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Museum of Photography

Your child lives in a time when photos are easy to take with a variety of devices and instantly accessible to the photographer. These photos are not only immediately viewable; they are also instantly shareable and easy to enhance or edit to the photographer's liking. You will help your child appreciate the ease and the creativity they are afforded when you show them what it took in previous decades to capture a photo, develop the film, and make adjustments to them. They will enjoy taking a picture and editing the photo within mere minutes while understanding that this was once a process that took weeks to employ a professional to do not so long ago.

Museum of Photography

Materials

Device (phone, tablet, computer, etc.)
Printer (optional)
Attached images
Internet access/Wi-Fi

Instructions

Take several pictures of the subject of choice on a phone or a tablet.
Review the photos and ask your child to choose one to edit and print out to frame and display.
Talk about how long it took to take a photo.
Show attached images of cameras and photo processing through the ages. Explain how each one worked and what the process was to capture and see the photos.
Choose an application on your phone or tablet to open the photo and edit. Allow your child to be creative and adjust the picture to their liking.
Once your child is finished editing- send it to the printer. If you have photo paper, you can use it, but it isn’t necessary. Plain printer paper will work fine for these purposes.
Print the photo.
Talk about how long the entire process took from taking the picture to printing it out to frame.
Use Talking Tips and images to discuss “Then and Now” and provoke thoughts and questions from your child. Help them to develop a sense of the changes through time to appreciate the technology that they have access to.

Museum of Photography

Why is this a great thing to do?

Chooses software.

Encourages creativity.

Teaches new vocabulary related to photography.

Develops technical skills in software applications/programs.

Strengthens fine motor and visual skills.

Talk About

“What do you think the very first camera looked like?”

“What body part is a camera the most similar to?”

“What kinds of things do people take pictures of?”

“What kind of photo is an x-ray?”

“How big do you think the biggest camera in the world is? How about the smallest?”

“What would you take a picture of with the biggest camera in the world? How about the smallest?”

“How are cameras used in medicine?”

“How has life changed because of photos?”

Tips & Extensions

Teach your child that the earliest photos were only black and white. Hand-painted pictures became popular to add color to black and white images until color was more common in photography.

Watch videos of stop-action photography
and compare it with the earliest forms of an
action film.

Explain all the various uses of cameras-including the cameras that we send into the human body to find out what is ailing someone.

Talk about how to take pictures underwater. Ask your child how that might work.

This lesson is an excellent opportunity to talk about social media and photos; what is appropriate and what is not. What could potentially harm or help someone else? What could be helpful to how people see you, and what would be hurtful?

Vocabulary

Film

A thin strip of light-sensitive plastic used in a camera to expose to light and an image to produce a photo.

Lens

A curved piece of glass that disperses light rays.

Shutter

A device in a camera that opens and closes to expose film in a camera to light.

Negative

Shows light and shade of colors reversed from those of the original photo.

Develop

To treat photo film with a chemical to make a visible image.

Edit

To change or correct something.

Gallery

A collection of pictures.

Prints

A photograph printed on paper from a negative or transparency, or digitally from a program to a printer.

Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) Standards

1A-IC-16

Compare how people live and work before and after the implementation or adoption of new computing technology.