Title • Photo Friday: Perspective

It took me a while to think of something for this week’s Photo Friday theme, Perspective, mostly because it isn’t all that long since I posted a series of shots that would have been ideal (stairwell 1 and stairwell 2). So I didn’t want to post any more ‘perspective’ shots of that type.

A comment on my entry of two days ago, can we go home now?, pointed me in a different direction. Doglord made the point that he normally hates it “when photographers resort to images of their own kids” – and I know what he means. What can seem like a great shot to the parents is often not all that interesting to anyone else.

But it is possible to take great shots of kids (see jinkyart.com for some examples). What I think you need is either to capture them when they’re most themselves (which they often aren’t if they know they’re being photographed), or capture something of the way they see the world. It was the second of these ideas that led to this attempt (which, on reflection, I don't think is all that great).

When these shoes were new our daughter was fascinated with them, and would spend minutes at a time just looking at them. They’re a bit scuffed now, but she still really likes them. So I thought I’d try to show her perspective on these shoes. All that said, this isn’t quite what I was after – I meant to bounce the flash off the ceiling but left a Lumiquest Ultrabounce attached to the flash (which is why there are some rather harsh splashes of light), I wanted her in a slightly different pose (but she got bored after four shots and wouldn’t cooperate; which is fair enough at two and a half), and the background is a bit more distracting than I would have liked.

But, all that said, I think it captures something of what I imagine her perspective to be – the shoes are bright and shiny and they’re often a focal point of her attention. So, not a great photograph, but it’s already Saturday, and I really can’t think of anything else for this theme ;-)