So simple a child could do it ... better than I can

Anybody else find that when your kids get their hands on your camera the pictures they take are better and more creative than yours? It makes fee feel both proud and inadequate

 

Another

 

Last one

 

I had a similar experience once, years ago, when a friend's daughter asked to take a couple shots with my then-new Minolta A200. She snapped off about two or three shots and when I went through the cards later (this was at the end of a long day of event photography), I realized she probably would have been a better choice of photographer for the even than me....
As much fun as that camera was, I never could get an acceptably sharp photo with it, but this 8 year old shooting automatic managed to get tack-sharp shots..

 

Definitely! She even likes film!

 

We often realise our ambitions and desires through our young...

 

Well you know what they say: the youngest baby is the oldest human being on earth. So it makes sense.
From a totally different angle (literally), I found the height of people affects what they see a lot. My wife and daughter are all photographers (I used to joke that when we take photos there's no one in front of the camera) and I found that our different heights radically affects how we see a scene.
Many a times we were standing on the same spot and looking at the same scene, they would tell me to take a beautiful scene and I couldn't see anything special, but when I gave them the camera and let them take it, I saw a beautiful picture.
They can't be too young though; once a 5 year old showed great interest in my Minilux. So I gave it to him and showed him how to handle it, but he couldn't even put the view finder to his eye.

 

My son, when about four years old, took a lovely portrait of my parents standing close together in a bush setting. If I had taken the photo I would have gone in closer, but the wide photo he had taken emphasised their closeness in a greater surround. It also reminded me how less intimidating a child with a camera is to their subject, unlike an old bloke like myself.
In fact, I have had a lifetime of people viewing my latest roll of prints with close to indifference, then suddenly exclaiming - "THIS ONE IS GREAT, - ...and your in it Dave." To which I had to explain that was the ONE photo on the roll where I handed the camera to someone else. (Not always a kid).

 

Picasso said that it took him 4 years to learn to paint like Raphael, and all his life to learn to paint like a kid.

 

It's the wife with me. Her shots with the cheap little Sony digacam are so much better than mine with my DSLR or extensive collection of film cameras that include my new (to me) M4-2.

 

Unconstrained, they have an advantage. There's the joy of the mischief in that first one. You've probably told her a million times that you won't get a good photo holding a camera in one hand like that. You were wrong, and she always knew it. She knew to look at the camera lens and not herself, and that leaving her left hand off the camera would make a better shot of her. She must have prefocussed too. Her sister cannot believe what she's up to. Very good indeed.

 

Children photograph stuff that means something to them. They're not constrained by a bunch of silly rules of composition, worrying about the horizon (whether it's straight) or other mumbo jumbo that "photographers" worry about. Also as Nee said they have a great angle from their shorter viewpoint. Moms seem to be able to cut thru the mumbo jumbo also and photograph what's important to them. Don't get in between a mom and her snapshot.

 

I love that shot, I keep looking at it.
You guys are right, the kids do not know the rules.
That way they are not constrained by them.
Maybe we could learn something today from them.
Thanks for a great post.....

 

Both eyes open, too!
I'm impressed!

 

Richard G,
Your little paragraph of insights is as beautiful as the photograph itself.
Fred

 

Thanks Fred, how kind.

 

Interesting thread. My daughter Asta took this one of her mother when she was three-and-a-half

Lately - two years on - she often insistes to borrow my pocket compact (Panasonic FX-10) and shoots like 50 pictures in six minutes. Obviously, she knows how to review the pictures, but she has also learnt to turn the mode dial to the "Heart" posistion first to turn the colours on. She doesn't like to shoot in the B/W mode like I do

Soeren

 

Oh, and this one I took just a couple of days ago. Anton is two-and-a-half and really loved trying out Grandmas camera... Haven't seen the outcome yet, but he was very enthusiastic and apparently had no problems using the viewfinder.

Soeren

 

That's why Picasso loved to be around children, including his own, until they were about 11 or so. He was inspired by their perceptions and observations. He quickly became disinterested, in his own as well, as they matured!

 

That's why Picasso loved to be around children, including his own, until they were about 11 or so. He was inspired by their perceptions and observations. He quickly became disinterested, in his own as well, as they matured!

 

Forgot to take the lens cap off.

 

I don't have children but according to my intermittent observations about them, all the above rings true. And that first pic is really nice!
IMHO children learn more quickly not just because they have more flexible brains, but because their attitude is unhampered by over-intellectualization (that isn't even a word is it?). They are much more free-flowing.
But wait. Don't you know that children should always be given crappy or basic cameras to learn with? Otherwise who will make use of all those K1000s? What is she doing with an adult's camera? That shouldn't be. I demand that first pic above be un-taken and the girl be given an old compact, disposable or K1000 to take the shot with. This is apparently the consensus of the wiser people on this forum. Sarcasm... off.