Kristie is an experienced and adaptive educator, sharing the tools of analog and digital photography with teenagers as a means for creative expression, personal storytelling, and social awareness.

With several years of experience developing photography programs in informal learning environments, she encourages her students to find their creative voice through photography projects, experimentation, writing activities, and collaboration. As an advocate for tactile activities, she loves introducing teens to the magic of traditional and historical processes, like printing in the darkroom or making cyanotypes. Her teaching practice also prioritizes expanding visual literacy and critical thinking skills by introducing teens to the work of notable artists, in the classroom and through field trips to a variety of cultural institutions. Many teens in Chicago do not feel that the city’s vast resources, including museums, are accessible to them. She employs frequent field trips as a means to challenge this notion, arranging visits to places such as the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Filter Photo, Garfield Park Conservatory, and the Harold Washington Library's Special Collections. This effort reflects her enthusiasm for utilizing exhibitions as a touchstone for experiential learning, and connecting young people to cultural institutions in Chicago.

Her programs have included: learning to shoot and process 35mm and 120mm black-and-white film; traditional darkroom printing; studio lighting; learning to use a DSLR camera; pinhole photography; building a camera obscura; lumen printing; cyanotypes; solargraphy; and a variety of techniques including film double-exposures, collage, self-portraiture, and creating a photo essay.

<<< Student work, 2018