LittleFish, continued (my favorite image of her baby)

March 11, 2007: Bantayan Island, Cebu Philippines

My favorite image of LittleFish's son, Kalle - photographed at home.

One of the strongest benefits of spending as much time as I do with LittleFish's Family (speaking strictly in photographic terms) is that they've been used to me now for the past 2 years, being in & amongst them with my camera - so I'm able to document their daily lives and issues with complete freedom, ease & anonymity - meaning they've forgotten and ignored the camera and are free to be themselves.

All this translates into 100 percent real-life images; good bad or indifferent, that document their daily lives.

And I'm treated absolutely the same, whether or not I have the camera with me - and there are many days where I do not have the camera with me at all.

One of the most spontaneous shots I ever captured there, is above - on March 11, 2007 I was quietly sitting and talking with Mama Helen outside their shack while LittleFish was off selling some of the Family's catch of the day in town, and one of LittleFish's sisters was watching her son Kalle.

LittleFish's Father David had just arrived home and went over to take his grandson and give him a hug; all this happened very quickly off my left shoulder, about a meter or so away.

I noticed this as I was talking to Mama Helen, and without looking at the camera, I hit the 'on' switch and brought the camera to my eye, firing off 3 or 4 frames (the E1's shutter is really very quiet, so there's no loud 'clack-clack' sound when shooting 3 frames per second) and I then put the camera down and went right back into our conversation.

That's the sum total, SOP of how I get my images there when documenting the Family's issues and needs.

Later that day after LittleFish came home, I went through the day's files and showed this to her, and she just smiled so big - a wonderful photograph of her son, made even more special by her Father's coming over to just hold and love him for a few moments, never paying any attention to my camera, not even for a second.

I think it's one of my best images, and one of my most important images that illustrate the love, attention, affection and caring in this hard working, yet very poor Family.

This is one of my images that I just stare at for long periods of time - I stare at it, I think about it, and it speaks to me and even more importantly teaches me about why I'm there and why I shoot.

Many thanks for reading today; thanks for looking at my work.
PJAMES

ps: the image shows Kalle wearing a brand new grey tank top with blue trim; the day before I'd taken LittleFish with me up into town to buy eggs & cooking oil they needed to make pancakes - and I noticed some new baby clothes at one of the sari-sari stores next to the market, and ended up buying brand new as opposed to used clothing at the okie-okie used markets - sometimes the new baby clothes will simply last longer than the used clothing - but the 'new' selections are often limited on the Island, so I do but new clothing for the Family when I'm able to, and used when there's no other choice.

All in all, it's just really good to see Kalle in new, clean clothing that wears well - as kids are SO damn tough on their clothes there.