A comparative comparison of the two visual aspects of illustration and photography in influencing a child's creative thinking

Parenting experts have always highlighted the significance of developing children's various skills from an early age. Notable among this set is upskilling a child's creative thinking, which is achieved through a variety of ways using a wide range of tools, such as playing, building, or assembling surrounding elements. Apart from the games played in real-time, other instruments to foster creative thinking in children are texts and images, referred to as separated[i] and independent representations, respectively. Each of these two languages finds accentuated or abated application in different education levels and courses. Typically, visual language plays a profound role in education from elementary to middle school. At the beginning of middle school, however, visual language gradually fades away, and written language begins its domination. While both these languages have specific applications, written language is often temporal and visual language is often spatial. Despite the unique and singular role of written language in education, the advent of web-based digital media resulted in a more-than-ever-underlined efficiency of images with education-focused technological combinations.
Currently, with the burden of child education being laid upon not just educational centers but families, it is of great importance to gain knowledge of media platforms and their applications, given the present circumstances. The significance rises when we realize that technological changes have affected media applications, constantly shifting their place. The present article addresses two media, i.e., illustration and photo. In the field of child education, these media formats are referred to as old and new media[ii]. Through disclosing part of the elements and phenomena, illustration, as the oldest medium, and photos, as a more modern medium, convey specific meanings to children aligned with their future path.
The present research compares these two media and their roles in developing children's creative thinking based on some of the visually-pertinent-categorized components of creativity. Accordingly, the study addresses the question of similarities and distinctions between these two media, which are referred to as the visual, in fostering children's creative thinking. Ultimately, it is determined which of these two media efficiently functions in this regard. In this comparative study, 'photo' refers to an unedited, unmasked item coming from a camera. Furthermore, the two subjects, i.e., photos and illustrations, are merely compared in terms of developing or the effect on fostering children's creative thinking. Other aspects are beyond the realm of this study. The target research age group includes preschoolers to 6-year-old children.
This research, which is a work in the class of cultural studies and a subdirectory of qualitative approach, employs library sources and visual evidence to conduct a comparative study on two visuals that affect children's creative thinking. Since the research concerns comparing two visuals, figures, graphs, and images are used to describe the text and provide a better understanding of the given examples. Finally, the conclusion is descriptively and analytically presented by analyzing the visual elements and signs and their association with textual topics.
In an article entitled "Illustration in Children's Books and its Effect on Children's Development and Creativity," Safipour and Homeili (2013) regard illustrated books as the first step in children's development and exaltation and an assistant in teaching discipline and perception of sequence and recognizing the similarities and differences in children's future path. In another article entitled "Paving the Way for Creative Idea in Illustration," Fadavi and Etebarzadeh (2014) present a series of visual samples from some Iranian illustrators, concluding that creativity enhances the audience's insight and knowledge.
In an article entitled "Realism in Photography: From the Perceptual to the Scientific," Valinezhad states that due to its realistic nature, a photo opens two windows to the universe: one is along our visual experience, while the other adds to our awareness and knowledge by offering various chances. The author explains different (perceptual, conceptual, and scientific) types of philosophical realism and gives evidence from two (perceptual and scientific) types. Accordingly, he analyzes the two varieties comparatively. Ultimately, he investigates the scientific-realistic approach in photography and analyzes the potential of this medium from an epistemological point of view. Eventually, he concludes that realistic photographers can convert reality into theory and vice versa and serves as the intersection between perceptual, critical, and scientific realism.
In an article entitled " Photograph: Challenge between Explicit and Implicit Meaning," Motarjem Zadeh (2016) explores the two given implications in analyzing the meaning of photos and dismisses them as irrelevant to the contemporary era. He also recommends other implications, such as major, minor, or robust implications in photo-extracted meanings.
Going a different way from other research, the present article elaborates on the role of two visual media, i.e., photos and illustration, in fostering children's creativity and exemplifies the merits of each medium.
According to the research findings, illustration is an unstructured and defamiliarizing construct as it combines different art techniques; it offers broader interpretations and analyses due to the meanings it reflects. It is from this feature of illustration that more ideas and judgments arise, giving more efficiency in developing children's creativity. On the contrary, the function of photography in fostering children's creative thinking is usually regarding familiar phenomena or an exemplification of reality with exquisite and naturalistic details of less-appreciated images with limited symbolic codes. The output of photos often and typically results from the function of technological tools and the photographer's real-time thinking at the moment of recording real phenomena in the surrounding environment. Less diversity of meanings is expected from real phenomena as they are more recognized and specified. Therefore, photos are more fitting for occasions when greater control of meaning is desired.
 
[i] Kress and Van Leeuwen refer to the verbal language and visual signs as separated and independent languages, respectively, stating that each served specific purposes, such as history, mythology, genealogy, business trades, and recording and measuring abstracts (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2009, p. 14). 
[ii] Kress and Van Leeuwen refer to them as two types of "old and new visual literacy" in children's books and state, "the old visual literacy of images is an unstructured transcript of reality (illustration), and the new visual literacy is a transcribed version of reality (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2009, pp. 14 – 15).