I have just recently gotten back into photography after a prolonged hiatus. Yesterday my 8 (soon to be 9) year old daughter spent some time in the darkroom with me and seemed to really like it. I'm thinking of trying to introduce her to to taking pictures herself and help her take it all the way from taking the picture to developing the negatives and prints.

My bias is to set her up with my old K1000 (or a similar manual Nikon that I could also use as a second body since I had been planning to sell my Pentax gear). She's bright and I've learned from experience not to sell her short, but I want to make sure that she has fun with it while learnign about it as well. By way of example, she spent most of the darkroom time asking about the process and chemicals, e.g., why does the developer work, what does fixer do, etc. - she really seemed engaged by it, and she came to me on her own later saying she wanted to do it again.

Does anyone have any experience or ideas on to introduce a child to photography? Would you use the manual SLR approach or a P&S? How can I best stimulate her interest? Any pitfalls to avoid? I would love to come out of this with she and I having a shared interest like this. Thanks in advance for your comments.

-- Chris Werner (cbwerner@att.net), November 15, 1999

Answers

"She's bright and I've learned from experience not to sell her short."

Your daughter sounds like she is intelligent. I don't think you can lose buy encouraging her to experiment with the K1000 or FM. If she is truly very interested, a manual camera will pique her interest. If she's only transiently curious, it doesn't matter what camera she uses, she's probably lose interest quickly (and that's O.K. too).

Why don't you take her to your local library to flip through some of the basic technique books as well as some the the masters' portfolios to see what kinds of images she likes best? If you do go with the K1000, you might want to warn her that she's likely to get a lot of poorly exposed photos, and that's O.K. as well

Good luck

-- Asher (schachter@a1.tch.harvard.edu), November 15, 1999.

Chris,

I too am beginning to introduce my 7 (soon to be 8) year old and my 5 yr old daughters to the world of photography. They have also spent some time with me in the darkroom and find that interesting.

My approach is to build upon the basics of art in which they have shown some aptitude. Both have won several local coloring contests (sorry, proud daddy talking). We are learning the "rule of thirds" by using a marker to draw "thirds" lines on photos in old magazines and then talk about what interesting things in the photo fell close to the intersections of the lines or on the lines themselves. I will ask them to draw a picture with a lake, mountains, and sun using the rule of thirds. We look at photos and find the main subject and secondary subjects. We use our markers to identify basic compositional shapes in photos. We look at portraits and guess how many lights were used and where they were by counting the catchlights in the eyes and finding other clues.

They use our "point and shoot" to look through the viewfinder and find their art, then pull the trigger. I think photography at this age means "making a pretty picture". BTW- my wife just walked by (not knowing what I am typing) and mentioned that our oldest daughter was "being a photographer today. She set up a studio...etc." Cool!

They have lots of questions both in the darkroom and out but I think if I pursue the technical side of things too much they will soon lose interest. I answer all of their questions simply and praise their photos. They both took top honors in their respected age groups at the Texas Professional Photographer's Association Children's Photography Contest last summer, so we must doing something right.

We home school and one of the basic ideas in undertaking that role is to understand that children, like adults, have different personalities, interests, and learning traits. I think you should try various approaches and see what areas she responds to, then follow that path. Provide lots of opportunity, encouragement and praise. Success is measured not in the quality of her photography, but in the quality of time you spend together.

Have fun! Rick

-- Rick Stiles (rstiles@ghg.net), November 15, 1999.

Get her a Canon AE1 and let her start out shooting it on automatic then later let her start learning about f stops and such. Let her begin by discovering photography by seeing what her photographs are supposed to look like, then let her learn what is happening to the film and what the camera is doing to cause that. I think starting out with tech stuff would soon bore a child that age. Also, go to the library and expose her to a large varitey of photographic styles. What you like may not be what she likes. Remember, she's not you, let her be herself and discover her self visually.

-- Joe Cole (jcole@apha.com), November 16, 1999.

A fun way to teach some basics might be to build a pinhole camera out of an oatmeal box (or whatever people use these days) and image on a piece of photo paper. Kids also like to get under the cloth of a view camera to see how it works (if you have a press or view). I don't know the answer to SLR or P&S, but you should buy her something (maybe used) that's rugged, and that she can call her very own and carry anywhere she wants. Good enough to reward her work, but not so good as to be a disaster if something happened to it.

-- Conrad Hoffman (choffman@rpa.net), November 16, 1999.

To keep her motivated, it is vital that your daughter experiences more success than failure. So far, this sounds easy: Let her have the P&S camera so that she has a lot of fun. But if she is an inquisitive girl, she might like to fiddle with technicalities. You are the one who knows her best.

Personally, I learnt photography by what would seem the hard way today, because at my time we did not have any automatic stuff, and my meter was a primitive selenium-cell thing. Still, I did learn it, and I stuck with it. Maybe it was my personality that allowed me to motivate myself sufficiently by looking at the few goodies rather than at the many blah negatives. But thanks to the "hard way" I have now acquired technical skills that cannot be replaced by an automatic.

