Photography is more than a technical art,  it is a visual language.  The fallacy of the popular notion that the  camera automatically captures not only the appearance but also the  significance of what happens in front of the lens is evident to anyone  who has had to look at someone else's vacation pictures. Their makers  may have had a wonderful time, but their cameras did not automatically  capture the depth and range of their experiences.
 

        In my 40 years of teaching photography, I have developed an  approach that has been highly successful in teaching students how  photographic images communicate the photographer's point of view and how  this communication can also be an aesthetic experience. It is based on  the idea that photography is a visual language, that this language has a  structure, and that this structure can be learned.