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Photographs courtesy of Frances Allmond
If you ever get the chance to have your almost-4-year-old take a photo of you, you won’t regret it. Just hand her the camera, ready to go. She’ll pick up that heavy old film camera, teetering back and forth from it’s weight, while you wonder how she manages to hold it steady. And you’ll laugh. Big, belly laughs as she puts her face to the eyepiece, and the camera shoots up and down, not sure where the final frame will land. Your eyes will start to water from the laughter, and your face will start to hurt from the smiling, and you’ll quickly call your husband over because you know you can’t be the only one to witness this – it wouldn’t be fair.
You do this often, calling the other over. To watch your child sleep, or play, or say something funny – the way your hearts open wide and expand together. Is it pride? Joy? Awe?
In any case, he joins you, and you both sit waiting for your portrait. He gets it right away, knows immediately why you called. You can’t stop laughing. Those little hands reaching for the shutter, teetering back and forth again. You almost grab for your phone, to memorialize this moment. A photograph of the photographer. But you quickly realize you might ruin her shot, the last shot in a roll of film, and you think better of it. You’ll just have to tuck this moment into the corners of your mind and hold onto it.
And when you look back on the photograph she’s taken, you’ll have to conjure up the other side of the camera: of the little person just shy of 4-years-old, rocking back and forth. Finger blindly grasping for the shutter, camera bobbing up and down, telling you in her best professional voice to “say cheese”. And you will – through watery eyes and a smile so big your face hurts.
So if you ever get the chance to have your almost-4-year-old take a photo of you, do it. You won’t regret it.
