Photography Education for Grades K-12

Photography Education for Grades K-12

[Editor’s Note]
Chuck DeLaney is a
professional photographer and Director of the New York Institute of Photography, America’s oldest photography school, which now teaches photography solely via home study programs. In addition to the Complete Course in Professional Photography, NYIP also offers a Short Course: Fundamentals of Digital Photography and a course in Adobe Photoshop. NYIP’s popular Web site www.nyip.com provides free photography tips and how-to articles to all visitors. In addition to NYIP, Chuck has taught photography in community groups, children’s programs, colleges, mental hospitals and maximum-security prisons.

People recall the 1970s as a decade distinguished by curious trends, styles, haircuts and ideas. One idea from that era was put forth by Eastman Kodak, then a much bigger company than today, and still a proud member of the Dow Jones Industrials. It was a great idea then, but never gained traction. It’s still a great idea.
They called it “Photography: The Fourth R.” Doubtless, most of today’s hard-working parents remember the “3Rs” of the old song “School Days” written way back in halcyon days of 1907 by Will Cobb and Gus Edwards:
“School days, school days; Dear old Golden Rule days
‘Reading and ‘riting and ‘rithmetic, taught to the tune of the hick’ry stick”

Let’s not get bogged down in the Golden Rule or the “hick’ry stick” approach to education. Kodak simply felt that photography should be an essential component of basic elementary and secondary education, along with reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmetic. In the explanation of the concept, Kodak cited the need for “visual literacy.” This was considered both learning how to take photographs, as well as how photographs manipulate our perceptions of things. In today’s visually-oriented culture, that’s not a bad idea at all. Why does that disgusting candy or soft drink look so appealing? Why is the swimming pool at the motel we picked so much smaller than it looked in the brochure that led us to select it?

The answer, naturally, is not that it’s all done with mirrors -- rather it’s done with a camera (and today perhaps a little post-photograph image-editing work in a program like Adobe Photoshop).

But until very recently -- let’s say the dawn of the digital age, way back in the late 1990s -- photography was out-of-bounds for most kids. Parents recoiled at the cost of film and processing and feared that kids would blast their way through a roll of film taking 20 or 36 out-of-focus photos of their sneakers and that after plunking down $5 for the film and $15-$20 for processing, nothing would be created and nothing would be learned.

Now I confess, I’ve eagerly put the strap of a $1,000 Single Lens Reflex over the neck of kids anywhere from 3 to 14, usually hearing the parents exclaim, “Oh don’t do that, he (or she) doesn’t know how to use it and he’ll just waste your film or hurt your camera.” Perhaps, way, way back in the 1970s and early 1980s before the advent of auto-focus and auto-exposure cameras, that might have been a danger, but I’ve never had a kid damage my camera and I’ve seen some very interesting photographs as a result.
I should also add that over the years there have been some very good and productive photography programs aimed at adolescents. The Boy Scouts, for example, have offered a Photography Merit Badge since 1911. There are programs offered at camps, other youth groups like the local YMCA and some high schools.

However, in the past, photography programs had drawbacks that were hard to overcome. First was the issue of finding a teacher/administrator who could handle the subject matter and corral all the necessary equipment. Second, there was the issue of cost. Cameras of yesteryear were more expensive than they are today; and then there was the cost of film and processing. Third, space was required, not only for a classroom but also for the darkroom. Finally, the darkroom required mixing chemicals, some of which were corrosive or toxic, plus adequate ventilation and tools, such as trays, enlargers, a safelight and some other tools.
It’s easy to understand why it was easier (taking a phrase from the 1980s) to just say “no.” School districts, teen programs, and community centers had lots of reasons to put scarce dollars, space and energy elsewhere. Dodgeball, anyone?

While it would have been great, in my opinion, to have had Kodak succeed in that era, nothing much happened. It’s not that Kodak didn’t pour a lot of money into promotional materials. During this era the company’s business model involved selling a lot of information such as technical booklets and darkroom Dataguides -- all sorts of stuff -- along with film, chemicals, processing and an occasional camera.

