USOn 11th January Sharp Shots Photo Club went to Castleview Primary School in Slough for a day of photography fun! We turned up at the school to teach two classes of year 1 students, armed with a case full of Nikon Coolpix cameras, a box of dressing up clothes and props, and a professional backdrop! We wanted the children to learn a variety of photographic skills, so started the day teaching them the basics of how to use their cameras. This involved learning how to get the ‘green square’ in the viewfinder to make sure the photograph is focused, and how to zoom in and out. Once they had understood the basics, we headed outside to photograph Colour! The children were encouraged to find every colour of the rainbow and photograph them all differently. Colour is always a fun theme to experiment with, especially in a primary school playground where there’s colour everywhere!
Once every colour was photographed we set the children a new challenge: pretend you’re an ant! This challenge involves using your brain creatively to think about what you would see if you were an ant… and then to photograph it!
After a snack came the children’s favourite part of the day… dressing up and selfies! The box of dressing up clothes and props was opened and much laughter could be heard as the children transformed themselves into different characters. We taught the children what a selfie was and how to take one (although most of the kids already knew how to!). We put the back drop up so the children could feel and pose as though they were in a real studio having their portrait taken, and they loved it!
I think the children could have continued dressing up and taking selfies for hours but it was time to move on to photographing Dinosaurs! The purpose of this task is to make the children think about perspective, focus and composition. We asked the children to photograph a small plastic dinosaur in a way which makes it look like its eating a friend, look life-size or look real! It’s not an easy task and it takes some patience and lots of thought, but the results are always amazing!
The day was full of fun, laughter, creativity and education. The children walked away with some amazing photographs and a new skill learnt. However, the day wouldn’t have been as successful as it was without the generous donation from our new sponsor Nikon School! They donated loads of amazing cameras to Sharp Shots so that we can continue to go out and teach children this amazing creative skill. The camera’s are not only funky looking (which is obviously very important to the kids!), but they have all the settings you would need to photograph almost any subject matter! From close up, to vibrant colour, to self timer, to slow shutter speed, to action mode, to night time mode and more! So thank you to Nikon School and to Castleview Primary School for such a fabulous day! Keep snapping!