A photo a day – let's chat away

Can you capture a moment on your camera at the same time once a day?  

Samuel Ryde did! A London-based photographer, Samuel took one photo every day at 12.34pm for 10 years, purely to capture everyday moments. He took photos of things that he normally walked past without even noticing. These photos were taken wherever he was at that exact time. 

Sam’s idea encourages us to start taking notice of the ‘normal’ – the things we stop looking at. 

Your child’s knowledge and understanding of their world is ever growing, and even though children tend to notice more than adults,^[1,2] they may not think the ordinary, day-to-day things they see are worth talking about, especially when little focus is put on them by their family and friends. 

Everything exists for a reason; do you ever stop and think why? 

The answer is most probably, not really, maybe, sometimes! How often do you walk down a road and really take notice of what is around you? Again, probably sometimes, but not too often.  

Normality becomes normal; the STOP sign at a junction, the moss on the wall, a bench, even the hand dryer in the café. 

Life is incredibly busy, we get that. It would be impossible to take in everything every time you go out... or stay at home.  

Yet it could be possible to take one photo of something you can see each day. 

Imagine taking a photo every day for five days.  

Try this with your child. 

Take a moment to capture something ordinary you see. It can even be taken in the same location; it doesn't have to be at the same time. 

Encourage your child to decide when they want to take a photo. Mark the moment together so that they know it has been taken.  

Your child might choose something they want a photo taken of, or they may be proud of something they are doing. There are no rules of what the photos should be of, only that they are taken in the moment. 

At the end of the fifth day, or whenever you can, sit together and look back at your photos. Encourage your child to describe what they can see and find out if they can remember why you took the photo.  

If your child needs time to think, that’s fine. 

You could prompt them by saying: 

• I wonder where we were on that day? 
• I can’t think if anyone else was there/with us. 
• I have no idea why we took that photo! 
• Did we really take a photo of a wall? I wonder what was special about it? 

You might have a really interesting conversation about something that is usually uninteresting and be surprised at what you both learn! 

References: 

[1] D.J. Plebanek., V.M. Sloutsky. (2017) Costs of Selective Attention: When Children Notice What Adults Miss. Perspectives on Psychological Science. 

[2] S. Gualtieri., A.S, Finn. (2022) The Sweet Spot: When Children's Developing Abilities, Brains, and Knowledge Make Them Better Learners Than Adults. Perspectives on Psychological Science.