If you want to teach a child about how photography works, I cannot think of a better method than light writing. I’ve done this now with my first-grader as well as my niece and nephew, and they all loved it.
Light writing is easier than it looks. All you need is a camera capable of manual settings — most importantly shutter speed — and a tripod or other method for propping it up perfectly still. Then set the shutter speed to something like 5 seconds or longer depending on what you’re trying to write or draw. Then face the camera and once the shutter opens, use some kind of flashlight (doesn’t need to be super bright) to “write” in the air. If you want yourself to be clearly visible, briefly shine the light on your own face. Otherwise, your body will be like a ghost, which is also cool.
What I love about doing this with kids is that the photos look really cool, but they also learn a lot about how cameras expose an image. Digital cameras are so prevalent and high-quality these days, yet we really don’t teach kids how they work. Point the phone, push the button, and whatever was on the screen freezes into a photo. Simple!
This is why light writing will absolutely blow their minds. You can see their little brains churning hard when the first images appear on the view screen and they try to comprehend what is happening. It’s not a video, and it’s not a still from a video. So what is it?
Be prepared to take a ton of light writing photos. They will do it over and over trying to draw the perfect heart, and in the process they have to problem solve. “Oh, the light trailed all over when I was done drawing because I didn’t cover the light.” Or “Oh, I need to write backwards if I want it to look forwards in the photo.”
Then if you really want to blow their minds, they can shine the light on themselves in one spot, cover the light, move a few feet, then illuminate themselves again. It will look like they have a twin!
These are fun photo games, but the kids are also getting a deeper understanding of what a camera actually does. I love the description of photography as “painting with light,” and light writing has kids doing very literally that. A camera captures whatever light is allowed through for each exposure, and we can set how long to allow light. Faster speeds let us hold the camera in our hands, but slower speeds let us take our time controlling the light. Pushing the shutter button is only one part of creating a photo.