Have you ever given your child a camera to use? I admit, I'm a bit wary about it myself. I use my camera for my work and even though it's a digital point-and-shoot, it's a nice digital point-and-shoot. It would set me back over $100 to replace it. But most likely nothing will happen to it. And they can no longer waste film. The photos just take up some extra space on the memory card and they can be moved or deleted.
While on the , I observed many children with cameras. I thought it an interesting experiment - what will children take pictures of? The short answer - everything. As a matter of fact, some used up most of their batteries on the school bus ride there, taking silly pictures of friends and the view out the window. (Batteries being the one big limitation to the number of pictures you can take in the digital age). They also took pictures of almost every rock at the geology museum. It seemed to me that photography was a new thing to them and documenting every single thing seemed to be most important. When my daughter uses the camera at home she takes pictures of her stuffed animals, the cat and her sisters (okay, she tries to take pictures of me, but I don't allow it). These things are basically her world.
As adults, those of us who are not professional photographers tend to take pictures of important events - like birthday parties, first day of school and school concerts. If we had cameras on that field trip, we may have taken pictures of monuments, buildings and important people. And the children standing in front of/with those. Is the difference in our maturity, having "seen it all"? In boredom of looking at pictures of the ordinary? Or simply that we grew up in the age of film, where you had to pay for the film and processing so you limited yourself to important moments? Will the children look at all those pictures of rocks and feel that next time they should be more selective? Or will they delight in the memory of every detail?
My thirteen-year-old nephew recently went to South Africa with his boys choir group. He came home with over 600 photos. Yes, he took pictures of everything. And you know what? It was great. Pictures of buildings, hotel rooms and cars in addition to African animals, museums and re-enactment villages. His photos really showed us everything, all the differences (and similarities) of South Africa compared to Wisconsin. I've posted just a few here to share with you. (By the way, the photo of sailboats was taken during their unexpected layover in Senegal).
