Visionary: I. Introduction

“‘The illiteracy of the future,’ someone has said, ‘will be ignorance not of reading or writing, but of photography.”

 —Walter Benjamin, A Small History of Photography.

Welcome to Photography 100. This is a self-guided, self-paced course intended to help you take your photography to the next level by addressing the cultural illiteracy surrounding photography, enabling you to observe better. Through a humanistic approach, this course combines art + psychology + photography to make you a better communicator.

In college, lower level courses are usually designated using hundreds, and graduate level courses are designated by using thousands. Although this course is for anyone interested in photography, we want to be clear upfront that it’s for people who are interested in a deeper understanding of photography and its use as a tool for communication. There are plenty of basic books and websites out there if you just want to use a camera. This course is for those select few who wish to delve deeper into what photography is, how to look at pictures, and how to connect what you see in your mind to the final image you develop.

These pages will grow and evolve over time, incorporating new material and new perspectives. None of the pages will remain static, and we hope that you will benefit in revisiting each of them as you evolve as a visionary.

Moreover, the other articles on the site build upon and enhance the concepts discussed in this course. Read them all.

Let's begin.