 |
| kodakbrowniecamera-deadtechnology.blogspot.co.uk |
I often wonder what children look for in an image. We take
for granted the many drawings paintings and doodles that children make each
day. Creating artworks is a way for children to understand and make sense of
the world around them. From the moment a child rises from their sleep, they are
exploring their world, learning all about the world that surrounds them. I feel
that I have never really grown out of this. I like to think that I still view
the world with the same curiosity that children have.
Children’s curiosity is a
compelling thing and it really is a great thing if you can try to tap into that
mindset and for me the best way to take a true glimpse of the world through their
eyes by giving them a camera. By using a camera there is no change in what they
see and what we see in the print, rather than the painting or drawing that the
child has produced that will always just represent what that individual child
has seen. Children have no hold back from preconceived techniques or “rules”.
I often find when I am out and about that children will
often come up to me and say “hay mister, can I see your pictures?” , I would
then show them some on my camera(if digital) or my Iphone and then they either
may ask to have their picture taken or to have a look through the view finder.
I am lucky enough to be God-Parent to close friends imaginative
daughters and one day the youngest, Rowan aged 3, came up to me and asked if
she could take some pictures with my camera. “Of course you can” I said, and so
set my Fijifilm compact camera to full program mode and told her to photograph
anything that captures her eyes. Off she went with the camera she looked up and
down and all around, just by the mere act of holding the camera she was now
looking at her surroundings in a far more curious and inspired manor.
These are a selection of some of the varied photographs that
Rowan took.
.jpg)
.jpg)
After seeing those photographs I looked on the Internet for
other examples of photography taken by children.
Photographs taken by African children for UNICEF's 'Eye
See' project
In Bamako, Mali, 2011, as part of the “Day of the Africanchild” UNICEF and Sony Europe set up a workshop called “Eye See” . This
workshop gave local venerable children the chance to learn all about
photography and with this, to help tell their stories of their day to day lives
in this capital city. The children were aged between 10-18yrs and were tutored
by Giacomo Pirozzi. The images the children captured featured a whole range of
subject matters such as families, friends and the extreme harsh realities of
child labour and poverty.
For the full stories on this project click the links below.
Andhra
photos taken by rural school kids
This is a project in Andhra, India where they have been given
the chance, with the aid of disposable cameras, to capture a true snapshot of
rural farm village life. Although they may be poor in the financial sense, they
are certainly not in richness of their lives as many of these photographs show.
You can find more about this project by clicking the links below.
So it really does pay to allow children to use a camera to
capture the world, a view of the world around us that we as adults or
professionals with preconceived ideas of what a photograph “should” convey and
how it “should” be taken. I feel that, as photographers, we can acquire a lot
about how we could capture an image or scene or what we really want to portray
in the photograph.
Written by Paul Hemming
Hover your pointer over left contents column then use your scroll wheel or button to view more posts.
Please feel free to leave any feedback below.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments, feedback and questions.