Before I start this week’s post, I would like to say that I was amazed at research studies being done on photography and children. I never thought this aspect of early childhood would be formally studied. Both of the papers were an interesting read, since I’ve always been interested in photography and wanted to know how children see the world through photographs and what they capture in these photos. I think every picture has a story behind why the child took it, some may be because it reminds the child of a memory or maybe just because they liked colours they captured in their pictures. This could be another way of trial and error for the children to experiment with. Now with the latest digital cameras, children can take a picture and then immediately afterwards look at it. This way the children can get immediate results.

I think it’s very important to let children use cameras and take pictures, because this is how they are going to learn and experiment with the different settings and options of the camera. It’s also very significant for children to play with photography because as a child takes pictures he learns and understands that every picture has a story behind it. My cousin used to play with her father’s palm pilot and she used to take pictures of herself or of us, and when I used to look at the pictures I used to think how a 4-year old could actually have a creative imagination. These shots were very artistic which sometimes I haven’t seen adults pull it off and each shot had a story or memory attached to it.  The article “Children as photographers” really explained this thought in detail.

The article “Very Young Children’s Development in Moviemaking” was also very appealing to read because I never thought that 2 to 4 year olds could record videos. I don’t know if I would be comfortable giving a 2 year old a camcorder, however it would be very exciting to see what they could record and how the world looks like from their perspective.

I remember the first time I made a video was in grade nine, but now reading about very young children using it makes you think of where technology is taking the world.

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