It's almost like there's something magical about the best photographs. You know, the kind of images that stop you in your metaphorical tracks. All you can do is stare for a minute and ponder their beauty. RMSP helps you understand, both technically and creatively, how to craft these images. It turns out the magic is actually a teachable alchemy of vision, composition, and light.

Our Summer Intensive curriculum has five key areas of focus which are designed to overlap and build on each other throughout the program's 11 weeks.

Photographic Studies starts with the basics. You learn how to use and control your DSLR, including the nuances of how shutter speeds, f-stops, ISO, and color balance affect your images. As you progress, you practice the full suite of photographic genres—like studio, landscape, sports, wedding, and photojournalism—and learn specialty techniques for shooting in low-light, macro and more. You learn to use lenses (including specialty lenses like fisheye and tilt-shift), tripods, remote controls, and the latest in photographic technology. Instructors lead supervised field shoots where they make sure you understand your exciting new toys, er, tools.

Visual Studies trains your eye. You examine the history and evolution of photography to the present day. You're challenged to think critically about composition, exposure, and how to best display your images to the world via matting and framing. Fun, interactive critique sessions with the group help you understand the critical elements of exceptional images—and how to make your own.

Light is everything in photography. Learning to master it—whether in the studio, on location, or in the natural world—is what makes a photographer great. This series teaches you the fundamentals of light and how to work with ambient and artificial lighting to create professional portraits, fine art, and food and product shots. You gain experience using speed lights, strobes, softboxes, grids, and other lighting tools to make your images pop.

Color Management and Output is what separates amateurs from pros. You have many choices to make between capturing your image and printing it, sending it for publication, or posting it online—and your choices may differ for each. To ensure perfect color accuracy, you learn to calibrate your camera, monitor, and workflow. With one-on-one assistance from your instructor, you learn to produce tack sharp, luminous prints in our state-of-the-art print lab.

Image Editing is where good images can become great images. Without a strong workflow, it can also become a major time drain. Our expert instructors teach you proper storage techniques to avoid image loss and a proven workflow for editing, rating, and categorizing your images efficiently. In the latest version of Adobe Lightroom^® you learn how to crop, sharpen, vignette, reduce noise, remove lens distortion, make global and local corrections, and bring out detail in your shadows and highlights. In Adobe Photoshop^® you learn advanced techniques for portrait retouching, compositing, and mimicking old film processes. Frequent one-on-one instruction in the lab will help you master these techniques and others for protecting, processing, and maximizing every image to the highest professional standards.