Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/photography-and-childrens-right-to-participate/5025546/
*Photos can be found in the pdf version of this article.
Big World, Deep Insights
Children gain from gazing at the big world through the tiny lens of any camera. Photography as a tool to construct meaning entices the child’s head, heart and hands to capture the moment, being fully present. The natural curiosity to discover details of the big world leads a child to use a camera’s zoom with zeal. Digitally reviewing the fleeting moments thus captured in the camera offers children a key to recall, relook, reject and refresh details otherwise lost. A camera within a child’s control can offer moments of intense concentration, enthusiasm and joy. Such a state of mind enriches the learning experience multifold, and can stretch the flow thereafter, leading to new possibilities to play with other mediums for deeper internalization of initial observations. For example the young protagonists are enthusiastic to help transfer the images from the camera’s memory card to review the images on a bigger screen. This extended possibility supports animated discussion, humour, looking anew at the process and the emotions that go along with initial observations, reflections, feedback and suggestions.
In my experience, scaffolding the process to review images for documentation, display, scanning ...