In the New Oxford American Dictionary “passion” is defined as an intense and barely controllable emotion. I’m not sure that’s what I’d call my project. I’m going to redefine this project as an “exuberance endeavor.”

Tarragona, Spain

Exuberance is defined as filled with or characterized by a lively energy and excitement. This is relevant because I chose to photograph children. For one, children are constantly moving. But they’re not just moving for the heck of it; they’re moving because they want to, and they have fun with it (most of the time). They run, jump, and fight over toy trucks. It’s all so very lighthearted, vivacious, lively, energetic...

I like to think that there’s no such thing as an instantaneous photo; each photo represents a distinct period of time, as defined by the shutter speed. In photographs there’s only the present. Freezing a frame of reality or showing the motion from that specific period of time is the entire concept of photography. This plays into the theme of children well, because as John Szarkowski, author of The Photographer’s Eye, puts it, “there’s beauty in this fragmenting of time that has little to do with that was happening. It has to do rather with seeing the momentary patterning of lines and shapes that had been previously concealed within the flux of movement.”

All of my photos have relatively fast shutter speeds, intended to freeze the subject in motion. To me, they represent the excitement and movement of childhood. To be honest, these photos all manage to get a little giggle out of me, especially the feather-capped Robin Hood.

Anne Driscoll is a member of the Youth Travel Blogging Mentorship Program.

All photos courtesy and copyright Anne Driscoll