Photography

Applications are currently being accepted for this program on a rolling basis. 

Time to degree: two years (60 credits)
Part-time options are available

Refine your creative vision in Columbia College Chicago's selective Photography Master of Fine Arts program. Our faculty of award-winning photographers will guide you through this two-year program as you build a sophisticated body of work that you'll exhibit in public venues. You will have access to our advanced photography and fine art facilities, including graduate studio space, a digital imaging lab, a commercial lighting studio, and darkrooms. In a supportive critique setting, you'll share your work with our faculty members, guest curators, and visiting artists. You'll make professional connections through our partnerships with the Museum of Contemporary Photography and local galleries, museums, and studios.

Anahid Ghorbani MFA ’17, “Untitled,” The Color is Black, 2016

Columbia College Chicago's MFA Photography program doesn't focus on one school of thought. Our students bring diverse perspectives and experiences to the program and continuously challenge, inform, and support each other.

Quick Links

See application requirements | View required courses | View program costs (PDF)

In the Classroom

Jordan Putt MFA ’20, from the series “Field Book”

Several features of the Photography MFA program at Columbia College Chicago are unique. Here’s what you can expect:

• In addition to traditional image-making, Columbia students work on documentaries, videos, collages, and installations. You’ll take a Graduate Seminar course every semester with other MFA Photography students, refining and discussing each others’ artistic practices. The seminar courses often form communities of artists who challenge one another to consider new ideas in their work.
• The Graduate Seminar course is coupled with a Graduate Forum course, which you will take every semester. Led by faculty, the forum allows for a flexible range of learning experiences, which include field trips to galleries and museums, studio visits with prominent Chicago artists, discussions with visiting artists, workshops, and ongoing critical dialogues.
• You’ll take required courses in photography, video, history, theory, and criticism. You’ll also choose electives on subjects such as the portrait, bookmaking, and documentary. Our close relationship with the Art and Art History Department means you can take a wide range of courses in subjects such as performance and installation.
• You’ll make connections in the Chicago photography community and meet with guest curators, visiting artists, and other professionals we invite to critique graduate work each semester.
• Your primary focus will be your artistic practice, but you’ll also gain practical skills for becoming a working artist and begin charting your career.

Graduate Faculty

The MFA program is supported by a full-time faculty of renowned photographers representing diverse styles and philosophies. Faculty members have made substantial contributions to contemporary photography and have exhibited their work at venues such as the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris, the Whitney Museum in New York City, the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C., the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Faculty members take their roles as mentors seriously. They will critique your work regularly and provide guidance as you chart your professional career.

Graduate faculty members in the Photography Department include:

Studio and Creative Spaces

All MFA students have dedicated space to create their work in studios located on campus in downtown Chicago. You’ll also have access to a state-of-the-art digital imaging lab and a commercial lighting studio as well as extensive darkrooms. 

Learn more about our facilities.

The Museum of Contemporary Photography

Columbia is home to an international hub for contemporary photography. The Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP) brings some of the world’s most innovative artists to Chicago each year. Our strong partnership with the museum provides MFA students opportunities to form close relationships with professional photographers, and students have access to a comprehensive visual study center, where they can view the Midwest Photographers Project and MoCP’s extensive collection. The museum also offers work and study opportunities to MFA students.

Lectures in Photography

The Photography Department and MoCP cohost a lecture series that brings some of the world’s most exciting artists, curators, and scholars to campus for discussions. Past lecturers have included Jennifer Blessing (senior curator of photography at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York) and Lesley A. Martin (creative director and publisher of The PhotoBook Review at Aperture) as well as artists Kristine Potter, Sam Contis, Teju Cole, Zackary Drucker, John Divola, Deana Lawson, Martha Rosler, and Zanele Muholi.

Thesis and Exhibition

At the end of the program, you’ll share your thesis project with the photography community. Our graduate thesis exhibit draws the attention of artists and curators from across Chicago. As an emerging artist, you’ll have opportunities to build a reputation and network, and you’ll join Columbia’s community of accomplished and active alumni.

