As a child growing up, I wasn’t really exposed to photography but I had a great interest in the pictures my parents took. I am in my early 30s, so to give you an idea, back then a camera was really something fancy and it wasn’t something that was going to be handed to a child to let them play with it. There were just way too many parts that could be broken.
Today, though, is a much different world. Several months ago, my youngest son, who is 3, spotted my Canon POS (point and shoot – not piece of..) camera and asked if he could take some pictures. My immediate reaction was to simply say, “No.”, to which his immediate response is, “pleeeaasssse?”. So, I actually thought about it and looked at my camera and decided, why not? It would be neat to see what kind of things captured his attention.
I gave my son the camera and he immediately puts it to his eye and starts to shoot. He walks around the entire house, click, click, click. 20 minutes and 157 pictures later, I tell him that was enough for now and we would look at the picture’s on Mommy’s computer which he got all excited about as he always looks forward to seeing pictures on the computer.
More than half of the pictures were unidentifiable, but he would tell me a little about each one. It was interesting to see the things he took pictures of and what he found interesting: the dust bunnies in the corners, his mess of a room, the toilet, etc. But the majority of the pictures were of things he liked: his brother, mom and dad, his toys, the tv, his snack, the family pets.
I learned a lot from looking at my son’s photos, especially that he doesn’t look up much! As someone who enjoys finding that perfect shot, the simple things, the things that matter, often get overlooked and it takes a child to remember what’s important in life.
4 Comments
Lovely post Sara, thanks for this
My daughter loves taking photographs and is getting pretty good. Perhaps I should do a follow up with some of her snaps?
My, then, 4-year-old son had a habit of sneaking off with our Canon and we’d find strange shots of the landscape of his bed scattered with Army men posed for combat as well as images of his favorite stuffed animal. We ended up getting him the Fisher-Price digital camera and he’s so happy to have it. He passes it around at school and brings home a wonderful pictorial of his day. The pictures aren’t great, but they’re sufficient for 4×6 prints. We’ll upgrade him to a “real” camera in about a year.
Thanks for the comment Gina! I know exactly what you mean about him sneaking off; mine does it all of the time and it’s always interesting to see what kinds of things he has shot (to include pics of my butt). I’ll be getting him a camera for Christmas this year as well. I will look into the Fisher-price one!
My son now 6 had a similar request at age 4. Eventually I gave in and let him use our older point and shoot camera. He would run around the house diving on the floor taking pictures of toys and other things of interest. I was amazed at the shots he took. The composition in many shots was excellent. He now steals the camera during vacations and runs around taking shots of the things he finds most interesting. A wonderful way to gain insight into your kids mind.