Fab Five Ideas For Going on a ‘Photo Safari’ With the kids

With the long school holidays stretching ahead, a photo safari can provide a great free activity to do with the kids on rainy or sunny days and is also one that you can all actually enjoy doing (unlike some of the tougher to enjoy ‘lets pretend we are both My Little Ponies and we are having a birthday party’ type play!). It is creative, child led and gives the kids a chance to use and improve their technology skills and run around like the little bosses that they are.

 

1. Where to Go

The beauty of a photo safari is you can really do them anywhere! Some ideas to get you started though:

At home!

Simplest and perfect for a rainy day is to plan a photo safari in your own home. It will encourage your kids (and you) to start looking at your home and its contents with fresh eyes and see creative potential where before you just saw a pile of washing! Home is also helpful for entertaining little ones if you have your hands full with a tiny sibling..helpful advice can be yelled from the couch while feeding baby and there is no risk of the photo safari hunter disappearing off into the fields!

Local Park/ Nature Spot

These can provide tons of opportunities for hunting for photos and will get the kids out of the house for a run around in the fresh air which is always a bonus! If it is a place your kid often visits they may enjoy seeing that same old playground in new ways. It can be a great activity when meeting up with friends as kids can love the competitive element of hunting at the same time as a friend and it’s always fascinating to see how varied the images can be produced by different children following the same brief.

Beach

Fabulous for photos but maybe for slightly older kids who are less likely to drop your camera/phone in the sea (hopefully!)
Town centre. Bring out the street photographer in your child and head into town for some urban photo hunting. Loads of fun, plus bonus points for the chance of a cafe trip afterwards 🙂

2. How to Prepare:

Once you’ve decided on the location for your photo safari, you need to do a tiny bit of prep:

Make a check list of what your child needs to photograph on their photo safari (see below for ideas).

If you’ve got a clipboard and pencil for your checklist, bring it along so kids can tick off everything they have photographed from the list as they go along..kids LOVE a clipboard (so do I actually..something I am regularly mocked for!)

Charge cameras/ phones and clear any memory cards..you don’t want the photo safari to come to an abrupt end before it gets going properly!

3. What to Take:

Obvious but something to take photographs with!

Digital Camera, phone or ,if you are feeling retro and love the beauty of film, then take a disposable camera (although be prepared for the kids being totally bewildered as to why they can’t immediately view the photo they have just taken!)Link to buy disposable camera online

If you are heading out of the house, the usual bits and bobs you would take on a day out..endless snacks no doubt.

4. What to Photograph

There are endless options for things to photograph on a photo safari but it can be helpful to think in themes.

A few ideas to get you started:

Photograph a certain colour: ie ‘find and photograph something red/ blue/ green’
Photograph a certain texture: ie. ‘find and photograph something bumpy/ something furry, something smooth’ etc
Photograph a certain pattern: ie ‘find and photograph something striped/ something spotty’ etc
Photograph a certain shape: ie ‘find and photograph something round/ square/ circular’
Photograph something fast and something slow
Find and photograph something moving and something still.
Find and photograph something lively and something calm.

 

5. What to do After your Photo Safari

Once you have gathered all the photos on your list there are still tons of things you can do with your images to get the kids creating.

Make a slideshow

Younger kids might need some help with this, but it is a great way to learn new technologies and then share your beautiful images and hard work with friends and family. Vimeo offer a free, quick and easy slideshow maker
(link) but there are plenty of other options if you have a quick search online.

Print!

Your kids will love seeing their photos in print and will be extra proud if you stick a few in some cheap frames around their bedroom. It shows how much you value their work and creativity. Again, there are plenty of options for ordering prints online, I’ve always found Photobox good for quick and easy to order prints: photobox.co.uk
Maybe they could stick prints in their own scrap book or album with some writing about their day (why not include the check list they followed too or any train tickets from the day out).

Create and write a story around the images

..for those kids who love creative writing, the photos could be a great starting point for an original story!

 

I hope this have given you a few ideas to get cracking on a photo safari with your little photographers!

 

If you would like me to come along and capture your little gang before you blink and everything has changed again, pop to my main site to download a family brochure to find out more about how it all works: sonyasmithphotography.com

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