I LOVE my new camera!!

Kian, "finding something to do" while at the Mayors Cup Tournament game that Landin played in on July 19th.

Kian's classic pirate face that he loves to show.

Caught eating berries instead of picking 'em

Kali is one tough cookie, pulling Kian and Logan for a ride.

Like a naturalist in the wilderness with her subjects, I have let my children become so accustomed to my camera, they no longer notice it as a mechanical object. It is an extension of their mother's eye, no more obtrusive to them than my eyeglasses. Just another tool Mom sometimes has to help her see. When its lens takes them in, it is my gaze they perceive and respond to, not the camera (and sometimes their response is to ignore or be silly).
Shooting them has become a form of caress, as natural as reaching out to brush bangs back from their eyes. I see my reach in the photos. There is nothing objective about them. "This is how I see you," is the caption written invisibly on every one. "This is how love sees you." It is how I think we all wish to be seen, all our lives, even when the aperture narrows or is jammed.

During the past few weeks I have had so many opportunities to spend quality time with the kids and my camera (mostly Kian since Landin was away/busy.) It has been so fun and rewarding!

What about you? What portraits reveal an exchange between subject and photographer, the trajectory between the eye of the beholder and the one so carefully held?