Introducing Toddlers To Photography

For anyone that has children and loves to photograph them, there comes a point when they will be interested in what you are up to. For us, that happened about 6 months ago, when our son Brandon became aware that something was going on. He was about 2 and a half at the time, and he was very curious with not only the piece of gear we were holding in our hands, but the lights and display action that was happening on the back.

He’s taken several leaps forward since then, and I’d like to share how we approached this and how you can too!

Since I am at pro photographer by day, I am always worried that Brandon will get into my gear. I try hard to keep it out of reach, but sometimes I get back from a shoot and set the camera on the counter and he becomes curious. He knows that if I take a picture of him, he just has to look on the back of the camera to see himself. ‘See Brandon see Brandon,’ we would often hear. Which brings me to my first tip.

Give The Kid His Own Picture

Several months ago, we found ourselves getting some pictures in a traditional, ‘Sears-like’ setting. Of course, I hated them, but we ended up with several prints anyways. One of the first things we did was to give Brandon his own wallet print of the family. He carries it around and can wrinkle it, color on it, etc. We don’t care. In fact, if I saw him lighting a match to it I wouldn’t be too upset But it did keep him occupied because he felt he had his own picture.

Then, we took the next step.

Give The Kid His Own Digital Camera

Whoa, that sounds like a big step (and it’s going to get bigger still)! Actually, it’s not that bad. There are several companies on the market that sell these, and most start in the $50 range and go up.

For a Christmas present, we decided to go with the Fisher Price digital camera. It’s a little pricey than the other versions, but I picked it up because we saw it in the store (and quite frankly, I was shocked that such a thing existed and figured this was the only model out there!).

The picture quality isn’t that great. In fact, it’s downright nasty. But it works good enough that he can use it and get results. In fact, he’s almost a master at it. I’ve seen him actually pose stuffed animals. At 2 and a half years old. Here are some example shots:

Again, nothing great to be sure! but it is an excellent way for the kids to start on their own path to photography! The images from this particular camera clock in at around 1280×960 and about 250k. If I do my math right, that’s somewhere around 1.2 Megapixels.

It uses a memory card that you would find in other (adult) digital cameras, so pulling the images off is a breeze. I usually delete 95% of them, and keep the ones that truly shine.

Give The Kid His Own Portable Digital Media Device

This is the big one, and it’s not for everyone. Here’s how we got there. Brandon had his camera, but he also loved flipping through pics on daddy’s iPhone. Cute at first, until he started deleting pictures, emails, videos, and more. He also became pretty possessive of the iPhone, and it started to get on our nerves. Luckily, we had one of the original iPod Touches lying around, and so we loaded it up with pictures and gave it to him.

He only gets to use it at home, and he can’t take it to bed or in the bathtub or anything like that. It does keep him occupied though, and his ability to flip through pictures and watch episodes of ShootTheBaby are pretty impressive. In fact, my wife has said that he can work it better than she can!

So that’s how we’ve approached digital photography with our (now) 3 year old. I suspect in a few years, he will be looking for an upgrade, which would be nothing less than what daddy expects of him

I hope you found this baby photography tip helpful, and if you’ve found another way to introduce kids to digital photography, please share it in the comments below!

Tags: cameras, digital

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