As the followers of this blog know, I have a daughter. Since she was born, the amount of photographs my wife and I took of her is almost embarrassingly high. Be it with my professional gear, our consumer grade cameras or our cellphones, she has a very extensive library of photographs, organized by year and month and specific "adventures". Her grandma bought her a toy camera, that do take pictures and videos. Super low resolution, but she used to love to use it. So, one can only suppose that it is only a matter of time for her to either pick up a real camera and start shooting her own photographs, or for her to absolutely hate to do it.
Well, instead of waiting for her to do so, I decided to have some quality time with my daughter and we went to one of our favorite spots, Franklin Canyon Park, and I gave her my Nikon D3400 and I let her choose which lens she would like to use. She opted for the tele-zoom Nikkor 70-300mm, I took my Nikon D3s and at first I put on my Nikkor 70-200mm.
Her excitement was palpable. It was incredibly pleasing to see my little girl to get into it, to show me each and every single photo that she took, right after she took them. It was a great way for us to connect on a different level and for me to give her certain pointers.
I had to have fun too! So I felt free to change my lens periodically and decided to just enjoy my 50mm f1.4. Here are a few photos I took.
I was impressed with her photographic eye and encouraged by her enthusiasm and how she had so much fun. So I decided to do another photo session with her, this time at home. I asked her what she wanted take pictures of. She immediately answered "My friends!" So I setup my white box and studio lights and she clicked away. Here are a few shots of Vivienne's friends. I designed the lighting for the first two. Then Vivienne wanted to shoot a "friend" that did not fit in the light box, so she rearranged my light setup to take a picture of it, which is the third one below.
Following that funday Sunday, exactly a week later actually, our friends were having a party for the first birthday of their son and I was going to document the day and festivities. When I told Vivienne this, she went crazy and she told me she wanted to shoot with me. At first I was reluctant a bit, I asked her how she would balance playing with other kids and shooting with me and she told me she was going to be very careful and give the camera either to me or to her mom whenever she wanted to play. So I agreed. Here are a few photos she took.
I gotta tell ya... I love her photographic eye! So, I do have a feeling that soon I can start triple booking... I think it's time to teach my 6-year old how to drive! See you next week!