Photography Games and Challenges To Keep Our Chicago Families Engaged

We have a lot of time together with our children in the upcoming weeks.  Some of us have e-learning to help keep our children engaged and inspired, but there will be times when we need some other ideas to pass the time or keep our creative minds energized.  I have compiled a few suggestions on photography games or challenges to add to your bucket list. Many of these can be adapted to any age, young child to adult.  

1. TWO- WEEK PHOTO CHALLENGE: Photo challenges are great as they can help you engage your creative spirit and encourage you to learn and grow as a photographer. I thought a 2-week assignment could be a much smaller version of the typical 365 Project.  In a 365 day challenge, people are given a year of daily prompts to photograph.

   Take a photo a day. Spend some time thinking about the image and trying out a few compositions.  CLICK HERE for daily prompts for a 2-week photo challenge

2. PHOTOGRAPHY HUNT: Not ready for a daily challenge? Why not take some time during the day for a fun family activity and try a photo hunt.  Here are a few items to include. You can tailor it to a young child, older pre-teen or adult.

   1. CLICK HERE for a list of prompts.

   2. Letter or word hunt - objects that look like the letter of the alphabet or an inspirational word.

   3. Create your own list together as a family and then have a challenge to see who can complete it first.

3. TELL A STORY WITH PICTURES: Have your child use 10 pictures to tell a story. Once the images are compiled, you can create a slideshow or photo album. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

   1. Act out a play and photograph the various scenes

   2. Toy Story shoot - your child can identify an adventure the toys can take and then arrange those toys into various scenes. Take a picture of each scene to tell the whole story.  

   3. While taking a walk or other activity as a family, assign one family member to be the photographer. 

   4. Consider the story to take  place over a week or two. Perhaps, documenting what your family is doing as you experience the social distancing associated with the coronavirus. 

4. HIDE AND SEEK - Give a camera to one person and have them take a pictures of an item. The picture should be a zoomed-in image so the object is not easily identifiable.   Take a picture and bring it back to the group. The rest of the group views the image on the camera, has to identify the item and location.

5. DAY IN THE LIFE: Tell the story of a regular day. Set an alarm to go off at certain intervals during the day. When it goes off, take a picture of what you are doing. These images can be compiled into a book or slideshow and be a great memory for the future.

6. COMPARE AND CONTRAST:

   1. When on a walk or doing an activity, find an object and each person takes a picture of the same object.  You can then compare and contrast the various pictures. Each person will take a different approach to composing the image and focus on different elements of the object.

   2. Take a picture of an object in the same place from the same angle at different times during the day. How does the light and shadows change in the image throughout the day?

   3. Take a picture of an object or person with a large light source (very large window or window with curtains wide open). Then take a picture of the same object or person with a small light source (small window or window with the curtains almost closed.

I hope you can add these ideas to your bucket list of activities to keep your family engaged during our social distancing. Our family will be trying a few of these challenges in the upcoming weeks. I’ll keep you updated with posts on Facebook and Instagram!