Intervention Proposal: Inclusive Toolkit for Photography Workshops
My role as a specialist technician in photography at LCF involves delivering varied workshops—from analogue and darkroom to digital, studio, and post-production. In my intervention, I aim to develop a toolkit to embed inclusive practice into the structure and culture of technical learning within my workshops and my team. This study will focus on improving access and engagement for students with diverse needs, identities, and learning styles.
The practice of professional photography, especially within the fashion industry, assumes physical ability, sometimes neurotypical processing, and prior familiarity with technical language or equipment. These assumptions can create barriers for disabled, neurodivergent, multilingual, or otherwise marginalised students. My aim is to shift from reactive accommodation to proactive, inclusive design – something I have been thinking about quite a lot recently, and I’m up for the challenge of exploring avenues and solutions to better my practice, with the hope of implementing it in my technical department.
This intervention will take the form of an Inclusive Teaching Toolkit. I will be looking into:
- Flexible task adaptations for technical processes.
- Revising asynchronous materials to be screen-reader friendly and available in multiple formats.
- Access reflection prompts embedded in pre-briefs.
- Diversifying my reference list, centring underrepresented photographers and artists.
- Optional, inclusive crit formats; and finally
- Developing a short workshop or discussion session – exploring how access, identity, and belief shape photographic practice.
I plan to pilot these changes in at least one workshop (to be confirmed) and collect informal student feedback to refine the toolkit. The aim is to create something sustainable, shareable, and adaptable across different technical contexts.
My approach is grounded in critical pedagogy and a belief that access must be designed into the learning environment – not added as a response, but embedded as a shared responsibility. The goal isn’t to redesign the curriculum overnight, but to take small, intentional steps that can shift how inclusion is understood and embedded in technical learning.
* “Toolkit” refers to the modular, adaptable nature of these resources – designed for ongoing development, use, and co-creation in technical teaching.