Through photographs and archives, Snap Happy! celebrates the creativity, curiosity and distinctive perspectives of generations of young photographers. Do you remember your first camera? Or the first photograph you took? Snap Happy! explores the history of children as photographers. From post-war camera clubs to magazines and photobooks designed for young people, this exhibition traces photography’s movement from elite pastime to accessible and popular hobby.
Featuring archives of advertising, manuals, comics and toys, Snap Happy! shows how photography became more mainstream and much loved by younger generations. From snapshots of family, friends and pets to school projects and photographic experimentation, Snap Happy! celebrates a child's eye view of the world through the camera.
Snap Happy! is curated by Annebella Pollen, Professor of Visual and Material Culture at University of Brighton, UK, where she researches undervalued archives and untold stories in art and design history.
Supported by the Leverhulme Trust. The exhibition and book are part of the outcomes from Pollen's £100,000 Leverhulme grant award made in 2021.
Whippersnappers: How Children Became Photographers by Annebella Pollen will be published on 25 September by Four Corners Books at £25. See details here and pre-order.
Snap Happy! How Children Became Photographers
14 October 2026 - 21 February 2027
London, The Photographers' Gallery
See: https://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/whats-on/snap-happy-how-children-became-photographers
Images: (top): Robert Cooper ‘Self-portrait with Agifold’, c.1964-67 © Robert Cooper; (left) Mae and Ira Freeman, ed. by Gordon Catling, Fun with Photography (Edmund Ward, 1962), cover.
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