As for the rules for composing an image: When I was a youth, I thought I had to learn that stuff, too. I read a lot of books, but I never understood the funny rules like "diagonals create tension" and other talk of that kind. I rather looked through the viewfinder, composed an image so that I liked it, and shot. Strangely enough, some other people also liked my images, and said so. So I forgot about the rules then. (I looked at them again later, I now I understand them, but I still don't need them, at least not consciously.) Here, too, you must try to guess as to what your daughter might like. If she is the spontaneous type (like me at the time), forget about the rules for the time being. Just give her the idea not to save on film, but to make a few shots of the same subject under different perspectives. Let her play around. She will then find out which of the images she likes best, and learn from her mistakes.

There are two basic statements in this which I would like to repeat to stress them:

#1: Don't stick too much to a method, but let your daughter tell you (though maybe not in words) what she needs.

#2: Encourage her to play around.

-- Thomas Wollstein (thomas_wollstein@web.de), November 17, 1999.

I've been working with my son (now 9) for a couple of years. I started him with the cheapest 35mm "p&s" I could find - a $15 "Regency LeClic" with fixed focus, speed, and aperture. The only control was a switch to turn the flash on and off; the advance, loading, and rewind were manual. (I really wanted him to have to THINK to advance the film so he wouldn't just burn film with wild abandon.)

Despite the Coke-bottle lens, he got some nice shots with this camera. He ran about 8 or 10 rolls of film through (including some Tri-X; I took him into the darkroom with me for the developing and printing) in the just under two years before it died. But I think he learned important basics about composition, distance estimation (it only focused to 5 feet, so he had to learn to determine that), steady handholding, and the concept of thinking before shooting.

I just got him a new camera. A $25 Vivitar this time. It has more auto functions (loading/advance/rewind, flash, focus) and feels closer to a "real" P&S. The first roll is still in it, so I don't know how the lens is yet. And yes, I occasionally let him handle my OM SLR, Minox, Pen EES-2, my dad's TLRs, etc.

Interestingly, though, I think it's my younger daughter (now 6-1/2) who has the makings of a great photographer. She's obsessed with drawing and seems very visual - on a hike once, she pulled my sleeve and said, "Look at the light reflecting on the water in the stream, Daddy - wouldn't that make a good picture?" WOW! I plan on getting her a simple camera in the next year or so, and seeing if she takes to it naturally. (Though my guess is that the mechanics of photography will be harder for her - my son is the scientist type and she's the artist type - but her eye is likely to be splendid.)

One other thing I've done to get the kids started thinking in terms of visual composition is to make photograms with them in my dad's darkroom. Getting them to find interesingly shaped and traslucent/transparent objects to lay on a piece of photo paper and expose. (They like using their dolls, action figures, spaceships, cars, etc., for this also.) I let them take turns developing - my daughter seems less bothered by getting her hands in the developer. Heck, I made photograms with my dad when I was little too, and I TREASURE these old b/w beauties now...

Anway, for younger kids, I think ultra-simple p&s cameras are the way to go. If they show a flair and an interest, you can move them up simple rangefinders or old SLRs when they get a bit older. But getting them interested early can't be bad!

(As for me, my first camera was a Brownie StarMite 127 almost "box camera" in about 1963, then a Pony 828 [remember those?!?] that had speeds and f/stops, and my first "real" camera - a Minox B - when I was 13. [Hey it was the age of The Man From U.N.C.L.E!] Soon I was using my dad's Nikkormats and Nikons, Mamiya TLRs, etc. And I've NEVER stopped!)

-- Michael Goldfarb (mgoldfar@mobius-inc.com), November 17, 1999.

Well since we are entering a new millenia, why not jump in with both feet and get a digital camera and give them a leg up on the future? Save a bunch on film (and what a good excuse to buy that writeable CD burner!) and just veiw them on this box in front of you.

I'll duck now so all you Leicaphiles can start throwing your old txp cannisters...t

-- tom meyer (twm@mindspring.com), November 22, 1999.

let her have all the film she wants and don't make it too complicated. and girls like modeling. so find some other girls that model and show her some pictures of modeling. any local talent agency has lots of kids modeling or at least learning to. it will keep her interested to be involved with kids near her age. and a person with a camera around models always get a lot of attention and for a 9 yr old that is very important. I took a short weekend class in shooting models. boy did the kids turn it on for the camera. bunch of hams. as your daughter gets better you can introduce more complex ideas and processes. but at first just let her have as much fun as she can. at this age the chances are that she will get tired of it. don't be discouraged. the important thing is that she will be exposed to photography and will come back at some time. especially when she finds out how much attention a photographer gets when her friends fiind out she can take good pictures. and be patient. kids have very shoprt attention spans. james

-- james (james_mickelson@hotmail.com), November 28, 1999.

I would recommend the P&S. The manual could be a little frustrating at first. This summer I got my son (3 1/2) a $10 P&S with flash. He kept asking to use my TLR so I got him his own. We went and took some pictures of ducks in a park and had them developed by a 1 hour photo lab so he could see what he had done while it was still fresh in his mind. He took it with to Colorado this fall and shot 5 rolls of film. When he gets a few years older I'll let him help in the darkroom if he wants. Whatever you decide, let the kids decide what they want to shoot. Otherwise it's just something mom and dad want them to do.

-- Dan Smith (dans@baywest.com), December 13, 1999.