Photo retailers spend so much time concentrating on the burgeoning soccer-mom demographic these days that it's easy to forget that the kids they're dragging after them could also be a viable audience for photo gear, electronics, and gizmos. According to the NPD Group, cellphones (34%), digital cameras (23%), and portable digital music players (22%) registered the highest levels of purchase in 2007, with a slight skew toward the older kids. In the same study, 34% of kids ages 4 to 14 used (even if they didn't own) digital cameras, a 6-point increase over 2006.

"Beyond specialized photography products, we've found that kids and tweens are looking for new and different ways to showcase their photography and creativity," says Eric Kintz, VP of strategy and marketing for HP's Web Services and Software division. "They're looking to express themselves by personalizing their images and creating unique photo projects. [As far as equipment features are concerned] don't lump all the youngsters congregating in front of your counter under the same umbrella. "Keep in mind the age of each child," says Liza Abrams, director of licensing and corporate communications for Sakar International. "Are they 3 or 12?" Younger kids, for example, will probably require more rugged cameras.
However, even after age is taken into account, the most important features are perhaps the most obvious: durability, portability, and looks.

No parent will dispute the ruggedness factor. "You can count on kids dropping their cameras many times," says Chris Heatherly, VP of electronics, Disney Consumer Products. "How will the camera take a beating? We've engineered our Disney Pix Jr. camera, for example, to be resistant to drops and to protect the camera optics and LCD screen."

Epson product manager Kristi Fox concurs that photo products for kids should be designed for kids. "Portable photo printers should be durable [and with] no sharp edges," she says. "Epson's PictureMate Dash has all of these features and many more." Sakar's Abrams says,"I have young children, and if a product looks like it's going to be confusing to me, I'll walk right by. The wonderful thing about electronic gadgets is that not only are many of them very easy to use, but children are light-years ahead of adults in terms of their knowledge. Electronics for the youth market are here to stay, and I think retailers have gotten very creative in the way they market them." Click here for full story.

Luis Abel Ramírez, 11, already knows what he wants to be when he grows up: a journalist.

When he was behind the camera they loaned him to take pictures of his neighborhood, colonia Fausto González, one of the poorest in the city, Luis Abel says, he felt a rush of excitement when he captured images and shared them. One of his photographs shows a group of children in front of a trash-strewn hill. Another shows a man dismantling a car, possibly stolen. Yet another shows his grandmother sitting, surrounded by her grandchildren. "I was out on the street, going everywhere with my camera, and I liked it a lot," a smiling Luis Abel says. "People even told me I looked like a reporter."

Some 40 photographs taken by Luis Abel, his sister Elvira and four of their cousins will be part of "Children of the Dump: Photographs by the Children of Tijuana's Municipal Dump," which runs through the end of the month at The Front, the cultural center run by Casa Familiar in San Ysidro.

View the photos at online at www.tijuanaproject.org.

The show, which made a stop at a Tijuana gallery recently, is part of "The Tijuana Project," a documentary that independent filmmaker John Sheedy has been shooting for almost two years about the children of the colonia Fausto González, site of the city's old municipal dump. It was the children themselves who showed an interest in using still cameras, Sheedy says, proof that poverty is no enemy to creativity and talent. "The children asked us if they could borrow the cameras for a while, to take pictures of their families and friends," he says. The six children kept the cameras for a year, taking hundreds and hundreds of pictures of everyday life in the colonia.

The experience of taking their own photographs was a ray of hope for these kids, who live in makeshift houses of cardboard, metal sheets and bits of lumber, says Sheedy, who lives in Durango, Colo., and comes to Tijuana every month to work on the documentary. "When you grow up next to an old dump and your parents make their living by going through the trash, looking for things to sell, the future doesn't seem very promising," he says. "For these children, art, photography, really is something that will help set goals outside the dump." Click here for full story courtesy of the Union Tribune.

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