Peter Oshkai photography

My daughter is three years old and has a strong sense of personal property, typical for this age. About two weeks ago, she gave us a vivid illustration of the fact that sharing, as a concept, is a two-way interaction.

On the way to the Beacon Hill park, we realized that we left our daughter’s sandbox toys at home. She was a little upset, but we told her that there were many other interesting things at the park – swings, slides, a zip line, etc. She would just need to share them with other kids. The virtue of sharing is not taken for granted at her age, to say the least, so it took quite a bit of convincing before she agreed that sharing is a good thing to do.

As we came to the playground, she saw somebody else’s plastic bucket and toys in the sandbox and immediately suggested: “Let’s share those!” How can you argue with this? After all, sharing is good!

My daughter is looking through a window while her mother is arranging her hair before going out to see the long-awaited Raffi concert last Sunday. I have a mixed impression of this image of her: it says “childhood” to me, and at the same time I can’t help but be amazed at how fast she is growing up.

Last year, I helped Gordon Lee as a second shooter with photography of a dress rehearsal of a year-end show of the Boston Dance Collective school. It was a great learning experience. Actually, the most positive aspect was not related to photography. I was quite impressed by the professionalism of the dance instructors and the production process. Later that year, we enrolled our daughter, two-year-old at the time, into a creative dance class. It is hard to believe that last week she had her first-ever performance in this year end show at the Royal Theatre.

During a dress rehearsal on Wednesday, while our daughter and her group were on stage, my wife was waiting for her in the dressing room, and I took some photos of the dancers waiting backstage. I aimed to differentiate my photos from those of Gordon, who was taking the official photos again this year, partly to avoid impinging on his commercial turf and partly because I learned that the high-volume commercial shoots were not the general direction I wanted to pursue.

When our daughter’s dance was finished, we went for dinner at the Pink Bicycle restaurant across from the theatre. To finish the exciting day, we later drove to the playground on Cook St. near the Beacon Hill park. The pink dragon with its eggs buried in the sandbox is always popular with our little one. At the playground, we met three Russian-speaking families – a sign of growing Russian community in Victoria. An idea of holding an impromptu referendum to follow in the steps of Crimea and annex the playground to Russia was floated but quickly decided against.