Paper Cameras Study Pack is a kit for supporting the critical study of and thoughtful participation in photography. 

The kit features cards that translate a range of critical approaches, recent scholarship, and visual literacy practices into tactile learning tools.

Together, these cards invite you to slowly study one photograph at a time and discern the relationships that make and are made by our images.

 Demo

See an example of using the study pack and learn more about the underlying methods here: https://veralistcenter.org/publications/paper-cameras/.

Interested in a group order?

• Prices are per unit (i.e. per study pack). Adjust the quantity in your cart to reflect your desired number of study packs.The packs are designed to be easily shared. So, when thinking of the appropriate amount of kits for your group, I suggest a third of the number of your participants. For ex, if you have 12 students, I recommend 4 packs.
• Paper Cameras Press is an intimate platform operated by 1 person. Please place your order at least 3 weeks ahead of intended use.
• I deeply delight in connecting with educators and facilitators who are interested in using the study pack. If you want to talk through your order before placing, you can reach out via this form:

Order a pack!

• Each study pack is made to order; I make limited batches at a time.
• Each pack comes in a binder containing 3 sections, with a combined total of 27 printed cards and 2 instructional booklets.
• 1 study pack can comfortably be shared between 1-3 people.
• Paper Cameras is always learning, unlearning, and in study. I believe in living with the words and resources we have in the present, in order to learn the words and resources we need. I imagine this study pack—its language, forms, and questions—will change over time.
• Paper Cameras Study Pack is sold at a sliding scale.

Print-Yourself

• Stay tuned for a DIY version :))

The study pack can be used in many learning environments, from the classroom setting to the dispersed schools we make inside our own communities:

• photo studio classes—the cards can be brought to adult photography classes to facilitate critiques, help learners articulate personal intentions for their photo practices, and offer a tactile tool to hold themselves and each other accountable to agreed intentions.

• photo history and visual studies classes—the cards can be applied to college and/or graduate curricula to support conversations about power and visuality.

• photo-journalism classes—the cards can be used to analyze case studies for training practitioners to identify care-centered approaches to documentation and unlearn exploitative tendencies in the industry. 

• autonomous artistic practice—practitioners can use the cards at their own pace, to reflect on their photographic processes.

• archives and libraries—the cards can activate image collections through public workshops and programs.

• collective study—people can use the cards to study movement archives and identify strategies for self-determined documentation that they want to carry into present practices.

• around the kitchen table—families and loved ones can use the cards to read the weekend paper and improvise DIY media literacy games.

Since the study pack’s inception, I have been so grateful to share working prototypes with practitioners, teachers, thinkers, friends who have gifted this kit with insights and feedback that allowed this project to transform into something that can be shared with you. This project would simply not be, if it were not for:

• beck haberstroh and Mira Dayal, dear friends, collaborators, and authors of the first Paper Cameras publication, who have provided crucial insights to this whole project since its inception, and who teach me everyday what it means to make pictures with care;

• Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo, dear friend with whom I share love for the viewfinder and who has inspired me to the many ways we can carry this powerful tool and Corita Kent’s legacy;

• kimi malka hanauer who supported the development of the introduction and whose practice as well as our shared study over the years has taught me the loving power with which print-based publishing can host the transformation of intimate questions into public, critical inquiry;

• Kameelah Janan Rasheed and Orange Tangent Study for supporting me with incredible tools, imagination, and courage to face this project with deep joy, discerning curiosity, and a loving honesty;

• Those who carried prototypes to your classrooms and shared them with your students who asked incredible questions: Mira Dayal, Jesse Dritz, Rami George, Eli Greene, and Shannon Mattern, Alice Procter;

• Those who carried prototypes to your worlds, and shared them with your respective imaging practices: beck haberstroh, kimi malka hanauer, Caroline Partamian, Kat Shannon, Sophia Tareen, Raquel Vigil, and Amy Yoshitsu;

• Those who visited my studio (physically and virtually) and talked through possibilities: Mariam Karim, Tsovinar Kuiumchian, Rehan Miskci, Mher Tarakjian, Nicolay Duque-Robayo, and Kim Upstill;

• Johann Diedrick who provided immense support and thought partnership to the lifecyle of this project;

• All worker owners at Converge Collaborative who teach me how to live with process and helped bring this project to its first workshop at Open Exposures, led by Louis Bryant III and supported by Michelle McCrary and Amy Yoshitsu;

• Josh Rios for inviting a prototype to be included in an exhibition at CAPE, “Practices in Proximity: Learning and Unlearning from Pedagogical Experience” and advisorship during graduate studies that nurtured the preliminary ideas of this project;

• Re’al Christian for editing and supporting the development of the introduction and additional activations of the cards with a robust generosity that allowed me to see the personal and honest footing of this whole project;

• Artists and lifelong friends Nicole Staake, Juliana Rowlands and Lauren Sandoval, who taught me how much possibility lives in the intimacy of a photo shoot, where the materials of our everyday life can be our costumes and our props, and whose own artistic practices show how much love can be held within a view. There are so many people to whom I am indebted.

• The list keeps growing with current and upcoming projects :))