Written by Deepali
The story for this Saturday was ‘Guddu’s Photo’, a charming story by Nandini Nayar, illustrated by Zeel Sanghvi and published by Tulika which depicts a child’s shyness. A doting mum wants to click a photograph of her son but he refuses to smile and is shy but gets comfortable when each of his toys shares the frame with him. Finally she realizes that her son will smile the brightest if all his toys are there in the photograph posing with him too!
The children enjoyed the story and were amused to listen and see Guddu’s stuffed toy friends appear page by page. We spoke about why Guddu might want to include his friends in the photograph and which of the children present for the session had photographs taken and where.
To many of the children present, being photographed was not a new idea and was rather common, but we had a surprise for them. We had planned to have a photo shoot with all the children using different props. When we pulled out the props, everyone looked a bit skeptical. They were very hesitant to come forward. We had different types of wigs, oversized glasses, masks, hats and caps etc. As I called two of the children, who are brothers, they refused to touch the wigs and glasses and quickly picked up a cowboy hat and a regular sized pair of glares and were ready to pose with their guns. Click!
Asmee not only knew she wanted to be Santa’s helper but she also knew where she would pose for her photograph! This child was unlike Guddu and needed no stuffed toys to gain cooperation for the Photo Shoot. Another pair of boys wanted to be Santa Claus and nothing else and stood and posed for a picture and then promptly proceeded to ask me,’ How anyone would know who was behind the mask?’ Good point so we clicked another picture with them holding the masks above their heads. One small little baby girl shyly picked up a long haired wig and stood shyly to pose. How pretty she looked although she refused to look at me and we got a picture of her sideways.
There were some other children who experimented with the more outrageous props available and posed and smiled the brightest for their pictures.
A simple story book about a boy and his mum, a camera and capturing a moment for memory led us to have a lively session of dress up, experimentation, shedding some inhibitions, cooperation, sharing and having fun. It was picture perfect! Click!
