I have a daughter. I happen to think she’s a great kid, though I’m probably biased 🙂 Any of you who have children and smartphones probably have hundreds of images of your kids’ faces, taken close up. You know the ones. When they take your phone and wander off with it and you find it later with all the storage taken up and the settings messed around.

My kid is no exception. I have loads of photos and short videos of her squeaking or giggling or sticking out her tongue. Precious tiny moments captured in time, her face changing as she grows,  gorgeous baby chubbiness giving way to smooth angles. I delete them off my phone because I need the storage, but not before saving them elsewhere.

However, when she was about four, she took a series of photos that surprised me when I saw them. I found them again the other day while looking for something else, which is what prompted me to write this post. They were taken in our old house in Australia, in the rear bedroom. The room had a long high window and faced towards the setting sun, so at certain times of day the light in there was very bright, the shadows dark and dramatic. It must have caught her fancy as well, for here are the photos she took:

Sure, maybe I’m veering into over-sharing, proud parent territory. But I think these are kind of cool, especially for a four-year-old. My Dad is an excellent amateur photographer and has taken some beautiful photos, so perhaps she’s inherited some of that from him. She still loves to take photos. And I love to encourage her 🙂