When my son was four years old, I bought him a Canon Sure Shot Owl 35mm camera. This was a simple to use point and shoot 35mm camera with a large viewfinder that was easy for a little kid to see through.

A year earlier, he had gotten interested in touching and looking through my expensive professional cameras, so I bought him a single use Fuji Quicksnap camera. At age three, he quickly learned how to turn the flash on and off, how to compose the photo and advance the film. He ended up going through a bunch of those Quicksnap cameras, which got expensive! They cost about $6 each at the time, when one could buy a four-pack of 35mm color film for $7.

For his fourth birthday, I bought him the Canon Owl. Everyone said he was too young for a camera like that, but he loved it! He learned to load and unload the film himself and even learned how to use the self-timer to do self-portraits. Now he shoots with a Nikon digital SLR, using it to photograph scenes that he builds with Lego bricks. He uses the photos to make stop-motion animations! You can see some photos of him working in his 'studio', using a lamp to light the scene.

These photographs were made soon after I gave him the camera, a few months after his birthday (click the Related Photographs tab above the picture to see the rest of this series). In the first photograph, he is photographing me. In the last, he looked bored because I asked him to hold still so I could do a portrait of him sitting there with his camera. He still gets annoyed sometimes when I take too many pictures!

See some of the photographs that Mack made when he was a little kid

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Purchase Prints
by Christopher Crawford

All of my prints are available framed or unframed. I use black metal Neilsen & Bainbridge frames with white cotton unbuffered museum board for the mat and backing board for maximum archival protection. Photographs are printed on an Epson pigment printer using Epson's archival ultrachrome inset for long life.

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Unframed prints usually ship within 7 days. This allows time for me to make your print and to allow it to cure for several days before I package it to ship. Framed prints usually take about two weeks, because my framer usually requires about a week to complete his work.

Please Note: In late 2024, I was forced to dramatically increase the prices for framed prints. This reflects the actual cost of framing them. I make no profit from the additional charge for framing; I charge you what the framer charges me, and every framer that I know has had to ramp up prices due to inflation in recent years. I earn my living selling my photographs, and offer the framing at cost because many people prefer to buy a print that is framed and ready to display.

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