New York Film Academy [Sponsor]

My thanks again to The New York Film Academy for sponsoring the candler blog this past week.

Are filmmakers and photographers breeds apart? Not necessarily. Some notable photographers have made films (Larry Clark, William Eggleston, William Klein, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Man Ray). In the 1990s, celebrity photographer Herb Ritts (Richard Gere, Julia Roberts, and Dalai Lama) won two MTV Video Awards for videos he directed for recording artists Janet Jackson and Chris Isaac, in addition to a large body of work in television advertising.

The New York Film Academy Photography School, offering a one-year program at its New York and Los Angeles campuses and a Master of Fine Arts at its LA film school campus, is a distinct program. The one-year program requires no photography experience, although many students have prior training. They learn basic technical, aesthetic and business skills required of professional photographers. Masters candidates study higher-level methodologies such as photochemical processing, specialized optics, printing processes and advanced digital techniques.

What’s the connection to filmmaking? After the technical aspects of still photography are mastered, some photographers just want their subjects to move. It doesn’t hurt to have trained in the sphere of actors, filmmakers, producers and screenwriters. That’s what happens to students at these NYFA campuses.