A not-for-profit visual arts school, the School of the Photographic Arts: Ottawa (SPAO), became an accredited college July 16, and will now offer a two-year diploma program.
The new diploma program offers a “unique opportunity to cultivate individual vision and craft, acquire comprehensive analogue and digital photography skills, and develop a broad understanding of photographic theory and history,” according to Tony Martins, director of development at SPAO.
Martins said a major difference between SPAO’s new degree and other programs is that students are evaluated in large part through their performance.
“This is the only program of its kind in Canada,” he said.
The school offers courses in a typical semester schedule from September to April, where learning takes place in a workshop setting. Each week is comprised of 20 hours per week in the classroom and another 20 outside class time, Martins said.
Anyone is eligible to apply for the new diploma program, as long as they are 18 years or older and hold an Ontario High School Diploma.
The photography school began the process of applying for the accreditation to offer a full-time diploma program several months ago, through the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities, Martins said. The school also offers a part-time program for students.
Lee-Michael J. Pronko, a Carleton University humanities and philosophy student, and an alumnus of SPAO, said the founders of the school Khalia Scott and Michael Tardioli “continuously pushed the limits of our creative endeavors and encouraged further exploration into the critical question of what it means to observe and to take a photograph, and to sharpen our technical skills in the craft of print-making.”
Pronko said he thinks the diploma program is a fantastic idea for those looking to pursue photography, as the school helped him discover his own passion.
“I owe a great deal to SPAO in shaping who I am today and how I perceive the world and express it through my photographic practice,” Pronko said.
“I believe that SPAO will only continue to grow as a creative hub for those wishing to explore photography as an art and a way of living and seeing.”
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