Window Shopping

Winter can be a tough time for photographers. Especially photographers that get home from work at 5:30 at which time the daylight is all but gone. No evening strolls through the neighborhood or lounging in the backyard to enjoy their hobby. No taking for granted the casual availability of light. Instead, they have to actively look for it. Little spots where the dark is chased away to provide enough for a photograph or two. But the ones that are made are more valued for it.

Snowlie

Olie loves the snow. Loves it! Freshly fallen is best. I make her sit at the back door and open the slider. She anxiously shuffles her feet and lets out a little annoyed moan. Eventually, she looks up at me and I say "OK", but the "O" is all she needs. She leaps of the back steps and bounds around the yard, as close as a dog can get to being a gazelle, making little trails, which she'll continue to follow 'til the next snow fall.

Occasionally I can catch her and give her a good white wash but only if I'm willing to get down in the snow myself. Here, she was on her way back from vanely searching for a snowball I had thrown moments before. She swore she saw it land, but snowballs are unusually elusive.

Kids

by Helen Levitt

Man, I wish kids still played like this. There's a house down the street where, on summer afternoons, there are almost always a group of kids in the front yard playing some sort of made up game. A couple parents sit on the front stoop while the kids run around in terrific goofball style. It always makes me smile as I pass them on my way home from work. Unfortunately, it is by far the exception.

Helen Levitt was a photographer who lived in New York and made some incredible photographs of life in that city. Children were not her only subject but they may be my favorite of hers. She photographed mainly in poor neighborhoods but pity was not her motivation. She doesn't show her subjects as downtrodden and hopeless, but rather as overcoming and living in spite of their environment. Her children are often seen in truly filthy conditions, but they're too engrossed in their play to notice such trivial details. Her kids are not cute, or precious, or merely happy. They are mischievous, wild, and exuberant. The Kings of their domain. I am glad to be reminded of this more uncivilized side of children.