The sunlight plays through her hair and dances in the whisps that have pulled out of her braids. She has a whole wide world in front of her and it has suddenly gotten much larger. Her mind is reaching for and pulling in all of the new things that dance into her field of view but no one thing can hold her for long there is too much. Then, without warning, she stops, she just stops and thinks, and walks.

A few summers ago I followed my niece around as she played on Long Beach on Vancouver Island. She is from the prairies and everything to do with the ocean was exciting for her; she was a whirlwind of activity; running to see something new, playing in the sand then up and running again. I got quite a few good images of her in motion but for a moment she moved slowly away from me and looked down, her hands behind her back. Her brilliant blonde hair stood out against the blue sky and she was for a moment, still and alone on the wide wide beach. Sticking with a subject can really pay off, I got some pretty good images of her running and moving but this photo seemed to me to have more to say, she dominates the frame but is at the same so very small and seems to have something very serious on her mind. Finding the instances in time where the image is evocative of all of these things is the photographer’s challenge.

-Russell Berg

There is another portrait of one of my other niece's here.