Finding Inspiration

This week, I get to combine two things very close to my heart. My love for educating children and photography.

I was asked by my son's school to help with their summer camp program. For a week, I will share my knowledge of photography with little ones, mainly between the ages of 3 and 5 years old. So far, I am so elated by their curiosity and their ability to apply what they are being taught.

I use to be an Early Childhood educator, for about 6 years. I worked with infants and toddlers mostly and was always amazed at their intelligence. From then on, I never underestimated a child. They are far more capable than a lot of people give them credit for. So, while I knew I needed to adjust some terminology and complexities of this topic for children, I wasn't going to "dumb it down" for them. I wanted to see what they could handle and I am happily surprised by how it's going.

The first topic we've discussed is the importance of light. Here are a few of my examples I've shown them. I ask them what they see in each picture. Would my lens (we pretended our eyes were a lens) be wide open or somewhat closed? Do we see silhouettes?

We talked about the importance of timing. Do we want to "freeze" something in time? Or do we want to slow things down and make it seem more fluid? We practiced this by doing the popular "Freeze Dance" song.

We talked about composition. How can we set up a good picture? What is the story we are trying to tell?

And most importantly, I want them to feel inspiration. I want them to look around the world with their eyes open and not let the little things pass them by. We can find beauty and art everywhere. What will move them to take a picture? What textures, colors and feelings can we capture? Can we use our imagination to find something extraordinary in the "ordinary"?

This last picture cracked them up. I asked them what they saw and what could this be? This is the pattern on a dog's legs. When he was laying down, it looked like a ferret to me! The kids thought it looked like a rabbit!

It has only been a couple of days, but my eyes are filled with happy tears. 

"Miss Kristine, Miss Kristine...I took these pictures of construction because...because I was inspired"

"No...I want to take a canvas (candid) of you"

"I know what a portrait is, it's in my frame"

Out of the mouths of babes.