Show Us Your Day
Do your kids like to take pictures with a digital camera or with their phones? It’s often surprising—at least to me—when a child first starts taking pictures of things in their normal, everyday environment.
It reminds us again that they see their world through a different perspective from our own. The angles are different (especially if they’re still young and short); what they see as noteworthy is different; how they frame their shots is different.
This month’s family activity is all about using digital cameras or camera phones to get the members of your family to show each other the highlights from a day in each of your lives.
The point of the activity is to give us a greater understanding both for what each of us experience in a day and for how each of us sees the world. What do we think is beautiful? Funny? Odd? Important? Meaningful? The pictures we choose to take helps to reveal that.
Try This:
Obviously, this will work best on a day where all or most of you are going your separate ways. Or perhaps you could make it an assignment for a different member of your family on select, special days this month.
Either way, make sure each member of the family who is old enough to participate is equipped with a digital camera. Camera phones are okay if they take good pictures that can be downloaded onto a computer available for this activity. If necessary, you could pick up a cheap, disposable digital camera for each of you.
For younger kids, a parent or older sibling can take some pictures for them at various moments throughout the day.
The assignment is this: Each family member is to take at least 20 shots of representative or interesting or important or beautiful or funny moments in his or her day. Since these are digital images, though, each person may take as many as desired. These shots can be as artful or abstract or specific as each person wishes them to be. They can include people or not, food or not, everyday moments or unique events. The only requirement is that they represent the person taking the picture in some way.
At the end of the day or days, ask each person select 10 or so shots to share with the rest of the family. You could either look at them together on a computer or go to the extra effort to print them out. Take turns having each person walk the family through their day using these visual illustrations.
Once everyone has displayed their photos and described their days, create a photo collection with two shots from each of you. The first image will be one chosen by the person who took it. The rest of the family can vote on the other image to be included from that person.
These pairs of images can then be collected to be displayed somewhere prominently in your home for a while.
As part of discussing the activity together, talk about what each family member’s photos tell you about that person. What do they say about his day-to-day life? What surprised you about her shots? What did he shoot that others had never noticed before? Think about coming up with two or three words to describe each person’s daily life or personality or photographic style.
Your role as the parent is to help each member of your family to feel special and appreciated for his or her unique perspective on life.
Finally, encourage your family members to use the photos displayed in your home as a reminder to pray for each other regularly and to thank God for the opportunity to be in your family together.
