Enriching Kids' Lives with Analog Photography

First published in the Brattleboro Reformer

Research increasingly links smartphones and social media to rising rates of childhood anxiety, self-harm, and suicide. Against this bleak background, analog photography is emerging as a counterbalance to phone-based childhood, offering a hands-on, immersive experience that fosters a deeper connection to the physical world and imbues kids’ lives with meaning.

Recently at In-Sight Photography Project in Brattleboro, youth analog photography classes fill up more quickly than digital ones. This enthusiasm indicates something a lot of grownup film camera enthusiasts remember — throwback photography is a lot of fun.

"Using film cameras and being in the darkroom is a unique experience and radically different from the day to day for most youth," says Emily Wagner, Executive Director at In-Sight, "In the darkroom, students have found friendships and community as well as a new connection to art and science that doesn't involve a screen."

In-Sight teaches students the entire flow of analog photography, from handling film, to learning the mathematics of exposure, to developing film, to making prints in a darkroom. The art form demands patience and care at every step, something children are naturally drawn to. It is highly effective at teaching important values that are being lost in the digital age, such as the value of slowing down and appreciating the moment.

"Analog photography requires the photographer to be present and consider a lot of factors, often taken for granted in digital photography," Emily explains, "and in processing the film and images students learn to slow down and wait for the chemical reactions to take place, without being able to look at their phones."

The tactile experience of handling film-based cameras, especially older ones which have a different, more mechanical feel when adjusting settings, loading the film, clicking a real shutter button and feeling the vibration, and even advancing the film after an exposure, can have unique payoffs. Physically developing the film, then entering the sightless world of the darkroom to create prints with enlargers and chemical trays, can provide a tangible sense of achievement and creativity, unlike the easy, no-stakes nature of capturing digital images.

In fact, In-Sight uses the darkroom as a way to teach principles of mindfulness, since the key sense of vision is nearly eliminated. Attitudes and voices naturally quiet in the darkroom and while there are moments of focus there are moments of celebration when unexpected results are achieved. Touch, time, and memory become very important. This is an ironic pleasure of the darkroom given how important light is in the origins of any photo, and it has been almost entirely lost today.

As kids delve into the world of analog photography, they find it's not just about stepping away from screens. It's about embracing a different rhythm of life that values the process as much as the result. There’s also a distinct embrace of mystery since so much needs to happen, from the time they frame a shot to looking at what they exposed, that they will often be surprised — sometimes in a good way, sometimes in a bad way. Not knowing becomes a foundation for the whole mode of analog photography.

Another value children learn is how to develop a deeper connection to their environment, learning to observe and appreciate details they might otherwise overlook, since successfully creating a real photograph involves so much work and good fortune. In his 1952 book exploring the "decisive moment," Henri Cartier-Bresson, an iconic photographer, reveals how capturing a significant moment in human activity requires a perfect blend of anticipation, composition, and timing. He could not have foreseen how cameras would one day be pulled away from our faces, that we would see the final exposure and print displayed to us as we capture it, and how it would erode our level of awareness and observation.

"As a parent, I was thrilled to see my child inspired to stop and observe the world in new and slower ways, through the lens of the camera," remarked a parent of a recent analog student. "In our digital era, 35mm basics provided a rare opportunity for them to experience the magic of silver emulsion photography.”

This engagement with the process and history of analog photography opens the door to many lost skills, including patience, focus, and a genuine appreciation for the art of storytelling through images. As such, analog photography becomes more than a hobby; it transforms into a meaningful antidote to the digital harms of smartphones in our children's lives, offering a pathway to creativity, mindfulness, and a renewed sense of connection to the physical world.