Aesthetics/Philosophy/Other Books for Children

I'm involved in the <A href="http://www.tgpa.org/childlit.htm"

target="_blank">"Children's Literacy Through Photography" Program</a>

at the Tampa Gallery of Photographic Arts. About once a month we work

with a group of children (sick, abused, at risk, all of the above)

take them out on a little photo hunt w/ digital point and shoot

cameras, select and edit their favorite photo, and try to arrange for

a showing at a local business, library etc. We're trying to focus

more on the literacy portion than we have in the past (mostly the

technical side of photography).<br><br>

 

I can come up w/ a list of books that I could recommend to someone in

their late teens - Camera Lucida, Veronica's Revenge, Edward Weston's

Daybooks, How I Learned Not to Be a Photojournalist, Crisis of the

Real, etc. but I'm at a loss for something appropriate for 10-13 year

olds (or, in some cases, even younger than that).<br><br>

 

Any suggestions?<br><br>

 

Thanks!<br><br>

 

John

I think John Hedgecoe's book "How to take great photographs" could be used as a great instructional/inspirational guide to people of all ages. John provides a practical task column in every chapter after a thorough explanation of the objective. You would have to interpret the exercise for your audience but the book lays out the basics for great photography in an easy to use manor. I have enjoyed the picture examples in the book with my three year old and he stays interested for extended periods viewing them.

 

Good luck and have fun, keep up the good work your making a difference.

 

Jeff...

Camera Lucida for someone in their late teens?!!! It can be quite difficult for a grown-up, to say nothing of the kids that, judging from your description of them, are not used to reading much. Maybe Sonntag?s On Photography (thingking of a book of the same nature, more or less) could be easier. At least I read it as a young person. Not a kid, of course.

Yeah, maybe Camera Lucida was a bad example - I'm 34 and couldn't properly explain the differences between studium and punctum to you.

 

Thanks for the Hedgecoe & Sontag recommendations! I'll look into them further this weekend. The Sontag book may be especially pertinent as a lot (but certainly not all) of these organizations are exclusively young girls. A general "How To" book would be great as well. Thanks Jeff and Sergey.

 

Keep 'em coming.

 

Thanks.

 

John

BTW - My initial thought was to compile some web site links (like to photo.net & luminous-landscape.com) and some ISBN Numbers add some brief descriptions and give it out as a "Yeah, I'm kind of into this - where to next" kind of guide. However, I've also thought of compiling a bunch of quotes seperately for inspiration or maybe a combination of the two depending on how much I come up with.

 

You know "The negative is the score, the print is the performance", etc. etc. So if you have any great quotes/excerpts (or books to check out that might be rich with those - I'd be glad to hear about those too (in addition to websites).

 

Thanks Again.

 

John

I read Camera Lucida when I was 41 (last year), in Russian - and there were places I decided not to try hard to understand, just enjoyed the book where I could.. And I read Sonntag's book when I was 20 + little something, in English. So my guess Sonntag is more "accessible"..

My recommendations....

 

<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0811807967/qid=1110676413/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/103-9069578-9273426?v=glance&s=books">My Room: Teenagers in their bedrooms</a>

 

.......

 

<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1556708343/qid=1110676413/sr=1-4/ref=sr_1_4/103-9069578-9273426?v=glance&s=books">Seen and Heard</a>

 

.......

 

 

<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/3908247373/qid%3D1110676729/sr%3D8-1/ref%3Dsr%5F8%5Fxs%5Fap%5Fi1%5Fxgl/103-9069578-9273426">Ray's a Laugh</a>

Hey Trevor - Just got back around to this topic. Thanks very much for your suggestion; I'll definitely check them out.

 

John