I stumbled upon this short video taken in 1901 of children seeing a camera for the first time in their life.

It’s fascinating to watch this snippet. I watched it repeatedly as I’m always interested and intrigued of how people dressed and carried themselves in the past.

You can see the snippet below.

What I think about this video is:

• Where are they? (It’s SO busy!)
• Who are they?
• What are they saying to each other about it?
• What do they think it is?
• What feelings are they experiencing?
• Where have they come from?
• After this, where will they be going?
• What will they say to others about it?

The other fascinating thing about these children is so hardened they look. I assume they would have had difficult lives having to deal with poverty.

Look at how they’re standing. Children model behaviours from adults so I can only assume that adults (men) stood like this in the past. Nowadays you don’t see men stand like this.

How and why did this change?

Was it because back then men wore vests and they could put their hands in the vest pockets?

Remove the clothing, stop the behaviour.

What makes this video a little bit sad for ne too, to me is that a short 13 years later, all these children may have never grown to see a full life because of the flu pandemic or the Great War so to me, even though their life is punctuated by something new and different by seeing a camera and which makes them stop, question, wonder, you’re still on the trajectory of your own life path.

Stop to enjoy the moments of awe and curiosity at every opportunity you can.