Children as Photographers

In her article, "Empowering images:  Using photography as a medium to develop visual literacy," which forms the basis for the latest Out of the Box Training Kit, Alexandra Cruikshank describes how the Boulder Journey School has nurtured children to be photographers so that they can play a role in communicating their perspective and in documenting their work.  In the article Cruikshank explains...

"A first step in guiding the children in our class towards intentional photography was to suggest frames for the children’s investigations.  On one occasion, we took a walk around the school, asking the children to take pictures of interesting points on the walk.  As we walked, we passed another teacher.  The group paused momentarily while the two teachers spoke.  Upon reviewing the photographs, I found a picture of our feet during this pause.  This gave me a view from the child’s perspective.  What for me had been an inconsequential pause during our walk, for the child it had been an important moment.  She had not photographed our faces, which makes me think it was not our conversation that had interested her; rather it was the positioning of our feet that caught her attention.  Was she looking at the language of our bodies?  Did she feel this was an important moment because the feet had stopped?"

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