Blame it on the teaching instinct but on the beach this evening, as I was plotting and planning light and speed experiments with my camera, a youngster who'd been running along the shore with his dog suddenly approached me. He was under the particularly watchful eye of his mum and he just stood next to me and watched me as I looked through the viewfinder. He was one of those delightfully inquisitive young kids. Polite, and curious.
'What are you doing?' he asked, pointing at the camera.
'Just taking photos of the water', I said.
'So do you live here? Does your family know you are here?'
'Oh, well, not really.' I said, not really sure what I should have answered. I'm not up for this sort of interrogation normally.
'So is your husband cooking your dinner?'
'Ah, no, er, no.'
'Oh, what will you do for dinner then?' he asked, terribly concerned.
'Well I'll probably buy some chips from the shop", I said as I pointed to the shop over the hill.
'Oh', he said and then tried to look through the lens, the wrong end.
'Would you like to look through this end?' I asked, pointing to the viewfinder, 'this is the end you look through.'
And he did.
'Wow.' he said.
And then I noticed his cochlear implant.
'What can you see?' And he just looked, with a touch of awe, like it was the first time he'd seen something like that. (The lens was extended to the 300mm end, the water would have looked very close.)
Then, I don't know, but next thing, there I was showing him how to press the shutter button, focus the shot, capture the pic. It was windy and the waves made a fair bit of noise but then he was away...clicking, pointing, clicking, squealing with delight.
Here's what he saw:
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| Chester, his dog |
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| Chester and the waves |
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| His mum |
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| Mum again |
There was a moment where I thought 'oh dear, there's a couple thousand dollars worth of equipment...' and then I stopped the worry. I think the camera is robust enough but if not, well, so what. The moment of joy overtook us all I think. It was a magic minute, or two.
[Camera : Canon EOS 60D, 70-300mm, 6.19pm-6.20pm]
