If We Could Only Bottle Our Kids' Joy!

If there were a way to bottle joy, someone would be rich. We’d see billboards plastered everywhere, infomercials hawking the commodity, and venture capitalists fighting one another for the best way to cash in. If there were a way to bottle young kids’ joy, someone would be over-the-moon-and-back-again rich. Nothing is better than pure giggles of delight from your child, smiles that stretch so wide they look like they might hurt, and that glistening gleam in your baby’s eyes that just oozes wonder and happiness. Don’t get me wrong—adults can be happy too. But nothing compares to the untainted, innocent joy of youth. 

Capturing the Joy

Ever since I was a kid I was fascinated by what a camera could do. I flipped through my mother’s glossy magazines and art books in the library in awe of emotions captured in flat pictures. I can appreciate the artistic value in raw or journalistic photography endeavors (one of my biggest professional thrills was getting to publish photographs from renowned talent Mary Ellen Marks) and I’ve turned my camera on many an inanimate object in my life. Yet it’s the elusive moment of emotion—especially overflowing joy—that I feel compelled to try to capture. ‘Try’ may be the operative word here, for truly capturing those moments is not always easy, and it’s often the result of luck. Of course, luck has a better chance of prevailing when we’re persistent. The advent of digital cameras, now ubiquitous, made that way easier (and cheaper!) as we can click away to our hearts’ content and never have to worry about using up a roll of film or paying to develop far too many shots. If we click the shutter often enough, we’re bound to get something good, right?!  

A Photographer Is Born

I have a very vivid memory, and I recall many Christmas mornings as a kid being thrilled with my gifts. There was only one childhood holiday present I begged for, though: the Canon Snappy camera, which was advertised all over television and in the pages of my Seventeen magazines at the time. I never would have thought I could have a real camera at the age of 10 (wow, times have changed…cell phones for kindergarteners, anyone?)—but then the point-and-shoot Snappy was marketed directly to me, it seemed. It came in a rainbow of colors that made it look more like a toy than a tool (though of course I wanted the black one, lest I seem too much like a kid!). I carried this camera everywhere with me. I saved my money to buy 35mm film and get it developed. I became the de facto family photographer.