The photography emphasis focuses on the interrelation of photography and art, ranging from traditional to digital methods of image making and emphasizes conceptually oriented practices. Students receive technical instruction in black-and-white and silver processes, color photography and digital output, alternative processes, digital image production, and professional studio lighting techniques. The emphasis is committed to a broad definition of the medium and open to a variety of expressive means, including installation, video, and bookmaking.

The curriculum requires students to use the extensive library collections on campus as well as the Utah Museum of Fine Arts and Utah Museum of Contemporary Art. The combination of traditional and contemporary approaches along with critical ideologies provides a stimulating environment to support the development of visual artists. The photography emphasis is committed to engaging with the discursive history of the medium, as Jae Emerling writes, "Throughout its history, photography has been linked to theoretical debates in the fields of philosophy, anthropology, art, and science. These debates tell us about the relation between appearance and truth, about the objectivity versus subjectivity of the photographic image, and most generally about the nature of the photographic medium. Photography requires the ability to think critically about representation. This requirement is not unique to the medium, but it may be that the ubiquity of photographs within the modern world makes it a privileged site for wide-ranging debates about images, modes of address, structures of intention, and the ethics of interpretation."