Apple Partners With Chicago-Based Nonprofit to Teach iPhone Photography

Apple has partnered with the nonprofit organization 100cameras to teach Chicago students iPhone photography.

According to a new press release from the Cupertino company, it’s partnering up with nonprofit organization 100cameras to teach students of DRW College Prep in Chicago how to take great photos with the iPhone 11’s advanced camera systems.

Apple is equipping the students with the iPhone 11 necessary for the program, explains the press release, and, after each session wraps up, the photographs taken with the iPhones are then printed out and sold through the 100cameras program where 100 percent of the proceeds will be given back to local community partner organizations.

“As the residents of a neighborhood in Chicago that is often overlooked, being given the new iPhone that had been released just a few weeks prior felt like a momentous opportunity,” says Angela Popplewell, 100cameras’ co-founder and CEO.

Popplewell has spent the year developing its curriculum properly adapt modern technology to be more “forward-thinking, relevant, and accessible for young people in the US,” reads the report, explaining that the iPhone was an important tool.

“To see how excited they were to utilize the camera tools specific to this model uplifted their creativity even more,” Popplewell says. “It was incredible seeing how they chose to utilize the wide-angle and Portrait modes to really capture their point of view and specific expressions.”

“It was amazing to collaborate with 100cameras and the talented and creative students at DRW,” said Kaiann Drance, Apple’s vice president of iPhone Worldwide Product Marketing. “The iPhone 11 camera with all its intuitive capabilities right there in your hand is such a powerful storytelling tool. To see the photos the students captured of the ways they see the world around them was truly inspiring.”

DRW College Prep was founded in 2012 and is part of the Noble Network of Charter Schools campus, quickly becoming one of Chicago’s top-performing college prep charter schools in the area. In 2018, 100 percent of the graduating seniors of DRW College Prep were accepted into a college.

“Chicago is not one set culture,” says J, a junior at DRW who uses photography and his saxophone as his tools for expression. “There are people from all over that combine to make what we are today. You can’t necessarily understand what Chicago is if you don’t see Chicago for yourself. It’s good to see what cultures are there and what is fading away, because you don’t know until it’s gone.”

The program has eight lessons with a series of photos drills and walks with professional photographers who volunteer with 100cameras. You can see the students’ photography at 100cameras.org.

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