Since my last post was about how I worked my camera into the ground, this may be somewhat um... ironic timing, but I've been admiring the photographic work of another, smaller, member of the family lately, and I thought I share some of her work. I hope she doesn't mind. But since I've just put it together that lending a four year-old my camera was the likely cause of its demise, I'm going to post these without asking (she's asleep anyway) and call it even.
I've tried to encourage Stella's creativity by letting her take pictures pretty much whenever she asks, which she's been doing for years now. Now, let's face facts here: she's four. The great majority of her shots are terribly out of focus, even unrecognizable, and she has a penchant for taking pictures of a blank computer screen. Or the floor. But lately some patterns have emerged in her perspective. She takes pictures of her life. She does funny little still lives and portraits of us. She captures things no one else does.
Like pictures of me. Doing ridiculous things. The price you pay for being the family photographer is that there are rarely any pictures taken of you. Now, thanks to Stella, there is a small but growing collection of Mommy pictures. Mommy dancing. Mommy looking surprised. You get the idea. Also, somewhat hilariously, because of our height difference many of these pictures have a really excellent view up my nostrils. Talk about perspective.
Stella's also the only one who consistently takes pictures of our dog, Vega. I love how she got Vega under the bed in this quiet little moment. My nostrils aside, Stella's lower point of view affords her a seeing of things it would never occur to me to see. And because she doesn't think about anyone else looking at the picture besides herself and maybe me, she takes some of the most intimate pictures of our family life. The only reason I have pictures of Maeve nursing is because of Stella.
I like that she doesn't think about whether something is beautiful before she takes its picture. I'm not even sure she thinks about whether something is interesting. I don't think she thinks about it at all, not in the way I do, anyway. She just takes the picture because she wants to. There's something wonderfully fearless and adventurous about children when it comes to creative endeavors. I can learn a lot from Miss Stella.
