Kids Can Capture

Kids love getting creative with a camera and taking tons of photos. While they are in the creative process, why not give them a little photography project to keep the ideas flowing. Kids don't need a lot of direction when it comes to taking photos. Just give them a camera and they are ready to go! However, to keep them focused, here are a few ideas for getting your shutterbugs clicking away!

Tell a Story: It could be about how dad makes his famous pancakes, the story of special moment or just the day a friend came over.  Capturing all the moments is exciting!

Pets: What's so awesome about your pet? What does your pet do that makes them so special?

All Around Town: On your next shopping trip, encourage your kid to look around and capture life where they live.  They may have a newer appreciation of their town.

Get Silly: Photos don't have to make sense. Encourage kids to get silly and creative by photographing anything they like from any angle – high, low, tilted. Tell them don’t think - just capture!

Word Search: Give your kid a list of words that they must find a take a photo of. This can be lots of fun!

So the next time your kids start complaining their bored, give them a camera and a photography idea. It could keep them busy for their entire holiday; the only downside is that you may not get to your computer!

Students were encouraged to get low, get high, and move in close to their subjects while learning how to make photos from different angles.  Why? This is because the composition of the photo changed as they varied the angles to photograph the subject.  This assignment also told the students another thing. A subject may look normal at certain angles and appear amazing at other angles.

John W.   3rd grade

Kyle, Kindergarten

Elsa, kindergarten

Gabriel, 1st grade

Luke, 5th grade

Friday was the start of my 8-week C.R.E.S.T Enrichment after school photo workshops. These classes are for kids K-5 in Santa Monica. I always start week 1 with creating Cyanotypes or sun print. A cyanotype is a cyan blue-colored photographic print that is made from the cyanotype process. Basically, you use the sun (uv-light) to create an image on specially treated paper to create a type of blue-print. The print is usually on paper but can be made on any surface that is able to soak up the iron solution used in the process, including cotton, silk and wool.  It was considered one of the very first methods of early photography.