About a month ago I got and email from Charlie, the founder of Stories of Autism. Stories of Autism is a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing awareness to children and adults on the autism spectrum through photography and personal stories. Charlie asked me if I would be willing to donate some time to photograph someone in the St. Louis area. I agreed immediately.
The next day Charlie wrote to tell me about Jack. He put me in touch with his mother and we scheduled a time to take Jack’s picture.
I have never worked with a family dealing with autism before. I really had no idea what to expect. Was Jack going to hide from me? Was he going to scream? Was he going to throw things at me? Was he going to smile? I imagined the best and the worst.
Jack was playing in a small playroom off the kitchen. He was sitting on his toy box so I sat down on the floor across from him and snapped the first picture. As soon has he heard the click of the shutter, he got up up, walked over to me, and sat down right in my lap. He wanted to see the picture I just took on the back of the camera.
I was a better experience than the best experience I had imagined.
