Something Special

This is a photo of Sue and Jenifer, one of the teachers she works with.  It's a great picture of her I think and quite special when you know the circumstances in which it was taken.

The photographer is a little lad with learning difficulties.  He's in a regular class where the other children look out for him, but where he doesn't make much conventional progress.  One day Sue gave him her camera and the affinity between him and the device was instinctual and immediate.  He took several photos of Sue and the teachers, each time waiting with intense concentration until the right moment to depress the button.

Most of the time, I guess, we try to take photos that are a window on the world, in which the subjects are not too self-conscious of the person with the lens.  But all too often we end up recording dull and stilted poses for posterity.  In this picture something quite different is going on.  The subjects are very aware that a photograph is being taken and the picture is essentially recording their response to the young photographer:  delight that he is doing something which is giving him a real and rare sense of achievement; encouragement, willing him to take a good photo and; there's no other word for it, love.

Looking at this picture gives me a warm glow inside, because it's about three people who were at that moment completely in their element.