I had a vision of what I wanted. It was a lovely idea for an image for a publicity thing: boy playing with snail.
It was intended to epitomise everything that is great about how I work with kids: let them play and take photographs that capture the joy of their age. The feeling of boundless discovery, imaginative play, intensely thoughtful moments, living in the now.
Simple, right? So what do we need? Boy – check. Snail…. OK, get the Boy to find the Snail. Who better? Easy.
Off he goes down the garden and finds two (apparently he knew they were there cos his sister found them) – we choose the biggest.
So what next? Set up the scene. Put the Snail on the nice rustic (aka rotten) wooden table and let the Boy ‘discover’ the Snail.
Only the Snail is having none of it. The Boy is happy for a bit chatting to the snail and waiting for it to show itself. But the Snail is safely tucked away in his shell and has no intention of playing along. No matter how much he sings to it.
So he gets fed up (actually we both do) and we go off and find some leaves, a strawberry and some blackberries and hope that the the Snail just needs ‘a little more time’.
But my primadonna Snail is still not playing along. It’s getting dark and tea is ready. Doesn’t this guy know we’re on a schedule!
Going to bed he’s still there unmoved but by morning he’s gone. Let’s hope the Song Thrushes didn’t get him.
And you thought it was hard to work with kids!
