Little kids are the most amazing things, ever. They’re nuts, with no lack of energy to run everywhere they go, yelling, playing. And then five minutes later be as calm and contented as can be when someone else starts combing her hair. They you go and ask them to make faces at you, and the tongues come out, the ears start twisting and the eyes start rolling its great, you couldn’t pay some people to do that, oh for the innocence of youth.

But the amazing thing is when you put a camera in their hands, as they go from person to person œdaddy smile! and a big grin breaks over the subjects face, *click* It made me start thinking about what to do should I go and shoot a wedding or some other family event, if I could somehow get one child a semi-good camera and make them my assistant then as we went around taking photos the assistant would be the one telling everyone to smile or get people ready for a group photo or whatever. I think that the reactions could be really much better than what I could get on my own because it draws the persons focus away from my camera and more towards the child and their camera, that then would help me because then I’m not stuck with a general looking towards the me with the generic I’m taking a picture smile; now, I don’t always want the looking off at something else for the photo, but it would be a much more dynamic way of engaging the people that I don’t know real well. Oh, and for photos of the kids, well, there’s always bribery with a pocket of jolly ranchers ;)

So what does this have to do with anything?

Ok, ok so indeed I did have a reason for all this. Last night my family and I had dinner at a friends house, friends of the family that is, which means the two dads sit and talk, the mom’s are in the kitchen, my two younger brothers and their son are out playing in the yard, my youngest sister has a only one year older and my other sister has a friend¦ Oh wait¦ that leaves out me. So I had my camera. So *click* goes a card of pictures that night. But there is a bit more than that, at some point my oldest sister decided to be the hairdresser and started combing and braiding and curling hair and whatever. At some point she asked Maria, the Tochinski’s youngest if she wanted her hair done. I had taken some pictures up to that point, but asked if she could do it by the window¦ and wow did I get a lot of really awesome pictures, what was amazing is that she was just herself, she knew I was taking pictures of her but she didn’t get tired of it like seem to do. But the best part was that she wasn’t forcing anything, not repeating expressions or caring that she looked ˜good’. That I think is what makes kids such amazing photographic subjects, they’re comfortable with who they are naturally, its when we grow up that we develop this thing called self image, where we think that anything taken of us will look horrible unless its posed or we are ‘ready’ for it. Kids don’t tend to have this, and so it allows the photographer to capture what he/she sees the way he/she sees it. Just that would have made my day, but then when she asked if she could take some pictures with my camera it made me think and remember what it was like to be her age and to have someone let you use their camera; even more so it reminded me of about a year ago when I was in Mexico and the photographer we had hired to come down for a few days let me take some shots with her camera¦ but back on track, as I was watching her go around, it made me watch the different reactions she would get out of someone when she stuck a camera in someone’s face as opposed to the reaction I would have gotten had I done the same thing. It was just so different, more animated in a good way, and the expressions were much more… well, expressive and it didn’t strain the people as much. It made me realize the innocence of being a kid and what it inspires in the people around them. I’ll have to keep that in mind if I’m ever employed to shoot a wedding or some family event, and it’ll defiantly warrant some thinking time.

So, here’s what you’ve all been waiting for I’m sure… pictures:

Thanks for letting me post these Jeff,

Paul