and value as a photographer.

Like finding the perfect ingredients to make your favorite recipe, producing a quality inkjet print requires several components come together in perfect harmony. Our COLOR MANAGEMENT AND OUTPUT series teaches you what ingredients to use, and how to use them in order to achieve beautiful results whether printing images yourself or uploading to an online print service. Understanding that a great print begins before an image is captured, your instructors urge you to think about printing as a complete process. You begin by learning what color management means and how to calibrate your camera and computer’s monitor, which is an important first step in achieving color-accurate prints. Using top-of-the-line printers in our print lab, you then gain first hand experience printing with a color managed workflow while an instructor or assistant is available to help. This process is critical to becoming a professional.

There is a profound difference between truly using your senses versus simply being on autopilot. Hearing and seeing are very different from listening and analyzing. In VISUAL STUDIES, your instructors work to train your eye by exposing you to tons of imagery while challenging you to think critically. As a group, you engage in critique sessions in order to break images down to their essential elements, study their composition and discuss why some work and others don’t. Looking back through the history of photography, to see how it has evolved - both aesthetically and technologically - builds your understanding of the medium and strengthens your overall knowledge. Through it all you develop a sense of how important overall presentation is to your own photography. From decisions made during the idea development stage through the final framing and matting stage, you consider every aspect of showing your work.