When a boy in a cape appeared at the top of the sledding hill (aka, “the volcano”) with a giant cloud rearing up like a monster behind him, well, who can blame me for snapping a few shots?

I took four shots of Super Boy up on the hill before he ran (flew?) away.  I couldn’t decide which one I liked the best, but in the end picked this one because it had the added bonus of the bicycle and the pedestrians moving through the frame below, oblivious to the superhero on top of the hill.  On one hand, the shot with no bike or pedestrians is less busy.  On the other hand, I feel like it’s a more complete story to have the tiny boy on top of the hill, potentially battling the cloud monster, while the adults go about their business like it’s just another ordinary day.

That pretty much sums up the difference between children and adults most days.

I try to imagine myself wandering around the park in a big red cape.  I picture myself at the top of the hill with some sort of mask and my cape blowing in the wind with a fist raised above my head as I shout at the clouds, daring them to transform into something dangerous.  I imagine running down the hill at top speed, pretending to fly as my cape billows out behind me.  It’s ridiculously fun.  I am tempted to start shopping for a cape.

In the meantime, I return to shooting the clouds as they hover close to the ground.  They billow on the horizon, sitting so low that they look like white hills of cotton stacked up against the green hills of the park.  It looks like you could run up the hill and jump onto the clouds.  Now that would have been a good shot of Super Boy–one of him leaping mid air, ready to bounce off a cloud.

I wonder if I bought Pat a cape if he would model for me?

In the meantime, my photographer’s assistant is not doing a very good job of assisting.

He is caught in his own imaginary game.  He is playing “hunter.”  This is a game in which he imagines himself as a pointer or a rhodesian ridgeback or some other great hunting dog.  He freezes in the midst of long grass, cocks his head and listens, sure that there is wild game hidden in the grasses nearby.  He raises one foot, bent at the elbow in a near-perfect approximation of a point.

I turn and watch, but cannot see any sign of prey hidden in the grass below.  Eventually, I sit down on the curb and just wait to see how long Tisen will continue to imagine himself a great hunter.  He outlasts me.  I say his name and he wags his tail as he returns from his imaginary world to follow me home.