The Smithsonian Photography Initiative introduces you to extraordinary collections of photographs and to an understanding of the integral roles photographs play in our lives.

Photography and the Smithsonian were born within a decade of each other in the mid-19th century. The fledgling Smithsonian was quick to adopt the camera to advance its mission, cataloging plant and animal species and documenting the grandeur of the American landscape as well as its original inhabitants. Photography brought the faraway near and made visible the previously invisible.

Today we have more than 13 million images in some seven hundred collections throughout our museums and research centers. The collections are organized by museum and discipline—for instance, the National Museum of Natural History holds natural science images in its collections, the National Air and Space Museum houses images of flight in its archives, and the National Museum of African Art holds photographs of Africa in its collections. We believe that the Smithsonian’s ability to look at photography broadly and in context makes the Institution unique. Beyond locating and describing the hundreds of Smithsonian photography collections, the SPI website lists all the current and upcoming photography programs that happen at the Smithsonian, both online and on the ground.

Click Photography Changes Everything

The Smithsonian Photography Initiative (SPI) invites you to contribute to click! photography changes everything, a collection of commentaries by invited contributors and visitors like you, exploring how photography shapes the way we understand the world.

You can submit your photo and story anytime to be considered for the click! website. SPI curators will review and feature new visitor-contributed text on a monthly basis, so yours could be next!

Visual Literacy Lesson Plans

At the Smithsonian we believe that being familiar with an image’s context is an important part of understanding its meaning. We also believe that being culturally literate requires you to use the visual language of photography in an active, critical, and creative way.