I was very pleased to have this photo selected as the Cottage Life magazine “Life at the Cabin” first place winner for their 2018 photo contest. I always love seeing my photos in print, and even more so when the photos involve the kids.

This was a shot from a rainy Canada day at the cabin.  With Julia and Daniel getting older I have no idea how long forts like this will continue to be built.  This time I decided to crawl under one of the blanket walls to get a view of what was going on inside.  Although it was all back-lit, I was able to get good framing with Daniel’s face and the lines of the stool.  I also made sure to run the tape dividing line through at an angle and get a nice profile of Julia.  I also wanted to catch the game of “go fish” in full action.  A little bit of old school fun.

The magazine write-up

How it came to be: A rainy day at their Emma Lake, Sask., cabin didn’t faze Julia, 11, and Daniel, 8.  Dad David Leswick decided to crawl through one of the walls of the kid-built fort with his Nikon D750 and wait.  “Once I saw that I could shoot my son’s face through the stool, I knew I had a decent shot, but I had to wait for him to bend forward to play his card.”  When he did — click.  “Instead of everyone outside in the sun, it’s a different view of life at the cabin,” says David.  “Luckily, it wasn’t a really high security fort.”

Why is it a winner?  This is a hard shot to pull of — David is under a blanket, and it’s mostly backlit, but we loved how he clearly thought about what would work visually.  Instead of blocking things, the stool legs frame frame Daniel’s face and hands, and despite the shadows, you can still see both faces.  It shows how the cottage encourages kids to make something out of nothing, and it’s also a reminder that the quiet moments in between swims and the ice cream cones can be just as memorable.

The photo itself