Occupying prime real estate, photography is an integral part of the College’s identity. SUNY Potsdam’s photography style should illustrate a dynamic and vibrant setting, with beautiful composition highlighting students, faculty members, facilities, events or other aspects of campus life.
The use of non-professional photographs raises legal issues, such as photo subject permission and copyright. For these reasons, it is Potsdam’s policy that, except in rare cases as deemed by the Office of College Communications, only photos taken by a professional Potsdam photographer may be used in print and digital external publications.
All photos on the official College website are copyrighted by the Office of College Communications at SUNY Potsdam and/or by the photographer. The express written consent of the Office of College Communications must be given prior to the images being used by any other department and/or group.
For pre-approved Potsdam photography, please visit: the Campus Beauty Portal or
contact Jesstine Avadikian at rushfojm@potsdam.edu.
Photography Request Policy
The Office of College Communications uses photography to showcase life on campus through dynamic, candid photography. The department’s main goal for photography is to improve enrollment by documenting the unique academic and social activities of our students on and off-campus. Our mission is to capture real moments, depicting an inclusive and engaging learning environment.
We’ve established the following guidelines to clarify which services we can provide through the Office of Communications. In determining when we can arrange for photography, we will be asking:
- Will the photos capture natural, unique experiences of students on campus?
- Will the photos improve enrollment?
- Will the images be used for a website feature story?
- Will they be used in one of the College’s publications?
- Will they be used for SUNY Potsdam’s official social media channels, or marketing purposes?
The types of events we normally cover include:
- Students working in any number of different spaces on campus such as classrooms, labs, art studios, dance studios, theater spaces and music rehearsal rooms
- Off-campus internship opportunities and student teachers working at local schools
- Festivals or student-run events
Requests that will not normally be covered include:
- Group shots
- Ceremonies
- Banquets
If we are unable to accommodate your photo request there are other options available:
- We will provide you will a list of local photographers who you can hire using your department’s budget.
- You can check a camera out from the Office of College Communications at 604 Raymond Hall.
- You may consider utilizing your smartphone camera. Phone cameras continue to advance in technology and oftentimes are capable of capturing high-resolution images to share on social media or other platforms.
We will provide opportunities for free faculty headshots.
Once every semester we will schedule a day when a photographer will take new headshots of faculty and staff members for the online directory. The Office of Communications will also use these photographs for our news and marketing purposes. We will let you know when the next photo session will be scheduled.
To request photos, or if you have any questions about photos or videos, please contact us at: communications@potsdam.edu or ext. 2114.
SUNY Potsdam reserves the right to use these photographs/video clips as a part of its publicity and marketing efforts. Students who enroll at SUNY Potsdam do so with the understanding that these photographs might include them and be used in college publications, both printed and electronic, and for publicity.