Emil´s Lichtfang is a photo project that started in 2016 when I was given a FUJI INSTAX MINI at Christmas by my mother. When I unpacked it, my then one and a half-year-old son Emil stated "Papa photo camera!" and was hooked on it.
He watched me carefully when I loaded a film and how I took the first photo and asked for being allowed to take a picture. So I handed over the camera and ever since it is his, and he started to take pictures.
In the beginning, he was most fascinated by the fact that this tiny photograph was coming out of the camera making this special sound, so he just pretended to shoot one photo after the other, learning to reload the camera all alone with an empty film cartridge.
But clearly just pretending to be a photographer is not enough, even for a little boy. So in regular intervals, I buy him new films for the Instax Mini and carefully collect, curate and post his ever-growing body of work.
Soon after playing around with the Instax he also did find out how to take pictures with my smartphone and he managed to destroy one of my digital cameras by accident so half a year ago I gave him his first own digital camera.
I will keep up this project as long as Emil is enjoying taking pictures because I find his playful approach and the truthfulness of his photographs amazing, fascinating and a little bit intimidating, to be honest.
The name Emils Lichtfang was given to this project by a dear friend of mine Alexander Wilhelm, who came up with this amazing title when I first posted a photo by Emil on my facebook page.
