Ansel

I suppose the fact that since both myself and Hubby run around with cameras attached to our faces most of the time, it was only natural that our son develop an obsession with pictures. He loves to look at them; on the tv, the computer, in print form; and sometimes he thinks that if he sees a picture of something, that means I can magically make it appear in front of him. "No Kiddo, you cannot have the new Little Einsteins DVD, it is only a picture. No son, the Lightning McQueen plates and balloons are just pictures. Mommy can't make them jump off the page."

Kiddo doesn't have a camera of his own (yet) so on very rare and what-the-heck-was-I-thinking-moments I allow him to play with our little point and shoot digital camera. Thankfully we keep rechargeable batteries in it because the boy can go through two or three sets in a day when he uses the darn thing.

Last week he wanted the camera, and for 3 days we could not get it out of his hands. I was really amazed at the progression he made while shooting a couple hundred images. They started out like this...

Mostly up the nose, extreme close ups of nothing in particular, blurry images. Whoa there! Little tilt coming up...

Oh boy, this really isn't flattering...

Well, at least the one above is in focus. YIKES!

I left him alone for a while and when I checked in on him I realized he had begun to actually compose his images a bit more. Some of his favorite toys,

the furniture,

through the window, (can someone say Windex please?)

Then he apparently worked a bit on his abstract and macro skills. The ABCs, if you will...

and a study on the textures of my couch...

And before I knew it, he was ready for portraiture. Here he does an impromptu photo shoot of Hubby. "Whatcha doin' there Kiddo? You got the camera? Honey, do you know he has your camera?

Oh, you're taking pictures!! Ahhh! (sorry folks, Hubby wasn't wearing pants)

Yeeees, here's Daddy. Looks like you caught me again!

Ooooh, another picture of Daddy. Great. Why don't you go take pictures of Mommy?

He especially likes to see the pictures on the LCD screen. He also managed to shoot about 30, 4 second movies with the camera, and I don't even know how to do that! The next morning, he wanted me to take his picture so he could look at not only Mommy and Daddy, but himself as well. I think he was still sleepy in this shot.

Then he took pictures of his favorite things. Starting with his slippers.

They were a present from Nana and Big Daddy about a year ago and were so big he couldn't even walk in them. I had to hide them in a closet because he loved them so much he would try to wear them and would fall on his face every 5 seconds. Last week we cleaned out said closet and I found the forgotten slippers. They fit perfectly now and Kiddo wears them everywhere. And I do mean everywhere. The store, the house, the car the back yard, the bath - yes, everywhere.

I found tons of shots like this...

images of his favorite tv shows. Mostly Elmo and Little Einsteins, but also a few shots of my workout DVD (he requests to watch it almost every day - even when I am not exercising!). But I realized it was time to put the kibosh on the picture taking for a while when he did this.

Thankfully I saw him coming and had time to grab a towel before he got too many incriminating photos - shew! Thank goodness for the delete button!

Maybe I should foster and encourage a fondness for outdoor photography...

Until,

D :)