Photography Facilities
Introduction
As a student at Swansea College of Art, you will have access to industry standard facilities and store facility. In addition to extensive traditional photography facilities and darkrooms, our digital provision includes a specialist colour-managed digital suite running the latest Adobe software. This includes high resolution Hasselblad film scanners, medium and large format portfolio and exhibition printing.
Workshops and Facilities include:
Traditional photography facilities:
- Professional black and white darkroom with 18 enlargers with lenses for 35mm, medium and large format printing.
- Fully equipped black and white processing room, with loading booths, developing tanks, regularly refreshed chemicals, film & tank drying cabinets, film viewing lightbox.
- C41 colour film processing room, with deep-tank processor, film drying cabinets and viewing lightbox.
- Black and white print drying rooms with lines, racks and heat press.
- Focus finders, multi-grade filters, spotting kits
Photography Digital Suite:
- 16 Apple iMac workstations.
- 8 specialist Eizo monitors, fully colour-calibrated for professional printing.
- Industry standard software: Adobe Creative Cloud (including Photoshop), Flexi Colour, Lightroom.
- 2 x Hasselblad Flextight film scanners
- Epson flatbed scanners
- Professional proofing laserjet printers
- 2 x Epson 4880 inkjet printers for roll and single sheet A4, A3, A3+, A2
- Large format Epson 9800 (44†roll) inkjet printer for large exhibition work
Photographic Studio:
- Large scale studio which can be booked whole or divided into two working studio spaces
- Pantograph Hi-Glide lighting system
- Digital flash and tungsten lighting heads
- Lighting control - soft boxes, umbrellas, snoots, reflectors, gels
- Light meters, triggers
- Colorama backdrops - grey/black/white
- Still life infinity curve
Equipment available for loan:
Digital Cameras:
- Lumix GH4s
- Cannon EOS 5D MKIIs & MKIIIs
- Canon Digital Lenses – 28mm, 50mm, 85mm, 100mm Macro, 24-105mm, 70-200mm, 75-300mm Zoom)
- Hasselblad H3 D Medium Formats
Analogue Cameras:
- Hasselblads (6x6)
- Mamiya RZs (6x7)
- Mamiya 645s (6x4.5)
- Fuji GW670s (6x7 Rangefinders)
- Mamiya 7s (6x7 Rangefinders)
- Large Format Field Cameras (5x4 inch)
Other equipment:
- Canon Speedlight and Metz Flashguns
- Portable Lighting Kits with battery packs
- Light meters & Flash meters
- Tripods
- Zoom H4 Pro Audio Recorders
- Data Projectors & Media Players
- DSLR Steady Cam Rigs
Other Photography Department Spaces:
- 3 Large Photography Crit Rooms for lectures, screenings, seminars and critiques.
- Project Space – bookable experimental studio space.
- Student Base Room with sofas, iMacs, sink, boiling water tank for tea & coffee, lockers
- Archive Room for storage of exhibition work
- Staff Office in teaching area with open-door policy.
Workshops:
We believe that its essential for your work to have a professional finish and to this end practical projects are supported by workshops.
Having access to additional practical knowledge ensures that you can use the University’s excellent facilities with confidence, make informed choices about method and equipment, and ultimately produce work to an exceptional standard.
Workshops cover:
- Historical print methods
- Fibre-based black & white printing
- The use of various camera formats from medium format roll-film and 5 x 4 film, to digital (including medium format)
- Digital workflow and printing
- Video shooting and editing
- Exhibition installation and projection
- Studio and location lighting