Teaching Tools

The Reframing Photography book describes photography as a process and as an idea by exploring  a wide range of photographic tools and processes. We understand photography as a means of visual mediation, preservation, or duplication, as surfaces affected by light and chemistry, or as types of cultural objects that facilitate representation and remembrance. We can imagine photographic Actions (such as recording, framing, copying, toning, the act of fading, or re-enacting) and Objects (such as images, projections, shadows, or toasted bread). Our inspiring, instructional inventory includes practical methods — equipment and techniques for image capture, printing, lighting, duplication, and so on — and philosophical approaches.

The Reframing Photography Projects are assignments created by Rebekah Modrak to help students think broadly and specifically about vision, light and shadow, reproductive processes, editing, presentation, series and sequence, and text and image. These projects address the practical to the conceptual, the conventional to the experimental, the media-specific to the open-ended choice of materials, and the prescriptive to the open prompt.

The Reframing Photography Presentations are slide presentations or demonstration resources related to content in the Reframing Photography book.

The Reframing Photography Syllabuses provide syllabuses with projects and assignments related to content in the book. Each syllabus recommends a sequential group of projects to reach the overarching goal of a class. The syllabus provides descriptions of projects and recommends relevant readings or presentations.

The Archive of Projects are assignments shared by art faculty with varying methodologies. Thank you to those instructors who have contributed these valuable resources. Please Contact us if you would like to add one of your projects to this database.

Amend any project to the needs of your class, but please credit the instructor/author if you borrow or share projects found in these pages.

The third section - Teaching & Learning - offers reading lists and online resources about pedagogy. Encouraging Art is a list of writings about the nature and complexity of making an artwork and helping artists to develop their practice. Resources in Practical Advice offer assistance about such topics as writing a syllabus, encouraging discussion, and addressing disruptive student behaviors.

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