Instructors
Watkins' photography faculty encourages students to create a personal point of view and to express their vision through a variety of photographic mediums such as traditional black and white, color, and digital imaging. Studio lighting classes offer an opportunity to develop commercial techniques.



Robin Paris
Interim Chair and Assistant Professor
B.A., The Evergreen State College, Studio Art.

M.F.A., Savannah College of Art and Design, Photography

Graduate studies, Anthropology, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Robin studied visual anthropology and creative writing before getting her MFA in photography. She spent a year as a resident artist at Anderson Ranch in Aspen, Colorado where she assisted such artists as Keith Smith and Jerry Uelsmann. She has worked in marketing and as a photo editor for small publishing companies in Georgia and Colorado. She currently works in historical processes, digital imaging, and book works and exhibits them nationally.

Visit her web site

Joy McKenzie
Professor
B.F.A., Kansas City Art Institute, Photography.

Graduate Studies, Memphis College of Art, Studio Art.

M.F.A., Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, Photography

An active member of the Society of Photographic Education and served as founding Board Member of the Visual Arts Alliance of Nashville. Joy McKenzie is the recipient of an Honorable Mention award from the Ruttenberg Foundation. She has participated in invitational exhibitions and group and solo shows. McKenzie is the author of Basic Black & White Photography, a textbook for beginning photography students.



Tori Purcell
Adjunct Professor
B.A., Vanderbilt University, Sociology

M.F.A., Savannah College of Art and Design, Photography

A photographic installation artist, Tori has exhibited her work nationally and internationally. Her work is in the permanent collection of The Pingyao International Photography Museum in Pingyao, China.

Amanda McCadams
Adjunct Professor
B.S., Middle Tennessee State University, Spanish and Photography

M.F.A., University of Georgia, Photography

Amanda has taught photography in study abroad programs in Cuba, Costa Rica and Ecuador. Her work explores the cultural education of our society and how it is manifested in museum exhibits. Amanda's work has been included in regional and national exhibitions. She works in traditional and historical process and the book form.

Mandy Sue Springer
Adjunct Professor
B.A., Morehead State University, Fine Arts

M.F.A., Savannah College of Art and Design, Photography

Studied in Bregenz, Austria through Murray State University

Digging For Salamanders, a recent body of work concerning memories of landscape, is part of the Fidelity Corporate Art Collections. It consists of large format color photographs. She has guest lectured at Morehead State University and The Art Institute of Nashville, Tennessee. She currently teaching and manages art studios at the Sarratt Art Center through Vanderbilt University. In 2008 she participated in Magic Silver, an international photography exhibition juried by artist Joyce Tenneson.

Caroline Allison
Adjunct Professor
B.A., The University of the South, Sewanee

M.F.A., The Art Institute of Chicago

Caroline has exhibited her photographs both nationally and internationally in New York, Chicago, Berlin, and Vienna. She is a recipient of a Bronx Museum of Art fellowship and has been Artist-in- Residence for the city of Frankfurt, Germany. Photographs from her "Somewhere and not Anywhere" series can be seen locally at Zeitgeist Gallery.

Visit her Website