Autistic stare

Hello everyone, ever since I got my 450D I've been lurking on POTN and I keep coming back to the Kids & Family and the Wedding session (not sure what that might imply actually ). I think it's a great place to learn and get some inspiration as to how to shoot my own son, Matthies. So, as part of coming out of the woodwork, I thought I would share a photo that is special to me. It's special because my son is autistic and he does not usually make much eye contact but for this photo I was able to get him to stare into the lens for a brief while. I converted it to black & white because to me that made it even more dramatic.

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There is nothing wrong with the kit lens, i have seen many great shots come from the 18-55 . Cute snap, and im sure you were thrilled to get a picture of him making eye contact.

Thanks for sharing Cherry, this is a great shot of your son. I think the kit lens is just doing fine!

beautiful shot of your son and you are doing fine with the kit lens

18-55 is a great lens, don't be fooled by L obsession here, there are plenty of non-L lenses which will produce great images.

Good shot - the kit lens can perform very well in some applications. This was one of them.

Great shot, i understand your happyness with getting this shot. my brother who is now 18 is autistic (diognosted with the highest degree of autisim) i try to capture photos of him becasue we get along so well (even if his sosializing skills are bad he is a great friend) but he hates having his photo taken.
lovely shot from casey.

Thanks everybody for the nice comments. Matthies has high functioning autism meaning that he's incredibly clever but lacks social skills. And snapshots are all we're going to get from him because he just CANNOT sit still. It's funny to see his school photos, he's always near the teacher (because he walks away otherwise, haha) or is looking away from the lens into the distance. And that in all fairness *is* what Matthies is like, so it's accurate .

cherrym wrote in post #7188529
Thanks everybody for the nice comments. Matthies has high functioning autism meaning that he's incredibly clever but lacks social skills. And snapshots are all we're going to get from him because he just CANNOT sit still. It's funny to see his school photos, he's always near the teacher (because he walks away otherwise, haha) or is looking away from the lens into the distance. And that in all fairness *is* what Matthies is like, so it's accurate .

thier cleverness can astound can't it...i call my little brother "a walking dictionary" he hates it but its true he always knows about what ever obsession he has at the time and he never forgets.
thanks for sharing this photo

christyjo2 wrote in post #7187833
There is nothing wrong with the kit lens, i have seen many great shots come from the 18-55 . Cute snap, and im sure you were thrilled to get a picture of him making eye contact.

I like this alot. Especially knowing how autistic kids temperment, and behavior is like... i know how special it must be to have him stare into your lens like that. Beautiful.

Thats all i used was the kit lens when i first started. I only got my 50mm 1.8 ,6 weeks ago... most of the 2nd and all of the 3rd page of my flickr was with the kit lens of the XTi.

I looked at that photo and I thought "what a beautiful boy" regardless of what makes him different. I have to say, it tainted my view of the photo a bit because you mentioned his Autism. It wasn't needed, the photo looks great, with or without Autism.

Just saying.

This is just a cute photo and a very nice capture. The story behind it just makes it that much better. Also, from a photo point of view, it's a great B&W conversion which fits this photo nicely. I'm also partial to horizontal portraits, and this one is nice especially with the slight tilt of the head.

BTW, is there something that he will fix his gaze one? Food, etc? You can cut out a circular piece of paper and fit it around your lens and put stickers, drawings, etc on it for him to look at so it's not eye contact. Forgive me if that's not how it works, it's just a thought.

Honduh Chicken wrote in post #7194956
I looked at that photo and I thought "what a beautiful boy" regardless of what makes him different. I have to say, it tainted my view of the photo a bit because you mentioned his Autism. It wasn't needed, the photo looks great, with or without Autism.

Just saying.

how can him being autistic taint your view of the photo?
and 2nd it makes sence to say his is autisic because it is the story behind the photo and what makes the photo special.
just my view..

readysetgocapture wrote in post #7195001
how can him being autistic taint your view of the photo?
and 2nd it makes sence to say his is autisic because it is the story behind the photo and what makes the photo special.
just my view..

I don't know, it just kind of put me off a little bit is all, there are about a dozen things you can say about the subject. I didn't see a boy with Autism, I saw a boy with a story to tell, a boy who had a lot going on in his brain, etc.

I see your point about story behind the photo, but the reason I got into photography is because a good photo (like this one) IS the story.

readysetgocapture wrote in post #7195001
how can him being autistic taint your view of the photo?
and 2nd it makes sence to say his is autisic because it is the story behind the photo and what makes the photo special.
just my view..

Oh and to answer your question about how it "tainted" my view, is because it's kind of a spoiler. The first think I looked for in this photo was "what does an Autistic person look like?" then I thought to myself, why is the first think I'm looking for in this photo is a "difference", not the beauty of childhood, or the quality of the photo, or the million other things that makes the OP's "art" worth looking at.