“Nothing is true, everything is permitted.” This Eighth Century Arabic saying could easily be applied to the condition of photography in the Twenty-First Century. Characterized by a diverse array of concerns, approaches and styles, contemporary photography seems limitless in its possibilities. From traditional documentary methods to appropriationist strategies to narrative fantasies involving play-acting and masquerade, MFA Major Studio 1- Photography and Related Technologies explores the various types of photography being made today with the aim of providing students with a frame-work by which to define their own developing practice. The course focuses on the way in which work is made-- the conditions of production-- and interrogates the motivations of the artist/photographer asking not only “What was made?” but “Why was it made?” and “How was it made?” In this sense, students are asked to probe their own working methods and to abolish the goal of “making art,” replacing it with the more difficult task of translating their own quirks, obsessions, phobias and desires into images, objects, environments and actions which, in a cultural context, might be called “art.” Thus students explore and develop a deeply personal and specific direction for their work under the supervision of their graduate advisors. Working with their advisors, students conceive and define a self-directed project at the beginning of each term. Project proposals should outline the topic, concept, direction, and potential outcome, i.e. form the work takes in its final presentation. By design, projects should be structured to expand both the student's technical expertise and aesthetic sensibilities in order to bring them into alignment with the often times covert fascinations that underlie the work.