Workspaces and Tools

You’ll find Photography’s studios, labs, Red Eye Gallery, offices and equipment checkout in the Design Center, a building shared with the Graphic Design department and the RISD Store. In addition, graduate students have their own assigned studios in the Fletcher Building, part of the Center for Integrative Technologies complex that includes the Sol Koffler Graduate Student Gallery.

The Red Eye Gallery is the department’s central hub, showcasing student work in rotating exhibitions curated by Photography students. From March through June, the gallery hosts a rotating series of degree project exhibitions by graduating seniors.

The department has dedicated classrooms for instruction and critique that are equipped with pin-up walls and digital projection systems, as well as work tables and teaching stations.

Computer facilities

  • HP Z4 G4s with Adobe Creative Cloud apps installed
  • calibrated Eizo monitors
  • Epson v850 scanners
  • Plustek 11x17 flatbed scanner
  • Plustek 35mm film scanner
  • Hasselblad 645
  • Hasselblad X5
  • Epson and Canon medium format printers with ImagePrint
  • two Epson 44" printers for majors and graduate student use
  • Canon 24" Pro 2100
  • Epson 24" printer with piezography inks for digital negatives and prints

The Photo Cage (photography equipment for temporary checkout)

Equipment loans are limited to Photography majors (undergraduate and graduate), faculty, and other students currently enrolled in a Photography course.

Cage hours vary per semester. For hours and reservations, please call 401 427-6906 or email photocage@risd.edu.

  • 35mm cameras: Pentax K-1000, Canon AE-1, Nikon FM2 and other varieties
  • medium-format cameras: Hasselblad, Mamiya 6+7, Pentax 67, Mamiya RB67, Mamiya 645Pro, Fuji GSW69, Yashica-Mats and other varieties
  • large-format cameras (4x5 and 8x10): Calumet monorails, Chamonixes and Toyos
  • digital: Canon 5D Mark II–IV, 5DS and 5DsR and R5 mirrorless cameras
  • digital: Fuji GFX series 100, 50S and 50R mirrorless cameras
  • digital: Nikon D850
  • lenses: an assortment for all cameras, film and digital
  • accessories: light meters, card readers, film loading bags, dark cloths, loupes, cable releases, remote control, pocket wizards, sync cords, film holders, filters and other workflow items
  • light meters, card readers and other workflow accessories
  • continuous lighting: Total and Omni hot lights, Godox LED panel light
  • strobe lighting: Dynalite kits, Profoto D4 + D2 kits, Godox ADPro300 backpack kits
  • lighting: Vivitar flashes, Canon speedlights and Godox flash for Fuji
  • lighting accessories: umbrellas, light stands, clamps, softboxes, gels, grids
  • video: Blackmagic 4K pocket camera, Canon Vixia camcorders, GoPros
  • audio: Rode and lavalier microphones, H4/H4 Pro Zoom recorders, Sony headphones
  • tripods: medium and large Manfrotto tripods, lightweight carbon fiber Gitzo tripods

Click the link below for a more detailed, regularly updated inventory.

Photo Cage inventory

Lighting studio

  • Dynalite heads and powerpacks
  • Profoto D2 heads
  • Softboxes, reflectors, grids, pocket wizards, remote transceivers and other lighting accessories

Darkrooms

  • for majors only: 12-station darkroom equipped with Saunders LPL 4x5 enlargers
  • for non-majors (must be enrolled in a darkroom-based Photography class): darkroom equipped with 21 Saunders/LPL 670 medium format enlargers
  • dedicated lab for antique and alternative processes like cyanotypes, gum bichromate, wet collodion processes and platinum printing and equipped with one Epson 4000 inkjet printer for creating digital negatives for contact printing and other purposes

Darkroom equipment may be issued to Photography majors and graduate students for an entire semester. Equipment may include: enlarger lenses, easels, negative carriers, film reels and developing tanks. Students can work on their own in darkrooms and are able to mix and dilute their own chemistry.