H’s current passion is photography. She has been interested in an abstract way for a while, but since my cousin gave her a point and shoot camera of her own, her interest has skyrocketed. She has filled up a 16GB SD card. She, Ms shy, has even had a conversation with a photographer: getting advice and communicating in code/jargon with him!

I lent her my camera (which was a purchase I made before phone cameras became as good as they are, and I over estimated how much I wanted the ability to use shutter speed, etc) while we were volunteering in a National Park. Hours she spent fulling her card, deleting the bad ones, retaking more, deleting, etc. Deleting was a reaction to the scarce resources at the time and made her much more critical and selective over what made a good photo. Moving from snap happy to more discerning.

We were lucky enough to be volunteering in a charity shop when a guy came in, having made the same mistake with camera buying as me, but in a grander way than me. So she now has a very fancy camera, even a guy in Harvey Normans was impressed with her bargain and started talking lenses with her!

H has been reading the manual, a book I think says la la la.., and just told me some technical blah blah about her new camera and how you can do stuff to get the “motion blur” – something about shutter speed. You would have to ask her.

She has been:

• close reading
• learning technical jargon
• testing
• increasing  her desire to learn, persevere
• The link between practice and getting better
• asking to get advice
• following her passion independently

I did nothing; just a library card, a kind cousin… some contribuion of $, some luck, and being enthusiastic about a photo she took on my phone yonks ago. She couldn’t have done this at a school, she would have been put off by having to define things she wasn’t ready for, it would have been made theirs not hers, would not have been done it as an equal, and was also nothing about monitoring her photos, nothing career-orienting her or trying to get her to think of it as a way of making money.

and now her friend is keen too