Children remind us of what is simple and most important in life: have fun, the rest will follow.
A play on words and a play on, well, play. There is this awkward time on certain days of the week in between errands and appointments, specifically about an hour before I need to go pick up Lucian from school where it's not enough time to nap or really go anywhere, so on this beautiful fall day, Keagan and I got on the floor to play. We had some little squirt guns that had been gifted to the boys over the summer. Normally I don't allow them in the house, but Keagan was being impossibly cute with the asking so I caved. I figured I could at least have some fun with it if I set some ground rules about where he was allowed to squirt the water. I set up some little targets for him to aim at and as I was showing him how to shoot the targets, the sun was coming through with such intensity so, I decided to do some shooting of my own with my iPhone 5s — also my idea of a good time. I was able to catch a rainbow AND lens flare in one shot and I'm really pleased with the results. The only editing I did was in iPhoto; just some cropping and a little bit of bumping up the contrast on this first shot. I played with some other effects in the other two shots as the challenge was all that sunlight with which to work.
I love all of the elements in this shot: lines, curves, curls, shadows, rainbows, sun rays, color, highlights, the way my son's little lips are formed while he's making little sounds or thinking about where to aim.
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| Playing With The Sun |
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| Target Practice |
At this time I am reminded of a newspaper clipping photo I once saw of my Grandfather as a middle school-aged child shooting a rifle at target practice during a class. I believe he was in some type of rotary gun club at school in the 1930s. Upon seeing that photo is was no wonder he later became a sharpshooter for the military during WWII. It's hard to imagine that there was ever a time when guns were in schools as a source of education if perhaps some sort of early military inculcation.
This day, however, I chose to set those negative thoughts aside in order to have some simple fun with my son and some plastic toys that shoot water. He is innocent and unaware, just having a good time knocking little bottles and medicine cups off of triangles with water and studying the trajectory. I am not innocent, but somehow I managed to have fun with this time all the same.
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| Spritz |