Entering Class 2021

Entering Class 2021 Frank Cost

Entering Class 2021

Frank Cost

T

oday was the day new students at Rochester Institute of Technology interacted with their colleges and academic departments for the first time.

Students who are entering programs in the School of Photographic Arts and Sciences spent the morning learning about many of the standard operating procedures of the Photo School and the College of Art and Design.

In past years I have photographed the entering students on their first day of school. It is always fun to share these pictures with them after they have become comfortable and confident at RIT. T hey often sigh and laugh at the images of their younger selves looking so nervous and apprehensive.

This year was different from previous years in two significant ways. First, the resurgence of a variant of the virus that began to ravage the world in early 2020 forced a continuation of the requirement for mandatory indoor face covering. Second, I used my phone, and not my high-end camera equipment. I doubt anyone would know it, if I hadn’t said so.

This book was completed and published before the end of the day.You can buy a copy from Amazon for five dollars. When I first began teaching at RIT forty years ago, a book like this would have taken months of labor and thousands of dollars to produce.

Frank Cost August 19, 2021

Entering Class 2021 RIT College of Art and Design.

Frank Cost frank.cost@rit.edu Copyright © 2021 Frank Cost.

All rights reserved.

Fossil Press 100 Parkwood Avenue Rochester, New York 14620 fossilpress.com All photographs in this book, except for the picture on the facing page, were taken with an iPhone 12.

About the author Frank Cost is the James E. McGhee Professor of Visual Media in the School of Photography at Rochester Institute of Technology. He has taught a wide variety of courses in the field of visual media for more than three decades. Frank has been photographing professionally since 1975 and has authored both textbooks and experimental photobooks exploring new forms of graphic expression enabled by digital technologies. He can be contacted at frank.cost@rit.edu.

The photo was taken by Professor Ted Kinsman while I awaited the arrival of the students. Ted is the subject of the first and last pictures in this book.