For me, this is a memory of a by-gone era when boys would be boys and they played out their myriad fantasies. My guess is that one of these is you, Chad, but I'm not sure which one?

The games we all played back then! WOW.

Chad Doveton: Thanks Ginnie. You are correct in that it is certainly a different era and one them is me. No computers, electronic toys or television even. It let our imaginations run riot.

Chad I love the oldy shot but what does the reflection say I just carn't work it out NOT -ADE. The boys obviously think they are Gladiators my be one of the is Charlton Heston LOL

Chad Doveton: Thanks, tracy. All will be revealed, just keep watching. love the Charlton Heston comment.

Can't read the text, but the kids sure seem to be having fun in that time before gameboys.

Chad Doveton: Absolutely, Martin. The pleasures of childhood are not dependent on technological advances or wealth of money. Thanks for commenting. Regards, chad

Ray from Thailand 6 September 2007, 15:14 reply delete


I don't know that I can claim this image has meaning for me, but I can observe that it has substance and a non-visual quality that summons up childhood [distant past in my case].

There was a time and a place where children's romantic notions were not entirely commercialised and managed. That was when one used what was available to create a facsimile of the mystical world of child fantasy....a banana box became a galleon, or a locomotive...or a war chariot; a scrap of cloth became a prince's cape, or Tarzan's loincloth, or a mighty sail. Everyone could participate. Creation of the rules and context were part of the experience.

It seems more difficult for kids now. Most of the fantasy is already drawn and coloured in, and only the defiant few seem to have the energy and will to get the whole experience.

Photographs are not memories, but do catalyse the memory process.
Chad Doveton: That is extremely well put, Ray. Your final sentence is spot on. In art all meaning belongs to the viewer. I like your comment regarding the current state of things where the child's world of fantasy is prepared and fed ready made. Does that mean our children an now merely participants and no longer authors. I do not know but thanks for the comment. Regards, chad
I don't know that I can claim this image has meaning for me, but I can observe that it has substance and a non-visual quality that summons up childhood [distant past in my case].

There was a time and a place where children's romantic notions were not entirely commercialised and managed. That was when one used what was available to create a facsimile of the mystical world of child fantasy....a banana box became a galleon, or a locomotive...or a war chariot; a scrap of cloth became a prince's cape, or Tarzan's loincloth, or a mighty sail. Everyone could participate. Creation of the rules and context were part of the experience.

It seems more difficult for kids now. Most of the fantasy is already drawn and coloured in, and only the defiant few seem to have the energy and will to get the whole experience.

Photographs are not memories, but do catalyse the memory process.
That is extremely well put, Ray. Your final sentence is spot on. In art all meaning belongs to the viewer. I like your comment regarding the current state of things where the child's world of fantasy is prepared and fed ready made. Does that mean our children an now merely participants and no longer authors. I do not know but thanks for the comment. Regards, chad

This got accidently deleted so I have pasted it back in

En esta fotografía, se respira y transmite alguna cosa que no soy capaz de explicar. Imaginación!

In this photography, some thing is breathed and transmitted that I am not able to explain. Imagination!