The Grammar of Photography is a sequence of online photography classes taught by Christopher Giglio. Designed for photographers who want to see and think more clearly, these courses develop visual fluency, historical understanding, and personal vision. Each class combines lecture and critique, linking the practice of making photographs with the ideas that shape them. Taught live via Zoom, the Grammar sequence offers an intensive study of photographic meaning—from composition and structure to context, sequencing, and the articulation of one’s own work.
For enrolled students: select your course below to access class materials, lecture notes, and syllabi.
Grammar 2: The Elements of Style
Grammar 3: Structure, Space, and Values
Grammar 4: Creative Process, Beauty, and the Dialog Among Images
Grammar 5: The Turn Inward: Making Vision Personal
Grammar 6: The Photographer’s Book as Art Form
Grammar 7: Photography’s Evolving Language
How the Grammar Sequence Works
An overview of the program’s structure and underlying approach to photographic education
The Grammar Sequence provides a visual foundation for anyone wanting to become a better photographer. Based on my experience teaching in various BFA and MFA programs, the goal of these classes is to provide a similar type of learning experience to non-degree students of photography. The classes will serve as rigorous and comprehensive preparation for anyone wanting to enter the field, as well as offering a framework for all those who wish a deeper understanding of the problems and opportunities posed by the medium of photography. Integral to the structure of the courses is a recurring aspect: ideas from prior classes are revisited in later classes and given a new context, expanding and extending the original idea. This approach facilitates making connections and deepening our understanding of the potential richness of experience every time we make or look at a photograph.
Grammar 2 – The Elements of Style
Grammar 2 examines how the decisions we make when taking a picture express something not only about the subject but about the photographer. What is consistent in how we see? Is that consistency a result of choice or habit? If Grammar 1 introduces the photographer’s vocabulary, Grammar 2 explores the emergence of a photographer’s individual style. Style is not decoration but the visible trace of a way of seeing—a coherence between one’s subject, sensibility, and the decisions we make when using the camera.
Grammar 3 – Structure, Space, and Values
Grammar 3 expands on key ideas about structure and the depiction of space introduced in Grammars 1 and 2. It then begins a new discussion of intent and reception in interpreting images. We will also look closely at how detail mediates between the individual and the universal, and at the way time functions as the most essential element in portraiture. The course ends with a discussion of values: what photographers believe is possible to achieve through photography, and how their motivations are expressed in an image. Readings include Roland Barthes’s Camera Lucida, which considers how photographs move us and how they operate upon the viewer, and Robert Adams’s Why People Photograph, which examines the moral and expressive ambitions underlying photographic practice.
Grammar 4 – Creative Process, Beauty, and the Dialogue Between Images
Grammar 4 centers on the creative process, the analysis of beauty, and the dialogue that occurs among images. How do we keep our process open and active? What does it mean to “trust the process”? What role does beauty play in photography? We will also explore how groups of images—whether on a wall, in a book, or on a website—create context and shape interpretation. Readings include Ralph Gibson’s Refractions, and Robert Adams’s Beauty in Photography, which together frame questions of originality, perception, and the photographer’s ongoing effort to keep seeing fresh.
Grammar 5 – The Turn Inward: Making Vision Personal
Grammar 5 examines a pivotal shift in photography beginning in the 1960s—a turn inward that treated the medium as a vehicle for self-expression and private inquiry. We will consider how camera, process, subject choice, and attitude can make images more specific—and more truthful—to the individual photographer. The course distinguishes between the personal as what—the diaristic or autobiographical impulse—and the personal as how: a process-based alignment between vision, subject, and intent. Readings and examples from John Szarkowski’s Mirrors and Windows frame this discussion, placing the emergence of personal vision within a larger redefinition of photography—from a public record of appearances to a medium for exploring ideas about perception and experience.
Grammar 6 – The Photographer’s Book as Art Form
Grammar 6 focuses on the photobook as a distinct art form, exploring how sequencing, pacing, and design transform a collection of images into a unified work. We will consider the book not merely as a container of photographs but as an artwork conceived to guide and deepen the viewing experience—an experience very different from that of the gallery wall. Photographers rarely make single images that tell a complete story; meaning arises through the rhythm, order, and accumulation of images over time. The photobook offers a uniquely controlled setting for this unfolding, one defined by its physical, temporal, and tactile qualities—its sequence, scale, and openness. This is not a class about making books but about looking at them, and about understanding how photographs function under ideal conditions of attention and presentation.
Grammar 7 – Photography’s Evolving Language
Grammar 7 surveys aesthetic movements and technical innovations within photography through three fundamental questions: What could a photograph look like? What should it look like—and why? How did photography find its voice as an art form, and what challenges did it overcome along the way? In The Photographer’s Eye, John Szarkowski proposed that photographers and painters confront fundamentally different problems, and that photography found its voice only when its own nature as a medium was recognized. Grammar 7 provides a historical context for this idea, tracing the long and intricate dialogue between photography and painting and examining how each has informed the other. We will also consider how photographic history itself has been shaped—how museums and books construct narrative, continuity, and meaning—and how, through these evolving relationships, photography developed its own visual grammar.
Grammar 8 – Images and Words
Grammar 8 examines how your work from previous classes fits together—we start with an analysis of what to build upon and what to let go. Class exercises strengthen your ability to write and speak about photographs. We will explore the role of intuition and imagination in writing, culminating in a finished portfolio and artist’s statement. The course emphasizes the relationship between visual and verbal expression, helping students translate their photographic intentions into language. A strong statement succinctly conveys intentions and goals, piques curiosity, and frames the project effectively. While a good statement cannot rescue weak work, good work can be undermined by a poorly written one.
Grammar 9 – Context and Lineage
Grammar 9 focuses on understanding and constructing context, helping you position your work within a broader lineage of ideas and practices. What is your connection to what has gone before? What do you accept or reject? How have others addressing similar problems defined their terms, and what can you learn from their successes and failures? Grammars 8 and 9 together serve as finishing stages: by this point, you are likely refining a body of work and learning to articulate its aims. The words surrounding our work profoundly influence how it is seen—so they should never be an afterthought.
Grammar 10 – Key Concepts
Grammar 10 offers a comprehensive review of the key ideas from Grammars 1 through 9, one per week. The class consolidates the curriculum, highlights connections among concepts developed over time, and offers new perspectives on themes introduced earlier.
The Seminar Class
The Seminar Class enhances and expands upon topics from prior courses. Content varies each term. Students work on long-term projects and receive in-depth critique each week. Enrollment is limited to eight participants to ensure sustained, individualized attention.