You May Be Pleasantly Surprised By What You See

 

One of our granddaughters has been interested in picturetaking for a several years. Ezra who is eight years old is now on her second camera – her first camera was a low-cost point-and-shoot model but it didn’t quite survive a washing machine cleaning. So now she’s using a “tough” model that claims to be shockproof, waterproof and freezeproof.

Not long ago, she asked me to copy the pictures from her camera and recharge the battery. As I was copying the images from the SD card, I realized that these were photos that she had taken months ago. The earliest ones dated back to last summer’s vacation, a few other road trips and other events since then.

I studied the more than three hundred of her thumbnails. Frankly, I came away quite impressed with many of her photos. They showed her ability to pick varied subjects, frame carefully from her lowered point of view (she’s about 40″ tall) and snap at an interesting time.

I thought it would be helpful if I picked a few dozen of her photos to show to you with an quick explanation of when and/or where they were taken (as far as I can remember). For the most part the photos are unretouched with some cropping.

Without further ado, here are some of the “Best of Ezra”

On one of the school outings, her class visited a nature preserve. Here’s some of the flora that she caught her attention.	It looks as if Ezra also caught this yellowjacket sucking nectar from the flowers.
At an art festival she apparently liked the metal horse sculpture racing in the river.	This is another display of artfully decorated eggshells
After viewing the eggshells, Ezra talked to and photographed the artist.	This artist was apparently tired after talking to Ezra and other patrons for hours on end. Ezra captured her stealing a little rest.
One of the stops on our summer vacation was in Yellowstone National Park. This is one of the bubbling geyers in the north end of the park.	And you can see that tiny details don’t escape her either.
I’m surprised that the squirrel allowed her to get so close to her. She took five other photos at this close range too.	During play, she stopped to take a picture of her younger sister’s bedroom.
Inside she wanted a closeup of the standing guitar.	Here’s one of Ezra’s schoolmates. She frequently takes her camera to school to records the class trips.
This is one way for her to record a drawing that she enjoyed creating.	It was fun for her to photograph her sister’s feet.
…Or the other way – keep your head pointed upward.	Sometimes it’s interesting to keep your head pointed downward.
This picture shows that she’s keenly aware of the change of seasons.	On a cross-country trip we first stopped in Mesa Verde where she saw this mule deer grazing by the roadside.
Bright flowers nearby in southwestern Colorado.	At the Native American museum in Tuba City, AZ.
As you can see below, Ezra really put her camera to work in the Grand Canyon.
Grandpa	Grandma

 

Ezra has promised to take good care of the camera. It’s an Olympus Model 6020 and is very rugged. It’s been dropped many times and just like the advertisements claim – it remains fully operational.

And as you can see, an eight year old is fully capable of capturing memorable images. Give the kid a camera!

 

Written by Arnie Lee