Photography
This morning I pondered the value of photography. I particularly pondered it in reference to Link. He has been spending hours per day immersed in video games. I believe that video games are an enjoyable and potentially valuable pastime, but anything taken to excess can be bad. I’ve started placing time limits on Link’s video game playing. This has left him at loose ends. I wanted to help him find something else he could enjoy. Then I remembered that he has enjoyed taking pictures and video. I realized that photography has the potential to be a very beneficial to Link. He has a marvelous eye for patterns, but sometimes struggles with fine motor coordination. He likes to participate by watching rather than being in the middle. I realized that if I hand him a camera, he suddenly has a way to participate in social events without feeling conspicuous and without having to do much conversing. No one expects the cameraman to be chatty and yet he’s obviously part of the event. Additionally, I have enough interest in photography myself that it can become an activity that I’ll do with him and we’ll both enjoy.
In Utah there is a yearly contest called Reflections. All the school kids are encouraged to create works of art on a given theme. The art can be drawing, photography, sculpture, dance, film, photography, anything artsy really. This year the theme is “Wow.” Today I spent some time with Link taking pictures of stuff that he thinks is cool. Howard and I bought a new camera a few weeks ago and it has really helped. We were able to capture pictures of individual drops of water as they fell from the faucet. Link got a very close-up shot of a fly that was smashed in the door frame. He also managed to catch the exact moment when Patch fell on his face while climbing the slide. After that Link took a fantastic close-up shot of me holding Patch. Link definitely has an eye for this. All the “wow” shots went into a particular folder on my computer. We’ll take a few more in the next couple of days, then I’ll print them in high resolution and let Link put together a collage.
In an effort to help us figure out how to take more cool pictures, I checked out some kids’ books on photography from the library. Hopefully they’ll give us some fun ideas to try. We’ll probably also spend some time playing with pictures in photoshop. I bet Link will like playing with filters.