Contemplative "Street" Photography...

 

   It has been a long time since I worked with the monochrome image...even longer for portraiture.  This little girl at the local fair recently was simply irresistible.  Those eyes and those curls!  But what started as just a sweet, candid image spun off into a serious bit of reflection for me.

   I asked the mother's permission to make a photograph of her daughter for this blog and she graciously agreed.  I still have a real problem with true street photography, where the photographer catches people unawares.  (You can read a past post on the subject here...) Having gained permission, I felt on surer ground.

   I guess everyone has to make up their own minds on the subject of candid street photography and this image brought the dilemma back into my mind.  When I saw the photograph I made of this little girl I thought what an example perfect innocence she represented.  That trusting, open heart of childhood that we all once had and that with time and experience we've, unfortunately, lost.

   I was having a similar conversation recently with friends.  Another friend I knew way back when, always loved to say,

"You can only be young once but you can be immature forever!"

   Immaturity is always viewed as a bad thing...who would wish to be 'immature'?  But I think, like most things, there is a positive side to immaturity.  It is that innocence and trusting heart I spoke about earlier.  Some would call it naivete, not a thing one would covet but I don't know.  You may not be able to re-create the childlike view of the world completely but wouldn't it be nice if we could channel, from time to time, the innocence and trust of youth before it 'matured' into the skepticism and mistrust of adulthood?  Sometimes there is a lot to contemplate in the face of a child...