Words and Light

Earlier this month, I returned to Houston for my grandfather‘s funeral, but I was hardly the most far-flung traveler: My brother, sister-in-law and almost-20-month-old niece flew in from Italy.

Not since Christmas 2010 had my two brothers and I been together under the same roof, so while we had gathered to pay respects to our grandfather, we had fun being siblings again and exploring our childhood home through the eyes of Layla, who is now a very confident toddler.

Making pictures of a constantly/unpredictably moving target is a lot different from making pictures of a babe who is either being held or lying relatively sill, but it’s also a lot more fun. Unfortunately, editing down pictures of a toddler who is rambunctiously touring her new domain is pretty difficult. How can you say no to this face?

© 2014. Like many other young ones, Layla has been trained to stop what she’s doing and smile at the camera. I think I’ve largely trained her out of that when I’m the one holding the camera, although she’s still pretty intrigued by its buttons. This was the first (and only) time she actually walked right up to me and smiled. I’m okay with that.

…Or to this face?

© 2014. EPIC POUT.

Layla isn’t quite ready to put nouns and verbs together to form sentences, but she is very capable of understanding directions and making pout faces. The pictures in this blog post wouldn’t have made the final cut for what I’ll ultimately share, but I take my responsibility as family photographer* very seriously and believe that not sharing these pictures would be akin to committing a serious transgression.

© 2014. At the breakfast table, with the “Little Mermaid” plate that was my favorite when I was 5 or 6.

© 2014. I think my younger brother Geoff made this picture, at Grandma’s house.

Obviously, there will be more Layla pictures to come.

* Apparently I was always the family photographer: While looking through photo albums for pictures to submit for my grandfather’s obituary page, my uncle Doug discovered this picture:

A picture of me taking a picture of extended family at my second-uncle Emmo’s house, probably in 1994. I would have been 6 years old. We couldn’t figure out who actually took this photo, unfortunately, nor who the girl on the far right is.

Uncle Doug was very proud of this discovery. I am very excited about this early evidence that I’m better behind the camera than in front of it.