KIDS AND CAMERAS

I was five years old when I took my first photograph. We were at Disney World and about to board the Jungle Cruise when my mom gave in to my pleading and handed me her camera. 


The image I captured that day was nothing remarkable - only some shrubs and trees in the distance. I was so excited that I hit the shutter the second I looked through the viewfinder. I begged my mom for another shot but was denied. This was back in the days of film photography, so every exposure cost money. I sulked through the whole ride thinking about the lousy photo I knew I'd just taken. 


I promised myself that someday I'd have my own camera and take as many photographs as I wanted.

As the years went by I managed to earn more chances to use our family camera. A few years after our Disney trip my mom let me keep a very old box camera that I found in a storage cabinet. She even bought me a film cartridge to experiment with. Those first photos were all landscapes as well, but I took my sweet time composing the images and the results were much better (not that it is hard to top an nondescript mash of green leaves and branches).

My skills improved little by little and today I consider myself a successful point-and-shoot photographer. I still shoot landscapes often, but my favorite subject is people - the younger the better. 

Anyone who has tried to photograph children knows that it takes two servings of patience and a bag of tricks to get a good image though. These days with digital cameras we don't have to worry about wasting film. Still, there are times when I have to remind myself that the perfect shot captures the energy of a moment and not just the beauty or composition of the subject.

I had to remind myself of that over the weekend during a photo shoot with the Little One and three of his cousins. Each of the kids brought their own age-related elements to the shoot. The two older boys showed the fleeting attention span you'd expect from any 4- or 2-year-old. The Little One's biggest challenge was staying steady as he sat upright on the couch. He toppled a couple of times but popped right back up with help. In the end the newborn was the most cooperative with the pictures. Not that he had a choice though. He just discovered that he has arms but hasn't figured out how to control them.

The resulting pictures tell the story about that crazy afternoon. No one is looking at the camera at the same time, but as you see below, these pictures are worth a thousand words.