A little girl plays with string. Canon EOS XSi EF 50mm at f/3.5 1/80 ISO 200 −1ev

She leans back in the desk, a little mind filled with big ideas. Her hands move quickly and without thought, cycling through the patterns and movements of the cradle. All the while her mind circles around and around. She is lost in places I can never see, worlds I will never visit and the string is just a tool to keep her hands busy while her mind travels.

I spent some time with my brothers and their families last summer and a few of my nieces were using string to play ‘cats in the cradle’. We all went to a museum together on a very hot day and this little girl sat down in a desk and leaned back. I was immediately struck by the way that she was absently playing with the string while her eyes were a million miles away. I watched for a moment and waited for her to turn her eye towards me. When she did I snapped the picture. There are moments for a person where we really get to see who they are. Sometimes they are hidden in a momentary glance, they are fleeting; they are there and then gone but the camera sees them in a way that nothing else does.

-Russell Berg