What do you choose? A self-aware writer.

What is your primary sense?

What do you choose to do?

Do you choose to see?

Do you choose to hear?

Do you choose to taste?

Or do you choose to touch?

Do you choose to smell?

Do you choose to use your sixth sense, i.e. use your intuition?

What verbs are hardly ever present in your personal language?

Do you choose to know?

Or do you choose to inquire?

Do you choose to compare?

Do you choose to remind yourself of something?

Do you choose to be embraced?

As a writer, what are you more likely to note down: a fungus disease, a rough stone or a maturing fruit?

What are you sensitive to?

Senses are our privileges and our occlusions.

And what does speed do to them?

Note to self from 2015, as relevant now as back then. :)

Cloud formations

forever stretched by paper

cloudy

imprecise

care without a blank space

is neither supreme nor wise

Text and photographs: Alicja Pyszka-Franceschini, 2026

Welcome back after holiday, Darlings. How was your Summer?

Postcards from Whitby

Have a restful Summer holiday, dear Readers. I’ll be back in two weeks time. x Alicja

Images by Alicja Pyszka-Franceschini, 2026. Without an explicit permission of the author nothing can be done with them. x

To get in touch, please leave a comment under the post. All comments are reviewed by me first before they are made public. Thank you. x

Photographing children without showing their faces

I promised you a while ago a post with examples of photographs in which I do not show my children’s face or I partially hide it. Many parents prefer not to show their children’s faces and yet they would like to somewhat embrace that part of their life and publicly be happy with it. Here are a few examples of photographs that you can take if this is your preference. They are fairly self-explanatory. All photos taken below are of my family.

Example 1

Parental embrace.

Example 2

Obstructed by water.

Example 3

Head down with a hat that hides the face.

Example 4

Low light reading.

Example 5

Hiding in laundry baskets, laundry bags. Make sure that the face is low enough. In this photo my son’s face shows a little bit.

Example 6

‘Show me your hands!’ type of photo. This could be with a dough or play dough or paint whatever your child is playing with at the given moment.

Example 7

Show a landscape feature not your child. Make the child look away from the camera.

Example 8

Teenager in action at sea. The shoes always fly away there…

Example 9

Give them a funny hat to wear.

Example 10

You can hide them in one of those… This one was taken at Heights of Abraham, Matlock Bath, Derbyshire.

Example 11

Create silhouettes with a visible object in hand.

Example 12

Put yourself with a child into a shadowy corner the background is lit.

Example 13

Create close-ups while being on the side of your child.

Example 14

Take a photo in an outfit

Example 15

Run with her barefoot on grass.

Example 16

Create a layered image that uses a rule of third. Hide your child’s face partially in the middle or in the corners of the layers.

Example 17

Observe what you are giving to them and photograph the exchange.

Example 18

Help them engage in sensory play or simply playing with Lego Duplo and allow them to stay focused while you take a few snaps close to the window.

Example 19

Visit a nearby farm, perhaps.

Here are my Dad’s beehives that he created for himself to be busy with during his retirement. My daughter is not allergic to bee products and it was safe to be there for her. The beehives are quite far away from her. The purple of the flowers, i.e. the meadow, creates a lovely composition. Also, her simple hairstyle is an attractive feature in the photo.

Enjoy playing and having fun together.

I am a little tired today to be honest as my daughter has had shingles over the last 10 days and she has just returned to school. We did a lot of reading together though. We read through all hard cover books we had available in the house I think. I will tell you more about it in the next post with some of my reflections on children and photography.

I am looking forward to seeing your images. Which one are you hoping to take?

Have a regenerating weekend.

Speak soon.