A friend of mine, who is an ardent amateur photographer, recently showed me quite a collection of pictures he had snapped of his children over a period of years. One thing I noticed in_ particuler—ther, were very few stiffly record' shots. He had endeavoured to make each picture tell a story of some kind, to depict some activity in the lives of. his children—the story-telling type of snapshot.
The -typical. "record" shot. has its place in any album or collection of Snapshots, but they should be considered the exception and not the tule, It is true that in this kind of-picture taking you get a good likeness of the child as far as facial expression is concerned, but you don't have a real story-telling picture of thie active little youngster. It just isn't natural for a healthy, sprightly child to stand around doing nothing.
Play makes pictures., I don't mean that the child should be scurrying around or engaged in some fast-moving activity. Have your child "repairing" his tricycle. reading a book, playing with dolis, sailing a boat'in a wash tub, and with his pet—always an appealing, natural shot. Then you'll have a better and a more interesting album.
This appealing picture of the little girl baking a pie was taken with the aid of photo lights, replacing the regular bulbs in home lamps, and aided by handy cardboard reflectors. High speed film was used in the camera and a snapshot exposure was given. This is but one of a series showing the child from the time she started making her pie until she took it out of the oven. An interesting series of pictures like this should be cherished by any parent The arrival of summer offers innumerable picture opportunities. for. outdoor snapshots of children. With your camera always ready for action vou cán capture many of their interesting - activities. Oftentimes. a tempting idea—playing lacks, si ping rope, shooting marbles—will. be. all that is needed to get things going. Of course, the focus. exposure "ettins. end camera position should "be determined in. sdvarice. A handy, exposure guide will be a valuable aid in getting well exposed pictures.
"Posing action" is a trick you can often use-in picturing children. Suvfor example. you want a picture your. son. riding. his tricycle. but camera will not take fest mov-
It is remarkable how we seem now to accept the ruined parts of Lon-con as the normal state of affairs. The damage is curiously local. Thus Regent Street is practically untouched while in Piccadilly there are some very ugly gaps: in the City some streets have oceaned altogether but others close alongside are flanked by burnt out ruins which suggest the snqved cliffs of some wild coast line. Incidentally. this has disclosed new views of St. Paul's which we would fain keen clear now that we can see it properly, though I suppose there no chance of that. Everything has been tidied up, the traffic moves smoothly. shoos bombed, out have opened up elsewhere, and we move =mong the ruins as if we had known them all our lives. The contrast between this state of affairs and the frenzied efforts made by the German [Government to conceal the damage done by the R.A.F. is worth pondering. Ohe sign of the return to normalitv or it might be better to say of better organization against air roids (for there is no doubt that the Germans will be at us again as soon as they have enough new airmen trained up to replace their heavy losses in the pest year) is that the extra buses we borrowed from Glas-vow. Manchester, Leeds and elsewhere, buses blue, green. chocolate and cream are being returned to their homes with many thanks. Not only did they look strange among London's red buses, but they seemed to bring with them something of the atmosphere of their own cities. 1 believe J could soot a Manchester hus by the impression it rives of Mer- passenger suffering from a cold in any part of the world. But we were very grateful for these nest, buses" which helmed us fhronzh difficult time when the London Transoort Ca. hed numbers of its own buses to be repaired and the trains were frequently out of the running.
Curtailment of Railway Travelling As against the smooth running of transport in and round London (let ug touch wood: long may it continue) the Government warn us that meny lenz distance passenger trains will probably be taken off this autumn and winter. and all restaurant and sleeving cars in order to free the lines for coal froms. No-mody: will comniain of that—if the mani gote through and the. householder secures a fair amount of it. Tint there. anneers no answer to the ^erse that the Government between m4 another have White: K on QKt7; Q on QRA; K5; Kt on QT; Ps on.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.