In this activity, your child or loved one will learn the basics of portraiture while recreating a photo from your family’s photo album. In re-enacting a photo from your family’s past, your child or loved one will have fun playing the part of “scene setter” and thinking about the visual elements inside the frame.
● Portrait: A representation, generally of a person, and when visual in form, the person’s face is often central to the image.
● Composition: In photography, the arrangement of elements and their spatial relation to each other within the photographic frame.
● Color Photography: Photographs that are rendered in color.
● Black and White Photography: Photographs that are rendered in grayscale.
● Foreground: In photography, the portion of the scene in the photo that appears closest to the observer of the image.
● Background: In photography, the portion of the scene in the photo that appears further from the observer of the image, generally behind the main subject or focus of the photo.
● Focus: In photography, the degree to which an image is sharp or “fuzzy.” An image “in focus” is quite clear or crisp. An image with “soft focus” has less sharpness, or less definition, to it. At times, this can shift across planes within a photo; for instance, a foreground can be in focus while the background is out of focus.
● Mood: In photography, the feeling or sentiment the viewer perceives in a photo. Mood can be affected by aspects such as color, composition, or the subject’s expression, among other things.
● Lighting and Shadow: Photography, which is the rendering of light in permanent visual form, reflects variations in lighting. There are lighter and darker areas in given photos and these can be referred to as areas of light or shadow, respectively.
Click on any of the photos below for a direct link to Lost Rolls America archive.
You will need:
*Family photos for your child or loved one to look over and choose from. It doesn’t have to be a portrait, but those kinds of images work well for this activity.
*A camera (cell phone cameras are fine)
*Materials to recreate the scene of the photo – clothing and/or objects.
Note: The recreations will not be exact replicas, nor should they be. You will have fun thinking through how to mimic the chosen photo and thinking about the similarities and differences between the life you lead right now and the life of the person in the photo.
First, ask your child or loved one to choose the photograph that sticks out for them the most.
Now, use the Portrait Worksheet as your guide. Parents, the questions on the worksheet are for your child or loved one to answer, but please help them along as much as you need to.
Decide together who will be the model in the portrait. Will your child or loved one be the subject in this recreation, and you will take the photo? Or will you be the subject and your child or loved will be the photographer? Have fun with this!
If you are able to print your recreation, you could create a diptych—two side-by-side images—with the original photo and the recreation.
Share with family, share with friends!
If you want to be featured on our social media, email your portrait to us at info@lostrollsamerica.com.
You can also post to your own social media accounts and use the hashtag #LostRollsAmerica
Be sure to follow us on Instagram at @lostrollsamerica and Twitter at @lostrollsameric, and find us on Facebook to see your work featured!
Note: Must be 18 or older to send in content to Lost Rolls America