GETTING STARTED
First, she took a couple of pictures of her son playing with balls in his room, office, and kitchen. Later, she looked at these photos, and some vague thought was spinning in her head. It seemed to her that John in the photographs looked somehow different.
Suddenly, Elina realized what it was. Her son’s expression was unusually calm. Normally agitated, here he looked surprisingly peaceful. In the bustle of weekdays, it is sometimes difficult to notice changes in facial expressions and behaviour. Photography has become an excellent indicator of the real situation.
The idea of studying his son unnoticed, with the help of a photo, was inspiring. Elina began to take photos of her son and his balls more and more often and more and more inspiringly. The son noticed her actions, but was not particularly interested in them. When she had a small collection of such photos, she printed them out, bought a binder, sheets of multi-colored thick paper and transparent protective files, deciding that they would become materials for creating a photobook.
– Look, Johnny. I have pictures of you with balls. Let’s try to make a real photobook about them. We need to choose the best photos, attach them to these multi-colored sheets with tape and arrange them in the right order. Let’s try! What photos do you like the most?
At first, the child only enthusiastically examined the images of himself in the company of his favorite balls. Then he suddenly took a sheet of yellow cardboard and carefully placed on it a photograph of him embracing a yellow ball. He did the same with the others: very thoughtfully John laid out photos of himself and his balls on sheets of paper, according to their colors. Elina was impressed by the enthusiasm and taste, with which her boy coped with the task.
Their first photobook turned out to be very cute. However, more importantly, John liked this activity, and began to devote a lot of time to it. When the book was ready, Elina realized that he was capable of more and it was time to move on.
– John, do you want to try to take a picture of your balls yourself? What if we make a whole photobook about them?
Hearing his favorite word «balls», the boy looked up at the camera and began to listen carefully to his mother. Elina diligently explained to him the essence of the camera in the simplest words. It turned out to be easier than expected. On the same day, John took the first beautiful photo: mom surrounded by his favorite balls.
JOHN GOT CARRIED AWAY
An unprecedented occupation unexpectedly captivated John. He enthusiastically took pictures of his toys. Like a real photographer, he meticulously chose angles. Previously, he always did everything in his own way. Now it was surprising that he listened to the advice of his mother, recognized her experience. And she showed how to make photos more vivid, how to choose the right angle and lighting. Now they work together. Every day John got more great photos.
Over time, he liked to photograph the same ball, against a different background. Elina bought him large sheets of multi-colored paper for this. He could spend hours doing this and clearly liked the combination of different colors.
The days flew by. Elina was incredibly pleased with her son’s new occupation. In addition, she felt more freedom than before, as her son began to find his own activities. In addition, this joint work revealed many simple concepts as «closer, far away, in the middle, etc» that John did not know at all, and Elina had a great opportunity to explain them to her son, showing them in practice, as if in passing, and then, on occasion, make sure that he had learned them.
It is often difficult for autistic children to explain to others what they feel or want, and John was no exception. His speech was limited to the word «mom», that is why it was so important to establish contact with him: in order to better understand him and develop his abilities.
CREATIVE UNION OF MOTHER AND SON
Elina was able to appreciate that photobooks were a great opportunity to establish better contact with her child. First they made a photobook called «Colors’ ' a photobook about the colors of a rainbow, placing there photographs of balls of various shades, of which John had many. After that, the idea of a size book came up: „Large, medium, small.“ Elina saw an opportunity to teach John new concepts and the words ``more», «less», «equally». A book about the positions of objects: «before», «right», «between». And, of course, they made a photobook about numbers: «one ball», «two balls’».
Usually John resisted attempts to give him some new knowledge, but now he received them in passing, as if in between times, «for your photobook.» For Elina, this in itself became an exciting game – to choose the words, categories and concepts that she wanted to teach John, and then come up with and select stories for them for filming. John flourished from this new, high-quality gaming attention, and participated with pleasure in these games with his mother during the filming.
– Johnny, put the orange ball in the middle. Right here. The middle is between two other balls.
And later she saw the result:
«What do you think would be a good ball if you put it in the middle between these huge green ones?» Little red? Great. Put it down soon. I want to photograph them myself.
Elina had fun, rejoicing to herself that he understood about the «middle».
– In order for the balls to be evenly positioned in the photo, you need to move the ball, which we have on the edge, which means at the very end. Yes, everything is fine now. Well done. You can shoot!
In the future, she already planned to expand the field of their activities and walk around the nearby shops that sell balls, and at the same time introduce her son to the concepts of «address» and «route».
Next in line was the idea of a photobook about different shapes: a circle made of balls, a square, a triangle. The idea of sports is tennis ball, soccer ball, basketball. Elina imagined how she would tell her son about different sports and even show short videos about each of them. Fortunately, the necessary balls and the Internet were at hand. She felt that she herself had already fallen in love with these magic balls.
Elina got the idea to talk to John’s teacher in special program he attended, so she’d demonstrated photobooks there
ORDER FOR THE MASTER
When Irene came to visit a small family, Elina asked her son to bring his photobooks. Irene was amazed at the quality of his work and openly admired the boy’s talent. An expression of pride and satisfaction gradually appeared on the face of John. Then the friends sat together in the kitchen, and John took pictures of the new balls that Iren bought for him, choosing the best angles and background colors.
– Elina, he is very talented. Just look at the quality pictures he took. These balls seem to have a lifetime. As if they have their own characters and destinies, but only John sees them. And in the photographs, he shows them so clearly, so vividly… Listen, I have an idea. How about John makes a portfolio of jewelry that I make? It could be the same photobook as with balls, only there would be pictures of my bracelets, pendants and earrings. I could show it to my clients, and we would put John’s name on it. It’s like he’s a real professional photographer. What do you think?
– In my opinion… that is a wonderful idea; – Elina struggled to find
