| Because the horrid flu virus is traveling through my sister's family I kept my eight-year-old niece Rachel this afternoon so my sister could sleep and recuperate. It was a quiet afternoon, one of those unexpected gifts that lands in your lap when you least expect it but perhaps most need it. We had no agenda but because I'd been printing all week and had photographs on my mind I told Rachel of her 'box' which is a lovely, dark brown, fabric-wrapped box that holds the photographs I've been printing of her since she was born; she has known nothing of it before today though it sits in plain view on a shelf in my office. I have one for her brother Josh and her sister Edyn, too. To say she was stupefied by the prints would not be an overstatement. Firstly she said, "You've been doing this for HOW LONG and I never knew about it?" While looking at one of the prints of herself playing soccer; foot mid-kick, ball suspended in air, she got very quiet then said, "It's like you've taken this moment and just frozen it, and now I get to see it again." You could see the lightbulb of wonder go off in her head as the magic of photography settled on her. I am certain I looked much the same way the first time I saw a print come up in the developer. I am not wordsmith enough to convey the collision of feelings I experienced during the two hours we spent looking at her photographs, but if I've ever wondered about the value of printing it was made abundantly clear to me today. |
