Resources
Students in SAIC's Photography department have access to:
- More than 2,000 square feet of state-of-the-art digital facilities, including editing workstations with Mac Pro and color-calibrated monitors, Imacon film scanners, a large format flatbed film scanner, flatbed scanners, 21 professional digital printers with output up to 42” wide, print viewing stations
- Two Advanced Checkout Centers with 35mm and medium format film cameras, full-frame DSLRs, medium format digital back systems, 4 x 5 and 8 x 10 view cameras, a large selection of lenses, accessories, strobe, LED and hot light kits, analog and digital lab equipment.
- Black-and-white darkroom with 13 enlargers.
- Alternative processes and film developing facility for palladium, wet plate collodion, other historic processes, and black and white film processing.
- Shooting studio with a high-end strobe system, backdrops, a tethered Phase One digital back with medium format camera system.
- SAIC Service Bureau for printing up to 62” on a wide variety of paper and other media.
- Graduate students have individual private studios with a dedicated community critique space.
Resources Available to all SAIC Students Include:
Libraries and Special Collections
Unique access to important libraries and special collections including a world-class museum.
Media Centers
The media centers provide audiovisual equipment and services to accommodate documentation, creation, instructional, and exhibition needs.
Gallery Spaces
The SAIC campus showcases a diversity of student artwork across multiple exhibition venues. Students can propose to exhibit their work in a variety of formats and locations.
Visiting Artists Program
Public lectures are presented by world-renowned visiting artists, designers, and scholars. Speakers meet with students through studio visits, roundtable discussions, seminars, and workshops.
Instructional Shops
From bedazzlers to sewing machines, from traditional wood/metalworking to CNC milling, the SAIC Instructional Shops are facilities that have the resources to help you realize your projects. The shops are equipped with a wide range of hand, power, and stationary tools.
What the City of Chicago has to Offer:
World class museums and galleries
Since the late 19th century, when the museum collection of the Art Institute was established as a study center for the School of the Art Institute, students have used the museum's vast holdings to inspire and inform their creative and scholarly practices. No other school of art and design can claim such a major museum as part of their campus.
Unparalleled architecture
A living laboratory of the study of late 19th- and 20th-century architecture, landscapes, and interiors—the development of the Chicago school of commercial architecture, the flowering of the Prairie style house, the progression of the City Beautiful movement in urban planning.
