Beauty Is...

The annual Reflections Contest is in full swing at our school and I decided Cam would submit an entry. The theme is "Beauty Is..." and there are 8 categories that you can enter - Music, Photography, Visual Arts, Literature, Dance, Theatre, 3D and Film and Video. It's difficult to think of what a kindergartner can come up with when it comes to art, so a week or two ago I thought I would test it out and see if he could even tell me what Beauty is.

When I asked him to tell me what Beauty is or what is beautiful, I said I wanted to see if he could name five things (so I hopefully would have at least one good one to work off of). He said, "The morning, a sunset, the sky, the sun and you playing with me."

Perfect.

I decided the easiest category to enter him in was photography because he was always playing around with cameras and I could just give him a lesson or two on what makes a good photo. I definitely was not confident in his writing or drawing skills but I toyed with the idea of having him make a film or video about it, but that seemed a little more complicated in getting winning results from a kindergartner. I also didn't like the idea of him messing around with our very expensive HD video camera.

It took some serious manipulating of most situations to get him to even take a photo for me, but he liked the idea of being able to use my SLR camera, which I never let him touch. We had to take most of them with my blessed iPhone because I didn't always have my camera to capture the moment, but they turned out really well, I think.

"The Morning"

(iPhone)

"The Sky"

(iPhone)

"The Sun"

(iPhone)

"The Sunset"

(Canon Rebel)

All of these photos were taken by him and were not photoshopped or cropped at all. I was thinking about photoshopping them but he would have to do the work himself and I just don't think I'm up for an actions lesson right now. Plus, I kind of like them raw.

This last photo below is not my favorite and I think we will do some more work with the idea of "Beauty is you playing with me." He decided he wanted to take a picture of me reading a big book to him because he loves it when I read the big books with him, but I don't think the composition is artsy enough. I don't know, what do you think? Any ideas?

I want him to challenge his ideas of ART a little more and try a few more pictures tomorrow.

"You Playing With Me"

(iPhone)

We may settle for it, though, since the entries are due Monday.

We'll see.

I think he did so great for his age and I hope he wins an honorable mention at least.

Or don't they give out participation awards? That would be enough, too.

Well, enough for him, but for me I want him to sweep the whole STATE!!