Three Amiga’s

Three Amiga’s, 2017 copyright Douglas Stockdale

Earlier this month we attended a family wedding in Virginia and it was fun to have the extended family get together. As it seems with most families now, this group is spread geographically far and wide.

After the wedding when almost everything was packed up, I noted these three cousins sitting on this bench and my goal was to get them to gaze at my lens and not to break-up into a smile. To varying degrees we did seem to achieve this, but these three are constantly fooling around, so this was a bit unnatural for them. The hardest part for me was to think of a way that would direct them to just look at me, as the oldest was the easiest to direct and it went downhill from there.

What I had not asked or planned on is how these three had composed themselves; how they folded their hands in a similar but individual way, and how they tucked their legs under the bench, with the two on the outside choosing complementary poses. And one just could not help leaning in on her cousin, she just had to be connecting. Then the other patterns; two with bare feet and other with socks, two outside with patterned shirts while the middle was a solid white.

Nevertheless it was a fun photo event for the four of us (yes, it is part of my experimental/play process).

Cheers!