I have come to the realization that what I am attempting to do in these images is meld the rather disparate fields of child portraiture and street photography.

In the first case, child portraiture involves photographing a child in a controlled environment that is possibly made up to look like someplace it isn’t.

In the second case, in my experience with street photography, the photographer generally more-or-less wanders about waits for subjects to come to her; certainly it is considered rather impolite to chase people down.

What a combination of the two amounts to is taking my child to an interesting location and setting her free then proceeding to chase after her with a camera in hopes of getting some fascinating interaction. In this way, it is rather more like sports photography than anything else.

This photo clearly leans toward portraiture,

while this is quite clearly a street shot with baby.

The juggler was an interesting fellow.

Iris invokes the power of Enlil, the Mesopotamian god of air, wind, breath and loft

before bapping Joshua multiple times with her mighty balloon

and being thoroughly bapped in return.

There was no winner.

Let me count the ways…

Martin’s mom got Iris a very pink ride-on toy with enormous eyeballs.

It requires an adult to push it, sort-of like a stroller.

Iris likes anything with wheels, so it’s a hit.

I love to take photos of Iris eating.

It combines many of my favorite things:

family, cooking, feeding people, eating, and photography.

We go to Shelburne Farms again.

Iris drives a John Deere tricycle.

Teressa is there with her children. Opal drives a really big tractor.

I passed them in the cemetery. The stone had Doris & Larry Arnell’s names on it. Ernie was digging.

But I didn’t take out my camera. I wanted to, but I didn’t take out my camera.

“Sad about Doris,”  said Ernie.

“I just kept waiting to see her sitting on her porch, to say hi,” I said.

“It was real quick in the end. She went real quick.”

But I hadn’t known she was sick again. Her body was all full of cancer.

I hardly see Ernie anymore, since his wife had a stroke. I asked about her.

“She’s in rehab, still paralyzed,” he said.

He says he’s up there at the hospital all the time when he isn’t in the cemetery working

or at home working on the house, making it so she can come home in a wheelchair.

But I didn’t take out my camera. I didn’t ask how many friends he’s buried, either.

I was polite.

*   *   *

Iris learns the joys of picking tomatoes. She hides them in the grass so Martin doesn’t have to eat them.

We went up to Shelburne Farms for a little bit.

Happy couples go up there to watch their happy children happily playing in the Children’s Farm Yard.

There are lots of toys.