Today, the use of photographs in publications and exhibitions is commonplace, but this was not always so. This article shows how photographs of certain schools that have had lasting impact on design stand in ambiguous relationships to the buildings themselves. Photographs function as part of the design process; they record details of construction and conserve technical information; they publicise the work of architects and designers; they inform and educate both specialists and general readers; they promote initiatives and policies; and they shape public taste and opinion. However, as Walter Benjamin observed, photographic "surrogates" of buildings are invariably removed from their original sites for visual consumption. Discussion of the divergent ways in which photographs of school buildings have been used, distributed and consumed is illustrated with particular reference to the work of Frank Yerbury, and it is meant to suggest problems educational historians encounter in interpreting representations of schools.