WHIPPERSNAPPERS: HOW CHILDREN BECAME PHOTOGRAPHERS by Annebella Pollen
Do you remember the first photos you took?
Whippersnappers is the first book to tell the history of children as photographers, from school societies in the 1880s, via post-war camera clubs and radical 1970s workshops, to the coming of digital cameras.
Annebella Pollen shows how photography was presented and promoted to children — by camera companies, comics, and teachers — and how the children themselves chose to use it. They include the girls whose trick photographs of the Cottingley Fairies fooled the nation; and the family given cameras and limitless film for a year by a national newspaper.
Tracing photography’s movement from elite pastime to accessible hobby, including a wealth of photos taken by children — of pets and friends, teachers and toys, fairies and ghosts — it presents a unique child’s-eye view of the world, seen through the camera.
Annebella Pollen is Professor of Visual and Material Culture at University of Brighton, UK, where she researches undervalued archives and untold stories in art and design history. Her previous books include Mass Photography: Collective Histories of Everyday Life, The Kindred of the Kibbo Kift: Intellectual Barbarians, Nudism in a Cold Climate: The Visual Culture of Naturists in Mid-20th-Century Britain, More Than A Snapshot: A Visual History of Photo Wallets and Art Without Frontiers: The Story of the British Council, Visual Arts and a Changing World.
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Title
Whippersnappers: How Children Became Photographers
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Author / Editor
Annebella Pollen
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Publisher
Sternberg Press
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Pages
330
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Dimensions
190 x 240mm
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Format
Hardcover
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Year
2026
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