What picture would best capture your experiences of the past 18 months?

Would it be an image of you working in your kitchen, while simultaneously trying to keep your seven-year-old focused on his schoolwork, and stop your two-year-old from crying? Perhaps it would be of you FaceTiming or Zooming your parents, whom you haven’t hugged for months and who are miles away. Or maybe, the picture would show you sitting in a park, with two metres’ distance between you and your friends, celebrating five birthdays at once. 

It’s hard to imagine taking just one picture that conveys all of that emotion, but this year, primary and secondary children across the country have done just that through the Photography Movement’s Show and Tell project. 

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The project, which has been free to participate in, asked schools to submit one photograph per student which answered the question “How are you feeling?”. The photographs were then collated for a virtual exhibition. 

The above picture was taken by 11-year-old Adnan and is simply titled Sorrow. Along with the rest of his class, Adnan put some of his energy and emotions into photography this year, and let the pictures do the talking. Adnan attended Primrose Hill Primary School in London - and was encouraged to take part in the project by now executive headteacher of the Blossom Federation in Hackney, Robin Warren. 

Warren says he was eager to provide the Year 6 pupils in his school with a focus while the pandemic raged around them. 

“It was at a time where they were learning online at home, and there wasn’t a lot of fun things happening for them. This project really captured their imagination and a few of them did some really great work which motivated the other children in the year group,” he says. 

“It was a really good thing for the children to be part of, particularly the ones who were less confident and less skilled. There was a child who was a selective mute who just came alive with this project. They’ve all got different experiences, and we were all taken aback by how considered their responses were.”

Photography: giving students an emotional outlet 

As well as providing a means of creative expression, the project was also instrumental in supporting pupils’ mental health, says Warren. 

“It was a way of talking about their feelings. We asked them: how are you feeling? And there was a lot of discussion about that, how to get inside our minds and think about how we’re doing,” he says. 

“Adnan, for example, was amazing. He talked about how he hadn’t seen his friends in ages, he lived in a one-bedroom flat with his nan where there was no garden, they weren’t allowed out and there was limited wi-fi capability so online learning was difficult for him. His picture really is worth a thousand words.”

“The images allowed them to show their real emotions, and the children titled them as things like depressed, overthinking, fear, uneven, hope, half-empty...It was a good vehicle for them to express how they were feeling.”

For Warren, the positive impact of the project has been obvious. So, what advice would he give to others who might be interested in either taking part in the Show and Tell project, or setting up something similar for themselves?

1. Take time out of the curriculum

To ensure children get the most of it, there needs to be time dedicated to photography, says Warren. “I was committed to saying to the teachers, ‘This is something extra in Year 6, I know you’re focusing on Sats, but this is a creative way of letting the children express themselves. Do make the time, take something else out of the curriculum to allow you to do this.’”

2. Get pupils to practise

Encouraging pupils to practise both inside and outside of school is critical, he says.

“We used part of the PHSE slots in the week to focus on the project and give pupils practice time: we took them for local walks around the area, and asked them to take pictures of things which ‘looked’ happy, and others of things which ‘looked’ sad,” he says.

3. Involve professional photographers 

As part of the Show and Tell project, children were given the opportunity to log into virtual workshops, with professional photographers who then gave them feedback. This, Warren says, created a lot of excitement in the classroom.

“It was a real boost for them. The professionals talked about using filters and different skills with reflection and lights, how to position the camera when taking an image, and gave them an insight to what cameras can do which they might not have been familiar with,” he says. 

“And because the workshops had children of all ages involved from all over the country, it was great for my children to see other work that had been produced, and to see they had things in common with other children up and down the country, but also [to see] where things were very different.”

4. Sort out the devices

At Warren’s school, photographs were taken on a range of devices: smartphones, iPods, Chromebooks. Those who had devices they could use from home were encouraged to bring them in, and those who didn’t were allowed to book the devices out.

“There’s nothing worse for children than having to share things: they need the devices to practise on, and schools need to be brave and loan them out for them to use outside of school as well,” he says.

5. Reach out to parents

Throughout the project, Warren kept in touch with parents via social media and the school website, so they could see the work their children were producing. 

“The parents were really on board, and really supportive,” he says. “They loved the fact it was something different, and were really engaged with it.”

If you want to get involved with Show and Tell, it is free to do so, and all the information can be found on https://www.thephotographymovement.com/