Kids usually have strong opinions about any photography in progress. They're apt to either be hiding from the camera or wildly mugging, usually in ways mom and dad don't appreciate.

Hold still, mom!

And, at a certain age, they're likely to start insisting that they be the ones to snap the photos.

In our family, Photographer's Syndrome hit our son, Will, when he was almost five, during a vacation at the Grand Canyon. We let him take quite a few photos, which translates to more than we wanted him to take but substantially fewer than he begged for. Needless to say, we returned from Arizona with some interesting shots taken from unusual angles.

When I was a kid, I got a Kodak Instamatic when I was about nine, and I adored it. Remember those little blue flashcubes?

Today's young adventurers are lucky to have quite an array of camera options at their little fingertips, including:

		disposable cameras;
		inexpensive yet good cameras, and,
		digital cameras, which can be the perfect option for a child photographer who wants to shoot everything in sight.

Disposable Cameras

When Will was 5 = and our twin girls were born, some friends gave Will a disposable camera, and it was a huge hit. He brought it to the hospital when he first met his sisters.

Last summer when we traveled to Montana, our tour guide, Adventures Plus, presented Will with a disposable camera as part of a welcome package. Again, he loved it.

Disposable cameras are a great choice for beginning photographers, especially young ones, because:

		Kids get to be in charge. They don't have to share disposables with mom or dad, and they can make their own decisions about exactly what they want to photograph.
		There's a natural limit to the number of photographs that can be taken on such a camera. Kids tend to want to snap away, usually without a clue about film or developing costs. You can hand a disposable camera to a child and explain that this is their camera for the trip, for instance, and when the film is gone, that's it.
		Disposables are relatively cheap. Although costs mount up if you buy lots of them, they're cheaper than most cameras. Also, if your child happens to lose one of these, it's no great tragedy.

Move on to Inexpensive vs. Digital

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