Outside the Olive Press

Rachel Irving

This is the posed shot.

Well posed in the sense that I said "go and stand in front of the Olive Press door". I didn't say "Alice stick your thumb in your mouth, and turn Carl's butt to the camera. Grace: hand on hip, roll your eyes and lick your lips... that's it, very Hannibal Lecter. Nor however did I say, "Lol go and stand in the middle to create a nice balanced triangle and be certain to frame your face between the walking stick and the door post."

The thing is I don't often ask them to pose. It's partly because they'd get sick of it. They would, divas that they are, trust me they would. Partly because the pictures of children that I've loved most, long before I had a camera, were the one's taken by their co-op pre-school teacher, who never, ever asked a child to "smile at the camera".

I suppose the fact that I've written this lengthy explanation, indicates that I feel uncomfortable with directing my children in this way. It's different when it's some kind of photography project that we're doing together. When we did the stories last Winter it was all about dress up, and playing lets pretend, that's very different to trying to get them to look at the camera in a certain way.

I just noticed that Alice has her shoes on the wrong feet.

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