They are virtually toy cameras, but they work - and they make it clear that it's the students' visual imagination and selectivity that enable them to make strong images, rather than the sophisticated equipment. Then I teach them to look for unexpected juxtapositions, where two or more elements play off each other in an interesting way. We talk about classic juxtapositions - rich vs. poor, young vs. old. One I ask them to zero in on is man vs. nature, or the built landscape vs. the natural landscape. Eventually, Wicks invites students to assemble panoramic views or montages, extending the camera's ability to see across space and time to tell a story, or to create distortions and illusions.
Students critique each other's work and keep journals in which they respond to various images.
They are ways of accessing ideas and figuring things out. But unlike other languages, imagery is global. You can show a dramatic photograph to people from 10 different cultures, and, no matter what languages they speak, there will be an engagement, a reaction. You could look at the same photograph 100 years from now and it would still tell you something. It is our job as educators to send students out into the world fluent in that language, knowing their experience reading images will enable them to look more discriminatingly at things.