A Call for Images
We’ve all got them — a phone full of random photos that you’ll likely never use.
Instead of leaving them to gather digital dust, we’re inviting you to set them free.
For the next six weeks (from Monday, August 25 until September 30, 2025), we’re running a Photo Dump Competition to help build the Sketchbook English conversation card deck.
This isn’t a polished photography contest. It’s about the overlooked, the ordinary, the accidental shots that hold stories:
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A freckle constellation across someone’s skin
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The way a lone car lights up a forest road
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Tools scattered across a workbench
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A half-finished sketch or painting taped to the wall
The images you share could become the spark for genuine conversation in English.
Why Real Conversations Need Real Images
Most English learners know the feeling of “faking it.” Memorising words without feeling them. Practising stiff dialogues that never quite feel natural.
That sense of unreality is made worse by fake-feeling ELT resources: glossy stock images, staged scenarios, and exercises that don’t connect to lived experience.
That’s why at True Voice English, we always use real materials. Real conversations come from real prompts.
Artists know this better than anyone — you can’t fake process, or texture, or the marks that tell a story.
Those small, unpolished details are where meaning lives.
And they’re exactly the kind of details that make language learning stick.
How the Competition Works
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Every Monday, we’ll share a Word of the Week on Instagram & LinkedIn
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You scroll through your photo library until you find the first photo that matches.
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Drop it in the comments of that post.
We’ll collect them all. For now, your images will be used digitally within our Sketchbook English course — but our ultimate goal is to publish them as a set of physical conversation cards for artists learning English (and perhaps as a tool for other language teachers).
And every week, one winner will be selected at random to receive a 50% course voucher, valid until January 2028.
This is a non-traditional call for images. It’s not about beauty, or one photo being better than another.
It’s about the conversations we can have.
Why You Should Join
Give purpose to forgotten photos from your camera roll
Contribute to a creative language-learning project with international reach
Your image can inspire real conversations
Have the chance to win a 50% voucher for Sketchbook English
Vocabulary: Photo Dump
A photo dump is a casual collection of images shared without polish or curation.
Think of the forgotten snapshots sitting in your phone — textures, half-finished work, odd details, or moments that caught your eye at the time.
It’s not about showing your “best” or most beautiful images, and it’s definitely not the postcard-perfect Taj Mahal shot.
A photo dump values the ordinary, the messy, the in-between. It celebrates real life rather than staged perfection. The juxtaposition of seemingly random components is powerful – and extremely effective for sparking real conversations.
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