Today, most of those old arguments against photography education are long gone. No more dangerous chemicals are necessary. While the traditional darkroom is still a wonderful environment -- and there are serious photographers across the country who work in them and create beautiful, traditional silver halide prints, the use of a darkroom and the cost of film and processing are not necessary. Young students can start to learn photography at any age using an inexpensive digital camera and a computer.

Not only can children learn photography, they should learn photography. The argument for visual literacy -- the understanding of how the camera and lens transform the three-dimensional world around us into a two-dimensional artifact -- has never been more important.

There are two principle reasons for this -- first, with the advent of digital image editing, photographs are more enticing and can be altered in just minutes, in ways that would have taken a skilled technician days or weeks to accomplish in the traditional darkroom -- if they were even possible. Now, you can put a smile on the dog’s face, whiten teeth, and put a lush lawn in front of a barren housing development with just a few mouse clicks. So that means the illusion -- even deception if you choose -- is more powerful than ever.

The second reason is that photography is no longer confined to the realm of the photographer. Thirty or forty years ago, if you needed a picture, you hired a photographer. It was hard to take good pictures. You needed training, the equipment was expensive and exposure was finicky. Even if lacking artistry, just getting the image onto paper in a manner that was adequate took work.

Today, the photograph is a unit of information. The reporter on a small town newspaper is expected to also be a photojournalist and take pictures to accompany the story. The realtor needs to be able to take good pictures of new listings, not just for those listings that are in the book in the realtor’s office, but also for the company Web site. The list of jobs that involve photography goes on and on -- volunteer fire departments need pictures, insurance claim adjusters need photographs, even the person who inspects automobiles coming off a lease is expected to take photographs. Students should be able to illustrate their term papers with photographs -- either those they take themselves or ones that they download over the Internet.

It wasn’t Kodak that made it happen, it was the computer, the digital age. Photography is right up there with ‘reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmetic. We don’t need to make it the fourth “R” because it already is.

Just like those other three “Rs,” photography is no longer in the realm of the specialist. It has become something that educated people are expected to be able to handle. Many accuse the Internet of being a powerful force for disintermediation, a fancy term that basically means people can get the information without a middle-man. You don’t have to listen to commercials on the radio, waiting to hear the baseball scores, you can just go to the Internet and get the information when you want it (of course, there are those banner ads and pop-ups -- but there’s no waiting.)
In a sense, the digital era has connected the average person with photography in a way that would appear to threaten the professional. This is true to an extent, and the good-old days of huge day rates for the photographer who could shoot a snow scene in July along with a truckload of lights, artificial snow machines and a crew of 20 are long gone. But at the same time, there are many more jobs today where photography is an important component of the job description.

In addition, the demand for photographs is incessant. News-oriented Websites put up a new picture to illustrate a big story every few minutes. Whether it’s the death of a celebrity or the latest stock-market shocker, using the same old picture just won’t do. We need new pictures constantly.

So, there are ample positive reasons to teach your child photography, or to see that it is taught to your child. There are also potential negative consequences that mean children must develop a respect for photography just like they learn to respect matches, swimming pools and the automobile. How many parents have been shocked to see pictures of their kids doing crazy things turn up on someone’s MySpace or Facebook page?

Years ago, I visited a major mail-order processing lab that is now defunct. At the holiday season they would process 20,000 rolls of film in a day. The lab was remarkable -- highly automated and very profitable. At the end, after the film had been popped out of the canister, processed, and printed by a myriad of machines and computers, just before the prints were cut and matched with the negatives and put into envelopes, the final step was the inspector. Each person would look at four endless strings of photographs -- thousands and thousands of images a day. I talked to one of them, saying that I assumed they were looking for quality-control problems to make sure the film was processed and printed correctly and that all those machines were working correctly. “That’s part of it,” the tired woman who was coming off an eight-hour shift told me, “but we’re also looking for two other things -- pornography and any sign of child abuse.”

It used to be that someone other than you looked at your pictures, but not any more. With cameras in almost every cell phone, and good point-and-shoot models available for $100 to $200 dollars, anytime anyone does anything stupid, someone is there to take a picture of it. Children will learn to take pictures without any curriculum because it’s so easy to do, but they also need to learn to respect the power of the medium in this digital age, and how to use a camera responsibly. For this, a photography curriculum is a vital and entertaining resource. C.D.