Over the past few years I’ve done a lot of sitting in parks watching kids play. I am not some kind of amateur behavioral psychologist, but watching reduces stress in these chaotic times. During these outings, however, I’ve noticed an increasing number of kids looking at their phones and iPads. (Did I really just say their?)
The allure of Instagram and other social platforms is an equal opportunity addiction and contradiction. What is meant to provide more community is also contributing to being solitary—at toddleracy.
Early this year I reported on Click, kid lit historian and curator Leonard Marcus’s exhibition at The Eric Carle Museum, documenting photographic children’s books. The show makes the case that photos are just as stimulating for the imagination as they are documentary reality. And why not? Static and moving photos are our primary ways of seeing the globe and the world around us.
In Madison Square Park the other day, I noticed a toddler totally engrossed in their iPad. What I saw over their shoulder was revealing and made me consider things in a new light. The images on the screen were similar to the everyday images described in the article below, but they were just updated in color. Could it be that we are becoming too uptight that new mediums are (once again) spelling the end of conventional wisdom and the tried and true? Or are they just marking new ways of seeing? Anyway, I use this as an excuse to revisit my original post below, a book I love for its pure simplicity.
Have you ever given a digital camera to a toddler? What? Are you out of your mind?! Digital cameras are designed for older kids, like you and me, to take selfies for Instagram. But just think about what a 5- or 6-year-old can do with a camera or smartphone. The results have to be at least as good as the images below, if not more experimental
Remember back in January when I published this? Well, I found another book that uses the same technique of economy and simplicity.
Making such a striking book out of monotonous everyday things is not as easy as it looks. It takes an eye. And if you think it is easy to pose an umbrella, clock or hammer and nails, think again. This is a masterpiece of planned simplicity worthy of a place of honor in any photography pantheon.
If you think that I’m joking, just stare carefully at each precisely composed object. This book, circa 1930, is perhaps the precursor to the billions of smartphone pics that flood our ethereal space today. That stuffed toy is sublime. The bowl of mush is brilliant. Where are the baby’s first books today?
The post The Daily Heller: Baby’s First Instagrams appeared first on PRINT Magazine.