On June 16th, I taught a Digital Photography for Budding Photographers class. This photo class was designed for children ages 6 to 12. The class was well attended and well liked by the participants. I think, at least I hope, that the kids got a lot out of it. I know I did.

The first thing about this class that really blew me away was how capable and smart the kids are. I had intended to spend the first hour of class going over basic camera operation; how to turn it on, where to look, what button to push to make a picture, that kind of stuff. This is what I do in my Digital Point and Shoot Photography class for adults, and it takes a few hours to cover this material. I thought, “OK, I’ll cut it down to just the bare basics for the kids”.

Surprise, these kids all ready knew all this stuff. My planned hour of lecture turned into 15 minutes of what seemed to me like a class full of kids politely placating the old guy and expressions of, “duh, tell me something I don’t know”. It was great, I was left standing there with a bunch of totally capable photographers eager to get on to the good stuff; making pictures.

I am not a child educator of psychologist, but suspect it has do with the sponge like ability of a child’s mind to learn. The fact that they are in school, practiced at learning, and the fact that they are growing up surrounded by computers and electronics. They were totally comfortable with digital cameras and just eating up what I had to offer with far greater speed and ease than my adult students.

So off we headed to the park, cameras in hand, leaving the classroom behind. Now the real fun begins, actually taking photos. I created a photography scavenger hunt for the kids. It is a list of subjects I wanted them to find and photograph. There are categories and specific subjects they have to find and photograph earning them points. I hoped to force their creativity and ability to use their cameras in the ways we had talked about in class. They all did great. Again I was very impressed by their ability especially to interoperate the items on the list and bring back really creative images.

As adults we seem to get really hung up on the technical stuff. Things like how to operate our cameras and what equipment we should buy. I say over and over again in the classes I teach that it is not the camera that makes great pictures, but the photographer. The camera is only a tool and the real creativity comes from the person behind it. Kids seem to already know this.