For Christmas this year I bought myself a small camera, a Nikon COOLPIX S5100. Now, I’ll never challenge my photographer son-in-law Robin in the picture taking department, but I do enjoy snapping photos. A wall in my office is devoted to framed snapshots of special places I’ve visited, usually to research books.
For my Grandmother Martha’s story I plan to offer old family photos and possibly some new photos as well. Robin has several of the farm he has offered to let me use, and he’ll take more as needed. In one of the book’s interludes describing my research into Martha’s life, I describe a white hawk that visited me early in the process. The creature was doing aerial dances outside my window and took one pass so close I could look right into its eye. Then it zipped up the road toward the upper barn. Oh, to have a camera then! But in lieu of a picture of the hawk, I thought we might do something with the road and the barn.
Just to give Robin an idea I thought I might frame one out to show him, like this one:
Some days Robin’s dog comes to visit because he knows I take a walk every day. So I take him with me. He was visiting when I first went to frame the shot. And what does he do? He hurries over, right into the frame, and looks for all the world as if he’s posing. I got excited and took a bunch of photos, but I like this one best:
Maybe a photographer’s dog just knows what to do when you bring out a camera.
Janet fisher 