Please review some of the following video interviews to learn from UCSC Arts and Humanities experts about some of the opportunities and pitfalls to be thinking about as you create your photographs.
- Professor & Dean Alinder: On contextualizing photography & historicizing the right to the camera
- Professor Jim Clifford: On photography with people
- Professor Ricardo Gomez: On photography as a cue for personal story telling
- Professor Kat Gutierrez: On co-creative photography and the archive
- Dr. Rachel Nelson: On photography as a technology of domination and regulation
- Professor Dimitris Papadopoulos: On Photographic constructionism
- Professor Max Tomba: On the lessons of Walter Benjamin for photographic democratization
Other highly recommended resources from Arts professors Carolina Karlic and Jennifer Gonzalez include:
- Ariella Azoulay (2005) “The Ethic of the Spectator: The Citizenry of Photography”
- Erina Duganne, Heather Diack, and Terri Weissman (2020) Global Photography: A Critical History
- Latoya Ruby Frazier’s website
- David Hevey (1992) The Creatures Time Forgot: Photography and Disability Imagery (1st ed.)
- Allan Sekula (1986) “The Body and the Archive”
- Susan Sontag. (2004). Regarding the pain of others. Penguin Books.
Other resources of interest (accessing the first two links immediately below may require registering for free with The Lancet):
- Seeing the humanity in health, The Lancet, December 23, 2023
- Highlights 2023: capturing diverse health stories, The Lancet, December 23, 2023
- The Ethics of Posting Photos of Poverty, (Source: http://aidthoughts.org/?p=69)
- Capturing Humanity: 10 Tips for Great Street and Market Photos (Source: Uncornered Market blog, 2018)
In addition to its physical holdings, UCSC’s McHenry Library has Digital Collections of photography that can be a valuable aesthetic resource:
- Ansel Adams Photographs: Adams took the photographs between 1962 and 1968; they document the land, building sites, and early activities of the University of California Santa Cruz campus.
- Alexander Lowry Photographs: The Alexander Lowry collection consists of black and white photographs taken of downtown Santa Cruz, California, immediately after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake [and scenes of the University of California, Santa Cruz Campus].
- Ruth-Marion Baruch and Pirkle Jones Photographs: This collection contains a selection of photographs by Ruth-Marion Baruch and Pirkle Jones, whose work visually documents the people and landscape of the San Francisco Bay Area during a time of enormous social, political, and environmental change.
- Santa Cruz County Historic Photograph Collection: This collection spans more than 100 years of Santa Cruz City and county development and activity.
Envisioning Health For All: The Global and Community Health Photography Contest
Additional Resources


Photography Talks with Professor Matt Sparke & UCSC Colleagues