Hi, again. With all this talk about light and how it can change things, I started thinking about photography. The Word photograph actually means an image created with light. So I decided to see if we could make our own homemade photo paper, and make some "light images" ourselves!

What you need:


1. A piece of paper 2. Grape juice 3. A Paint Brush 4. Some coins


Step 1: First, wash your paint brush so it's really clean. Then pour a little bit of grape juice into a cup or bowl.

Step 2: Use your brush to "paint" the grape juice onto the paper. Try to coat the entire sheet of paper evenly. You want the paper to get as stained as possible from the grape juice, but without it getting super wet. Try to this quickly (for about a minute or two).

Step 3: Put the paper in a dark place to dry (like a closed drawer or cupboard). Then take a break and do something else while the paper is drying. This could take an hour or so.

Step 4: Once your paper is completely dry, take it out, and put it under light.

Step 5: Now it's time to set up our photograph. Put your coins on the paper. You could use other things too, but make sure they're heavy enough that they stay completely flat on the paper. Do this quickly so your photograph doesn't have time to "develop" while you are setting it up.

Step 6: Now you wait for your photo to develop. Take another break for about an hour. If you check up on it every once in a while you should see the grape juice getting lighter. But don't move the coins!

Step 7: Once the grape juice is very faded, your photograph is ready. Pick up the coins. You should see the shapes of the coins as dark circles on the page. Enjoy it quickly, though, because once you pick up the coins, the circles will start to get lighter as well.

What's Going On?

Photographs are made using materials that are photo-sensitive. That means things that react to light. Film in a camera is coated with chemicals that react to the different colors of light that come in through the lens. Digital cameras use materials that react to light by creating electrical energy, which get's stored as digital data, and then interpreted by a computer back into a picture. Grape juice is just a little bit photosensitive — its color fades in the light. When we put the coins on the paper, the light couldn't shine on the parts of the paper that were covered, and those parts didn't fade. And that's how you made your very own homemade photograph!

Things to Think About:

Goodness is like light, and the whole world is "photo-sensitive." When we do good things, it has an effect on the world around us. Just like that one light-bulb shined over the entire piece of paper (except the parts that were covered by the paper until we moved the coins), goodness spreads all over. On Chanukah we celebrate the power that one good thought or action can have on the entire world.