This exploratory study looks at how a sample of preservice teachers and historians read visuals in the context of school history. The participants used eye tracking technology and think-aloud protocol, as they examined a series of online primary source photographs from a virtual exhibit. Voluntary participants (6 students and 2 professional historians) were recruited at a bilingual Ontario University in fall 2011. From this group, the authors used a purposive sampling of three participants who represented the novice-intermediate-expert spectrum and whose results displayed typicality among other participants with similar educational backgrounds.