Special Selection: Bird's-eye View Photography

I love this photo. It's nothing special, just a snapshot of my eldest daughter's face as she called my name while we were wandering on the way home from kindergarten and came running over to me, but it's an irreplaceable photo to me.

I started using a camera after my eldest daughter was born. Taking pictures, recording them, and looking back on them are all fun, so I've been taking pictures every day with great enthusiasm. If you ask me which photos I remember most fondly, I would say aerial shots (though I couldn't choose just one).

I take pictures of my family with almost the same camera and lens. I only have one prime lens. As the name suggests, this lens does not change the focal length (meaning it does not expand or contract). What do you think it would be like to take a bird's-eye view of a child with such a lens? When my daughter was a baby, she was still lying face down, lifting her head as hard as she could, looking up at me and smiling. I took pictures of her while crouching down a little. Eventually, she learned to sit up, and then stand up. Then her face got much closer to the camera than before. She learned to walk and run, and now she just can't stay still. It's very difficult to capture my very energetic eldest daughter with my current camera, who has grown so much without me even noticing. And even if I stretch as much as I can, she's grown so big that she can't fit in the frame!

When I take a bird's-eye view photo like this, I always think, "How many more times can I capture this cute face?" I feel love and sadness in every photo of my children, but I feel that even more strongly when I take a bird's-eye view photo. I hope I can capture more moments like this, even a little more, for as long as possible. With that wish in mind, today and tomorrow, I will go out with my children, camera in hand.