The last time I photographed him he was nine or ten years old. And now he’ll soon be graduating from high school. His mother had forewarned me that his enthusiasm for the shoot might not be any greater than it was the last time he sat for me, and I was prepared for the awkwardness that many teen boys feel in front of the camera.

Instead, I found him to be open and receptive to going along with wherever the session led us, relaxing into things more quickly than expected, and genuinely participating in the process. He remained attentive and present, and I never got the feeling that he was in a hurry to be done so he might move on to more interesting pastimes, such as meeting with his girlfriend. The weather wasn’t cooperative at all, which required a lot of starts and stops and rethinking the direction of the shoot, but he took it all in stride and with great humor. He was purely a joy to photograph.

There was something about the accessibility his eyes allowed that acted as a kind of doorway to me. Hard to describe it in words, but as I looked through the viewfinder, flashes of what at first seemed random images popped into my consciousness. There was his much younger brother, whom I’d last photographed a couple of years ago at two. There was an image of his mother and all the love and hopes she’s poured into this child. His sister’s face appeared, and I remembered clearly their comfortable interaction with one another during the shoot I’d done years ago. There was even his father, whom I’ve never met but had the feeling I had in observing his kindhearted son. And then there was me, momentarily glimpsing the photographer I was when I photographed the young boy back then, and noticing how much I’ve changed since that time.

I think there is something that happens inside us when we meet up with a child we don’t regularly see. The stark awareness of how they’ve physically grown perhaps serves as an abrupt reminder of how life is always changing despite our frantic attempts to keep it stationary. With our own children this happens so subtlety that we don’t realize it, until one day we’re talking to them as if they are four, and they shockingly remind us that they are in fact grown.

~Cynthia