I have attached both my ARP and Ethics Form to this post.
You can read the plan below
How can smartphone zoom photography disrupt approaches to visual literacy in photography education to enhance critical thinking during a time of social-media-driven image production?
1. Context and Rationale
Smartphone cameras have become the default mode of image creation for students. The zoom function—often dismissed as low quality or amateurish is deeply entangled with social media aesthetics, digital interpolation, and algorithmic image shaping. Traditional photography education rarely engages with zoom as a valid conceptual tool.
This project investigates how smartphone zoom photography can disrupt conventional photographic norms and enhance critical thinking by foregrounding mediation, distortion, and the politics of looking.
2. Research Question
Primary question:
How can smartphone zoom photography disrupt approaches to visual literacy in photography education to enhance critical thinking?
Sub-questions:
- What assumptions do students hold about zoom and image quality?
- How does intentional use of zoom change their approach to visual analysis?
- What critical conversations emerge when zoom is treated as a conceptual tool?
- How does this method affect their ability to critique images in the age of platform culture?
3. Theoretical Framework
Berger, J. (1972) Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin.
Mirzoeff, N. (2015) How to See the World. London: Pelican.
Fontcuberta, J. (2014) The Post-Photography Era. Barcelona: Editorial Gustavo Gili.
(Note: English edition sometimes published as Pandora’s Camera.)
Couldry, N. and Hepp, A. (2017) The Mediated Construction of Reality. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Manovich, L. (2020) Cultural Analytics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
(for algorithms, platform aesthetics)
Rubinstein, D. and Sluis, K. (2008) ‘A Life More Photographic’, Photographies, 1(1), pp. 9–28.
(for democratisation of photography, everyday devices)
Freire, P. (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Herder and Herder.
(for experimental/critical pedagogy
4. Methodology (Action Research)
Diagnose
Short task: students take two images normal and maximum zoom followed by reflection.
Data: notes, discussions, initial images.
Plan
Design workshop integrating zoom based exercises, mini-lecture, critical prompts.
Action
Deliver workshop: zoom experiments, uploads to shared board, group critique.
Evidence Collection
Collect images, reflections, discussions, surveys.
Evaluation
Analyse changes in student language, conceptual awareness, criticality.
Reflection
Refine exercises, identify future directions, integrate into curriculum.
5. Ethics
Voluntary participation, anonymised data, no social-media scraping, safe critique environment.
6. Expected Outcomes
- Increased student awareness of digital mediation
- Enhanced critical thinking in image analysis
- Expanded understanding of photographic materiality
- More inclusive and contemporary pedagogy
A repeatable teaching model After much thought I reassessed whether it would be feasible to include Autoethnography into the plan. Maybe in the future if I develop a model for using this ARP into my teaching practice it can become incorporated.
Notes on ARP
Sitting in the lectures regarding the ARP brought about a new way of thinking about the ways to approach teaching within contemporary photographic practice and the possibilities of incorporating a way of thinking about image making. Whilst I understand the need for a disciplined approach to delivery of the curriculum, I find that sometimes this approach limits the students as they may feel it too rigorous , a point A to Z to final outcomes. I also feel that students who haven’t been exposed to what is deemed liberal arts can find themselves shoe horned into a ‘system” of expectation of the success model.
What if that can be challenged ? What if the dialogue between educator and student can become a freer discourse. A learning curve for the educator to respond understanding cultural differences and nuances thorough the system and at hand equipment for students to imagine possibilities without the constraints of expenses such as analogue film at the very least in the formation towards to making work.
Most importantly how do we as educators give the confidence to students to break away from expected norms of ‘good images” to more pertinent images for the 21st century.
The difficulties however are also within the constraints of the art / commerce model of content creation within the industry.
Is this a matter of expectation from both the artist and the client ?
How to ‘survive” in an enviroment that is rapidly changing?