TeachingSpace - What to do - Landscape

Camera

Source:

See Joseph Cornell’s book Sharing Nature with Children, Volume 2
Adapted from Joseph Cornell’s Sharing Nature with Children sample activities

OBJECTIVE

This calming activity allows the participants to view their surroundings in a clear and fresh way. Because the ‘Camera’ activity uses nature experiences instead of verbal explanations, very young children can participate just as fully as adults. This fun activity allows participants an opportunity to look at the landscape around them with fresh eyes.

Did you know?

Photography" is derived from the Greek words photos ("light") and graphein ("to draw"). The word was first used by the scientist Sir John F.W. Herschel in 1839. It is a method of recording images by the action of light, or related radiation, on a sensitive material.

Photographic cameras were a development of the camera obscura, a device dating back at least to the 11^th century which uses a pinhole or lens to project an image of the scene outside onto a viewing surface. Before the invention of photography, there was no way to preserve the images produced by these cameras apart from manually tracing them. However, Johann Heinrich Schultz discovered in 1724 that a silver and chalk mixture darkens under exposure to light. Joseph Niépce built on this to make the first permanent photograph using a sliding wooden box camera.

Before the activity

Discuss what cameras are, and what people did before cameras were invented. Look at paintings of landscapes (see ‘Frame It!’ activity for suggested links). Demonstrate the lens opening and shutting in a camera to allow the light in, and how we use a shutter button.

Discuss what makes interesting and beautiful landscapes and pictures. What elements do they want to capture?

Discuss teamwork – the camera player will be dependent on the photographer, but they must remain silent where possible. You may need to take time to show the group how to guide their "blind" camera sensitively and protectively, so a pre site visit ‘trial run’ would be useful.

A digital camera brought on site will enable real photographs to be taken and brought back to school as a record of each child’s chosen view.

The activity

The children work in pairs. Choose a site where the players can view the surrounding landscape and make choices about which way they can look. In each pair, one player takes the role of photographer, and the other plays the camera. The photographer guides the ‘camera’, who keeps his/her eyes closed, on a search for beautiful and interesting views. When the photographer sees something he likes, he points the camera's lens (eyes) at it, framing the object he wants to "shoot." Then he presses the ‘shutter button’ (see below) to open the ‘lens’. Shutter button opening and closing can be done by the photographer tapping her/ his partner’s shoulder. For the first picture, it may help for each photographer to say "Open" with the first tap, and "Close" with the second.

It's important that the ‘camera’ keep his/ her eyes closed between pictures, so that the 3- to 5-second "exposure" will have the impact of surprise. Encourage the photographers to be creative in choosing and framing pictures. When viewing the landscape, encourage them to take a wide view. But you could also ask for an ant’s eye view of the landscape, to encourage them to look at the detail – for example a close-up of tree bark, or from an unusual angle..

The preferred "exposure time" (ie eyes open time) is 3 to 5 seconds, to maintain the camera player’s concentration.

Suggest photographers to take a certain number of pictures, eg five, then trade places with their partners.

After everyone has played both roles, give each player a 3 x 5 index card and tell them, "Remember one of the pictures you took when you played camera. Develop it by drawing it, and give it to the photographer." Alternatively, they could take a permanent record with the digital camera, for follow-up back at school.

Suggested follow-up

Pupils can transcribe key elements of their images on small squares of clear acetate with felt pen, and mount these inside card frames. With an OHP or projector, the class can watch the slide show of their personal views of the landscape back in the classroom.

Each pair can take on the role of journalist/ reporter and write about their pictures - for example, if they were promoting that part of the landscape to tourists or visitors.

Sunprint paper can to used record images either during the site visit or back in the playground, to demonstrate the role of light energy in creating images on sensitive paper.

Downloads

The history of cameras

Activities