Give Your Kid a Camera

Each of my 3 kids has their own digital camera. They are not cheap cameras made for kids with disposable quality and very low image resolution... I bought each one second-hand through CraigsList and they're the real deal. In fact, my daughter's 30 dollar, 6 Megapixel camera with a gigabyte of memory is better than my own!

While on vacation recently, we ended each day with a memory dump of images (and movies) from everyone's cameras. We would gather around the computer each night for a sort of 21st century slide show of the day's events. That's 4 cameras total... and 4 unique perspectives on the day.

I've often wished I could be a fly on the wall in my kids' classrooms or when they are off on their own playing. Pictures and movies from their cameras are about as close to a fly's-eye-view as one can hope to get. All images are, of course, taken from a lower position than an adult's would be (it is interesting to see yourself from this perspective), are of subjects many adults would pass over, and speak volumes about the person who took them and how they experienced the day.

The first night on vacation I pulled files from cameras and found images dating back to Thanksgiving on my son Joey's camera. He likes to take pictures of people and his results are impressive. The collection included portraits of friends and family and even our waitress the last time we went out to eat (last year).

There is something about Joey that is irresistible and you can see it in the faces of his subjects. His pictures are of people with their guard down, of warm and friendly faces adorned with genuine smiles. It makes me happy to see how the world looks to my 7 year old son... and touched to see how the world looks back.

You can see a few portraits taken by Joey here.