At last! John Berger’s fantastic BBC documetary series Ways of Seeing is on Youtube. Many many thanks to Manwithaplan999 for uploading the intro. Let’s hope it stays. Clearly copyright will soon be all a thing of the past.

See the rest of the videos on the video’s Youtube page, and the book fully scanned on Scribd

I used to use this documentary series to capture the attention of year 9 (15-16 year olds) in high school art classes. It never failed! I think my passion for the subject use to come through though – even the other teachers would sit in the class just to watch it all go on. It was a pretty cool.

I think the era of the documentary helped the kids to reflect on their own context a little easier. Once they got over giggling about the hair dos and stuff, they quickly quietened down and started to see something of themselves in it. The little book that came before it is nice and small and really is easy to get through with the age group. We used to tear into magazines and I had them imitating the ads in their own photographic efforts.

There really is a lot that can be done in high school with Berger’s work. I hope, now its on Youtube, we’ll hear of more kids spinning out about too.

Advertisement