Project 52 – Week 1

I toyed over the first photo to use for my Project 52 and finally decided on this one which I took of him using my Fuji X-Pro1 camera. An expensive tool for a 6 year old but as he had been poorly over Christmas and into the New Year, it made his day as he knew it was my own new gadget!

I often read how photographers have trouble photographing their own children – I think the reason for this is that we are far more critical of the end result seeking perfection with exposure, composition and expression and we probably take a lot more photos of our children than most parents. Whilst I consider myself pretty lucky as far as my own son is concerned with his willingness to be photographed, there are times when I have to bribe him for a photo session. When he was younger, it was a lot easier with ice-creams, toys and the dreaded food giant (“M”), however, as he’s got older it’s more challenging to find a bribe that wins on his stubborn days. Being handed my equipment every so often works well for me so for this shot, I handed him my Fuji camera whilst I grabbed my DSLR. It was pure concentration on his face whilst he was holding the camera ….. photographing a hook on a wall!

It’s not the first time I’ve let him use my cameras, I think the first time was 2 years ago aged 4 when he was firmly gripping my Canon 5D II camera beaming that he was using “mummy’s big camera”. He’s already told me that he’d rather be a photo editor than a photographer – whether he does anything photography related remains to be seen but, regardless of age, it’s good to learn and to encourage our children to experiment.

Camera equipment

Canon 5DIII

Canon 135 f/2L
Shutter speed – 1/500
Aperture f/3.5
ISO 500
Aperture Priority