photo by me

Lately I have gone out taking photographs for different reasons than the simple pleasure of photography.

I’m currently taking a graduate class in the education program at my university. This course, Teaching Literacy through Photography forces me to go out and take photos according to a set theme in order to promote some level of literacy within a classroom (typically K-8 but it is obvious, the more I learn in this course, that these tools could be applied to any level of literacy, education, or trainings).

What is interesting is the response to these photographs. I keep getting comments that I’m going outside of my typical photography mode. And while, in some cases, this is true, it’s still me. I’m still taking photographs that are indicative of my vision of the world.

Take, for instance, this photograph to the right. We were told to go out, shoot a scene in black & white and have one detail in color. We then have to write a short narrative about that detail, giving information about it, to determine what is worth writing about. When we are writing book reports, what details are important? When we are writing analytical reviews, how do we choose what piece of analysis receives the most attention?

We have photographed/written on idioms: one for the road and third world (there was also Tightwad but I didn’t post that image because it’s a huge wad of different types of gum and it’s kind of gross). We had to take a walk downtown and find one piece of downtown to photograph. It couldn’t be too obvious because it was our writing that was supposed to fill in the details. We’ve also had to take someone else’s writing and photograph our vision of that writing.

While I do feel like I’m being challenged to think outside of my safe box and that I am going out and purposefully photographing things, I also think that these are still my photographs that show my sense of style or my vision of the world around me.

What I’m really learning is how much media can impact how we view a topic or a concept. It is also important to realize that not everyone is able to contextualize through text and adding images will allow them that ability but will also spark their creativity.