Shawn Rowe MFA ’18 exhibits V at the 2018 Thesis Gallery Exhibition

Before graduating, you’ll also complete a written thesis project. You’ll take a course that will prepare you for it, giving you an introduction to graduate-level research methods and cultural theories that influence the study of photography. You’ll work with a thesis advisor to plan and create your own research project.

Grants and Awards

Photography MFA students have access to opportunities for grants and awards.

For incoming students:

The Graduate Award. 

For current students:

• Albert P. Weisman Award
• Fogelson Foundation Photography Scholarship
• John Mulvany and Bob Thall Scholarship in Photography
• Stuart Abelson Graduate Research Fellowship

View all grant and award opportunities.

Chicago: A Fine Art Hub

Studying in Chicago will give you access to hundreds of galleries, museums, and events. Some of the world’s most innovative artists live in Chicago and interact with Columbia students through events and forums. We’ll encourage you to take advantage of all the city offers. Photography faculty members often invite students to participate in events and exhibitions across the region. 

Alumni Success

Columbia College Chicago’s Photography MFA alumni have a strong reputation as well-rounded practitioners and ground-breaking fine artists. They have been recognized by the Guggenheim Fellowship Award, Aperture Portfolio Prize, the Whitney Biennial, and PDN’s 30: New and Emerging Photographers to Watch, among others.

Alumni Highlights

• Clarissa Bonet ‘13 has exhibited work at the Bauhaus Archive in Berlin, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, Aperture Foundation, Magenta Foundation, and Catherine Edelman Gallery. Her work has been published in The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, CNN Photo, Chicago Magazine, Harpers Bizarre, Juxtapoz, Aint-Bad, The Eye of Photography, Photo District News, and many other publications both nationally and internationally. She has received an Individual Artist Grant from the Illinois Arts Council and her work won inclusion in “The Outwin 2022: American Portraiture Today” competition as a finalist.

• Jonathan Castillo ’19 has had work featured with The New Yorker, Wired, CBS: Los Angeles, and Brazil's G1 Globo. He has appeared on the radio to discuss his photography on the BBC's “World Update” and local Los Angeles public radio programs KPCC and KCRW. Jonathan is one of fifty artists recently selected for the City of Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs 2020-2021 prequalified list for public art commissions. His work was included as part of the City of Chicago's Artist Billboards Project – 20 artist-designed PSA billboards for communities of color most impacted by COVID-19, presented by Chicago Mayor's Office and the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. Exhibitions include those at Photo LA 2020, the Center for Creative Photography, Aperture Gallery, House of Lucie, Filter Photo Gallery and Ralph Arnold Gallery. Jonathan is represented by Samuel Maenhoudt Gallery in Belgium and his first solo museum show is scheduled for Spring 2021 at the California Museum of Art Thousand Oaks.

• Jess Dugan MFA ’14 received the 2019 Infinity Award, International Center of Photography, Dugan’s work has been widely exhibited and is in the permanent collections of over 40 museums throughout the United States. Dugan’s monographs include Look at me like you love me (MACK, 2022), To Survive on This Shore: Photographs and Interviews with Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Older Adults (Kehrer Verlag, 2018) and Every Breath We Drew (Daylight Books, 2015). They were selected by the Obama White House as a 2015 Champion of Change.

• Natalie Krick ’12 was the 2017 Aperture Portfolio Prize winner for her work Natural Deceptions. In 2015 Krick was a recipient of an Individual Photographer's Fellowship from the Aaron Siskind Foundation. Krick’s work has recently been exhibited at SF Camerawork, The Museum of Contemporary Photography, Aperture Foundation, The Museum of Sex, and Blue Sky Gallery. Her photographs has been highlighted in several international publications including BOMB, The New Yorker, Vogue Italia, PDN, Aperture, and Vrij Nederland.

• Whitten Sabbatini ‘17 has work published frequently in periodicals including The New Yorker, The New York Times, Bloomberg, and Mossless: The United States 2003 – 2013. Sabbatini’s photographs are held in various permanent collections, including The Do Good Fund, Candela Books, and The Memphis Brooks Museum of Art.