Woah! Powerful stuff, Steve, and like you say, not something we often find in family albums. And yet, periodically, I stumble across a picture from a wedding or get together with friends where the person didn't know the shot was being taken, and it somehow looks more like them (I don't always think of my friends / family as smiling). If I close my eyes and think of my mum, there are particular gestures or mannerisms that are implicitly "mum-like" and that's when I really feel I've captured something of her spirit or who the person I know and love *really* is. I'll send you a photo by email if you like. Loz :-)

Yes, context is important here. I'm sure that you could find any number of pictures of screaming kids - but in a family album? Albums are a very specific kind of cultural artefact. Likewise with wedding albums - they (mostly) hold to a very particular aesthetic of what wedding photos 'should' look like. (Maybe not when I shoot a wedding...;-))

Something different happens when photographs help us see the 'essence' of our subject; when we 'capture' them.... I'd love to see the photo you mention!

Steve Marshall! Just you wait til she grows up dad! Have to admit I laughed outloud though!!! But actually, maybe rage fueled further by you taking it as a photo op, helped refocus the trauma. You certainly presented yourself as an alternative distractive target and thus an outlet for the whole ordeal. Plus normalcy - how hurt can I really be if dad is still taking pictures? Safe to vent.

My husband routinely took our son to the world famous gardens in St. Louis. There was a reflecting pool which he was fascinated with but at two and half years excitement meets balance was an issue. Yep, in he went. My husband, of course, immediately fished him out but still it was quite upsetting. Thinking quickly and not acting on the fact that he was as equally traumatized as our son, poor guy, he teasingly questioned my son about deciding to swim without his bathing shorts. He reminded him about the rules about not swimming even if he was such a great swimmer, etc. You get the picture, pun intended. Might say it was his camera distraction? It worked. :-)

We do have funeral pictures of flowers, family visitation, gravesites in ye old album. Divorces but no divorce photos. Um. Yet.

I'm seeing several stories about sections of the law that are allowing your law enforcement to ask for "details" from amateur and professional photographers. I'm deducing details are the person's identifying info. And I thought the US had some off the deep end stuff.

Maybe I've been on the net for too long but when I see this photo, I can imagine her with the caption "MOAR" next to her. Besides that, this is a nice photo even though the situation doesn't seem so great.

Hi Marena,

Oh, yes... safe to vent! And she let everyone have some of it...! Quite a literal 'reframe' by using the camera to indicate that it wasn't THAT serious - I'm not sure whether it helped or added to the anger!

The attitude of the police towards photographers in the UK is curious and disturbing. You'll have seen more of this on Jez Coulson's blog. I now carry a document detailing both the rights of photogs and those of the police. There is a tendency towards heavy handedness and a criminalisation of photography on the basis that someone with a camera is considered to be either a terrorist or a paedophile. Why the law thinks either of those characters would wander around in public obviously photographing with professional camera is beyond me. Haven't they heard of iPhones or similar?

Robert,

I can imagine that, one day, she will be a hell-raiser. Thankfully, this time we caught her immediately after she fell - the screams were (I think) more about dramatic effect!