Dylan loves getting his hands on my cameras. The DSLR, of course, is off limits. But I will let him play with my iPhone camera and our point & shoot. I actually had advice from one photographer to skip all kids digital cameras and give a child your older camera to play with instead. The quality of the kids cameras being not very good. That said, I don’t have an older camera to give to Dylan (our last point & shoot died) so when I found a kids camera at a consignment sale for $4, I snatched it up immediately without even knowing if it worked! When I got home and put fresh batteries in it, I was excited to see it did work (and the previous owner left photos on it – that was amusing).
When I gave the camera to Dylan he was quite excited. Finally, he could push the buttons and have fun without mom close at hand ready to intervene if he got too wild. This camera is nice and chunky & durable (plus only $4) so I haven’t flinched once when I’ve seen it hit the ground. After showing him where to look and what button to push, he was snapping away. I turned to look at something else and overheard him giggling and saying, “cheese!” When I looked back, he had the camera facing himself and was taking self portraits! It was so funny to watch.
The photos in the strip on the page above are some of the first self portraits he took. Definitely not high quality, but I love the happiness he captured and that he’s enjoying his new gadget.
Supplies: Sara Schmutz’s Recollect & Nursery Rhymes kits; Pink Trike Design’s Kraft Funday elements; Jen Allyson’s Design 365 January kit; Janda Everyday Casual & Another Typewriter fonts.
