Take any Picture

  • 10
  • 30
Time

Benefits
  • Bring Joy
  • Keep Learning

Participants
  • One to One

What you need

A variety of pictures – ideally A4 size so they are easy to view and hold

Intro

If a picture can ‘paint a thousand words’, it can definitely inspire a good natter. When you think about it, it’s a miracle that art galleries aren’t much noisier places!

This activity is all about using pictures to prompt conversation. Even if a person struggles with chatting, they’ll hopefully still enjoy looking at the images and listening to you talk about them. 

Magazines and books are a great source of images, as is the internet, so you can print and prepare a small folder to always be on-hand. A little advance research will help ensure the images are relevant, interesting and hopefully evoke fond memories.

This simple 1-to-1 activity is great for when you have a spare 10 or 20 minutes over a cup of tea or coffee

The Activity

  1. Settle into a comfortable space with the person over a cup of tea or coffee
  2. Start with a general chat, asking things like, “How are you feeling?” and “What is the weather like?”
  3. Suggest it may be nice to look through some of your prepared images
  4. Hand the first picture over or hold it if needed
  5. Allow the person time to examine the image and make any initial comments
  6. Ask prompting questions to open up the conversation. For example, if the image is of an old schooner sailing the ocean:

Would you like sailing on that boat?”

What do you think it would have been like?”

How heavy do you think the sails are?”

Would you like to go into the crow’s nest?”

Where do you think the ship is sailing to?”

7. Ask questions which will help inspire the imagination too. There are no right or wrong answers

8. Continue discussing the image for as long as the person would like before moving onto another

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