Our mission is to bring education and access to the arts to underserved communities. To do this, we created Cameras for Kids. We're teaching kids that cameras are a tool they can use for storytelling, work, and expression. We do this through engaging workshops led by our mentors. With each kid, we focus on creativity, technical skills, and critical thinking. This is helping create the next generation of photographers and artists. They will use what they've learned with us to make a positive impact on their communities and the world.
How it works
Our workshops have one to one mentor to student ratio for kids aged 10-17. The program is designed to cover basic knowledge of digital photography. At our designated meeting point, we will process waivers, assign students to mentors, distribute the cameras, then do a photowalk in the area with a checklist of photos to go out and collect, and finish the meet up by reviewing photos back where we started.
Meet Neha
Neha is our Director of Camera for Kids. She has always loved the light, composition, and serendipity that goes into capturing images. Playing with these elements led her to documentary filmmaking in college and Neha found her first job as a Youth Media Director at CCTV Cambridge where she ran a program for teens to explore their lives and communities via documentary filmmaking and photography. Having a space for teens to come together to be both creative and vulnerable, supported and challenged, and to recognize their individuality while belonging to a larger community was powerful to witness. Neha eventually pursued a doctorate in clinical psychology in New York to understand how people can heal through constructing narratives.
As a westside native Neha stayed away from LA for too long and finally returned to Venice in 2019. As she started to come to Photo Club events, she remembered that powerful feeling present in creative communal learning environments. Neha developed the Cameras for Kids program with her knowledge of clinical psychology working with teens and young adults. She sees the first hand impact of our rising mental health crisis and our inability to serve everyone effectively. Neha is a true believer of healing through the arts and is committed to bringing this mission to Camera for Kids.
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Director of Camera for Kids and Director of Youth Education
Our Mentors
Our mentors are professional photographers who live and work in Los Angeles. They are foundational members and long time friends of the Venice Photo Club and have years of experience working in creative fields. During workshops, mentors will be working one-on-one with students, share their approach to composition, storytelling, and the creative process with kids.
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