Abstract:

Photography is only about two centuries old, but in this relatively short time it has evolved quite fast. The early cameras were cumbersome wooden boxes that required very long exposure times. Nowadays, most of us carry advanced and minute digital cameras in our cellular phones. The ubiquity of photographic cameras is paired with the abundance of visual media in our environment. Each day we are exposed to hundred of pictures conveying commercial and other types of messages. If we want our students to critically understand these visual messages, we should give them tools to increase their visual literacy. In this paper we give a brief summary of the evolution of photography, stressing the democratization that took place after Kodak marketed their first cameras towards the end of the XIX century. We then reflect about the abundance of visual media in our society and the importance of helping our students to critically understand it. Finally, we give some examples of possible uses of photography in the classroom for various educational levels and contexts. These include the use of photography as a learning aid in a mathematics class of eight year old children, the use of child-initiated photography to explore child appreciation of art and the transmission of values and conflict avoidance through a course in photography given to two groups of children, one of Jews and one of Palestinians, living in Jerusalem.

Keywords:

Photography in education, photography in the classroom, visual literacy.