I haven’t been out in the woods to take any photos lately. It seems I am always busy or the weather is bad or I am out of town. While searching through my hard disk for a lost file, I ran across some images that I had taken back in March that I never finished. I took them and then forgot about them. Then I found them again. And then I forgot about them again for another couple of weeks and now I finally went back and worked them up.
I was knocking around the house one day after lunch and felt like getting the camera out. I didn’t have time to go anywhere so I just looked near at hand for subjects. The low arcing early spring sun was reaching through the windows deep into the house. What it showed up for me were my son’s toys.
My son is not into putting his toys away when he is done with them. He just drops them where ever he happens to be standing and moves onto something else. As parents we try to discourage this kind of thing, but so far it has had no effect on him. Maybe in another eight years it will start to sink in – yeah right. The photo of the books is surprisingly neat – evidence of his mom cleaning up a bit.
This day the odd collections of stuff provided me with a way to record his presence without him being there. I could follow him around and get an image of him through the trail he left behind. You are what you play with sort of thing.
I’ve taken photos of his toys from time to time while photographing other things. This is the first time I concentrated on just his stuff.
MDW
Tags: bionicles, books, dinosaurs, markers, Photography, toys
June 28, 2010 at 8:27 pm |
FR, I’m liking the crayon shot. And you got it with the “yeah right” comment. I don’t know how old your oldest is – mines 19, and he still has a hard time putting his stuff away when done with it!
-scott c
June 30, 2010 at 2:46 am |
Hi forestrat,
What a neat idea! Kind of like archaeology without waiting for the eons…
Regards
July 2, 2010 at 8:32 am |
The boy is 8 now. If I think about it, I should do this every so often to follow the changing toy fads.
MDW
July 21, 2010 at 1:53 pm |
Children’s toys are always so colorful, especially the crayons. It’s cool to see them in Black and White.
July 23, 2010 at 4:24 pm |
I’m not sure what it is that makes black and white so interesting. Humans seem hard wired to preceive and rely on color and yet some of the most beautiful photos are B&W.
Is it a conditioned thing because that’s the way it was for many years in photography or is there something built into us?
Sumi-e painting has been done in B&W for centuries. So maybe there is more to it than just the photography thing.
MDW
July 31, 2010 at 6:42 pm |
These images are a lot of fun. I like the clarity and the light -and of course the subject matter tickles my fancy. It’s interesting what you can know about a person without even seeing them, just by the possessions they have.
K
August 1, 2010 at 11:47 am |
Thanks, K.
I thought they were kind of fun myself. I’ll have to remember to do this from time to time and chronicle the changes.
MDW