8 Educational Photography Resources to Spark Creativity
Aperture is invested in providing resources for photography enthusiasts looking to develop their knowledge of the medium, as well as to educators who want to teach their students visual literacy skills. From educational titles written by the world’s top photographers to Aperture’s free twenty-lesson photography curriculum (Aperture On Sight), we’ve gathered a variety of educational resources and activities to inspire those who are eager to engage with the craft of photography.
Activities for kids:
Go Photo! An Activity Book for Kids
By Alice Proujansky
Go Photo! features twenty-five creative hands-on activities inspired by photography. Aimed at children between eight and twelve years old, this playful and fun collection of projects encourages young readers to experiment with their imaginations, get messy with materials, and engage with the world in new and exciting ways.
Try “Little Me,” a fun and engaging activity from Go Photo! today.
Visual Dominoes Activity
From Aperture On Sight
Visual Dominoes is a game that challenges students to create a sequence of images by finding visual connections. To play, download, print, and cut out the deck of cards provided by Aperture. Once you have all of the images, find a specific color in one of the photographs (like red), and place it next to another photograph that has the same color in it. Now find a shape in the second photograph, and place a photograph that has that same shape in it next to that one. Keep going like this, trying to find harder elements as you go, like composition or focus (color and shape are usually the easiest to notice).
Signs and Symbols Activity
From Aperture On Sight
Lesson Five from Aperture On Sight introduces signs and symbols and how they contribute to meaning in photographic images. Understanding that photographic content can function like a symbol—representing things not seen in the picture—encourages students to look for elements in their own work that stand in for something else. Have your students look at James Mollison’s book Where Children Sleep, part of which you can view in the Lesson Five slideshow. Have each student choose an object from their bedroom, and ask them to photograph the object against a colored poster-board backdrop to create a still life “self-portrait.”
Resources for college students and adults:
PhotoWork: Forty Photographers on Process and Practice
Edited and introduced by Sasha Wolf
Curator and lecturer Sasha Wolf was inspired to seek out and assemble artist responses to specific questions about their craft after hearing from countless young photographers that they often feel adrift in their own practice, wondering if they are doing it the “right” way. The responses, from both established and emerging photographers, reveal that there is no single path. PhotoWork is a collection of interviews with forty artists—Robert Adams, Dawoud Bey, Elinor Carucci, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Paul Graham, Rinko Kawauchi, Richard Renaldi, Alec Soth, and more—about their approaches to making individual photographs and a sustained a body of work. Structured as a Proust-like questionnaire, each individual answers the same set of questions; the resulting interviews provide essential insights and advice from both emerging and established photographers.
Aperture Conversations
With wide-ranging conversations and inspiring artist talks, we offer over one hundred Aperture Conversations online. To list just two examples: hear from Elinor Carucci, Paul Graham, and Gus Powell on their processes of making photographs; or delve into Diana Markosian’s exploration of immigration and identity through family.
Resources for educators:
Free Visual Literacy Curriculum
The Aperture On Sight curriculum is designed to teach visual literacy through working with photography and creating photobooks. It builds students’ abilities to communicate as visual storytellers and develops their creative and critical thinking, as well as building their capacity for academic and professional success. Educators can download all twenty lesson plans, plus a variety of resources, for free through Aperture’s website.
Workshop Books by Leading Photographers
With Free Learning Guide Companions
For The Photography Workshop Series, Aperture Foundation works with the world’s top photographers to distill their creative approaches to, teachings on, and insights into photography—offering the workshop experience in a book. Our goal is to inspire photographers of all levels who wish to improve their work, as well as readers interested in deepening their understanding of the art of photography.
Aperture has created free learning guides for almost all of the Workshop Series titles. Aperture’s Education Department staff have organized each guide thematically, highlighting salient topics from the text. Within each theme, relevant chapters, passages, and vocabulary are noted, along with guiding questions to accompany specific images. You can download the free guides here.
Virtual Professional Development
Alice Proujansky, Aperture’s community partnerships coordinator and the author of Go Photo! An Activity Book for Kids, is available to provide direct educational services virtually, or over the phone. Aperture is also available to assist educators and schools in developing best practices and strategies on how to work with students who are learning from home. Proujansky was the lead curriculum writer for the Aperture On Sight program and is currently coordinator of the online program and all professional development activities. If interested, please email Alice Proujanksy and Emily Stewart, manager of education and engagement programs, at education@aperture.org.
Browse Aperture’s collection of educational publications.
Access free learning guides to accompany Aperture’s educational titles.
View and download the full Aperture On Sight curriculum here.
