The paint was cold, and he shivered when the brush touched his skin. The woman holding his head, the painter, felt him tense up and backed away, thinking he was afraid.

"Are you OK, buddy?" we asked.

"Yeah," he said.

Less than a minute later I handed him a fistful of bills and he turned and handed it to her. Then we walked on, a purple unicorn adorning his left cheek.

Juliette asked me tonight how I was feeling. Honestly, I'm starting to feel like I'm floating again. I've reached a plateau with my photography where I'm not advancing commercially or artistically.  My portrait bookings are sporadic, and while my clients have universally been happy with the photographs I make with them, I don't feel like I'm making much progress, if any, toward a self-sustaining life in photography. Nor do I have the time to dedicate toward building that business.

On the other hand, while I'm proud of how far I've come artistically with my personal work, I have very few outlets for that work and essentially no useful criticism. I've gotten a few photos into some curated groups on Flickr, but even though that was and is exciting, there's nothing there for me to build on, and no real feedback as to what's working and what's not, whether my rejects have shown potential or are just crap. The few critiques I've solicited have been generally positive--some overwhelmingly so--but while that's a nice ego boost it does nothing to help me grow as an artist.

And so, I feel adrift, directionless. I don't have the time or resources to pursue further training, and I don't have much in the way of an artistic community to bounce ideas off of and to give me feedback and criticism. I'm just continuing to do what I've been doing, but it feels more like I'm treading water than making any kind of forward progress.

I'm not really sure where to go from here, except that I know I don't want to give up. I know that when I look at pictures like the one above, it makes me happy--happy because of the moment in the picture and happy because I was able to make that image. That ought to be enough, but for whatever reason, it's not. So I suppose until I figure things out, there's nothing to do except take Dory's advice: just keep swimming, swimming, swimming.

"OK, which toy do you want, Jason."

"Ummmmm, I want the girl ducky."

"This one?"

"Yeah, that one."

"You know, you used to call this one the Jason ducky."

"That's not a Jason, that's a girl."

"Why do you think it's a girl?"

"Because it's a girl ducky."

"What makes it look like a girl?"

"See that? That's the make-up."

"You mean the little eyelashes? OK."

"Yeah, those eyelashes are called make-up. My eyelashes don't have that."

"I guess not."

"You know what mine are called? Mine are called merner."

"Merner? That's not a word, Jason."

"Sounds like a word to me."

He climbs up on that railing every time I pick him up from preschool. Usually I just tell him "no climbing," and we continue toward the car. What I don't say--and what he probably won't understand for a long time, if ever--is that I still want to climb on things sometimes, too.

Jason may be a little overzealous when it comes to getting the water out of his eyes.

Last year at his dance recital, Jason kind of froze up. I don't know if it was the lights or the crowd noises, but he looked a little like a deer in the headlights. At the very end, though, he did his somersault at just the right time, and the crowded erupted at the cuteness. I felt like my chest might burst, so much was I swelling with pride and love.

This year there was also a boy in the dance who froze up, but it wasn't Jason. He looked confident and like he was having a lot of fun. And, as you can see, both cool and adorable.

How is it possible to feel so much joy, so much love for a person? I don't know, but I do.

The first time through, he got stuck and shouted for my help. I gave it, and he continued on.

The second time through I was there waiting for him, and reached out to give him a leg up before he could get upset. I followed beside him the next few times, ready to push or pull as soon as he asked.

But before long, he had figured out how to climb over that steep spot on his own, and thereafter he didn't need me anymore.

But then he turned and beckoned me to follow him in. "Daddy, come on!" he shouted. "I want you!"

It's nice to be wanted.

I mentioned that my camera is kind of busted--well, my first reaction upon seeing this frame was annoyance, followed by chagrin. You can get enough of a sense of what each individual capture looked like to tell that both of them would have been keepers for this particular assignment, and knowing that I'd lost them to a camera error both frustrated me and made me sad. As the days go by, though, I find that the result of that error is really sticking in my mind.

I'm not usually one for camera tricks, and multiple exposures are usually one of the first things that you play with as a budding photography student--certainly my friends and I all did, back in high school. Moreover, I tend to view art as something purposeful, and the accidental nature of this image's genesis is the sort of thing that makes me think it's a throwaway.

And yet, I can't stop thinking about it.

There's just something about the chaos of it all, the happenstance. The way things come together at odd angles, and the way that the little gestures of each individual exposure come through on their own while still seeming to contribute to the resultant whole. I find it compelling.

Maybe I'm reaching, but I think there's something there.

I love this picture. I think it's my favorite from the entire session we did for Juliette's dad. I love it for a lot of reasons. I love it for technical reasons: the lighting, the textures, the selective focus. I love it because it looks like what Jason looks like right now. And not just the way his features look, but his personality, too--the way he's fiddling with his shirt, belying the calm, almost tired look on his face. It's a truthful picture in many ways.

But it's funny how pictures can lie, even when they're telling another kind of truth. When I look at this picture, it looks like a quiet moment. There's a serenity to it, a peacefulness. It's in the gesture and the light, the way darkness brushes over half his face. And that's not what that shoot was actually like.

In reality, Jason had his normal morning energy. He was playful and silly, full of smiles and constantly moving, even when he was sitting still. In order to keep him engaged enough to actually get his picture I had to wheedle and bribe and tickle and make faces.

And yet, it's funny how pictures can tell the truth, even when they're lying. Because, as I said, the way he looks in this picture, that's him, too. It may not have been him on that morning, but it is in him, and for the split-second of this photograph, that's what he showed me.

All this, and more, is why I love photography. And parenting.

This weekend, Juliette and I bribed Jason to take some nice pictures for his Aba (that's what we call Juliette's dad). It may not be obvious from this shot, but he was actually very cooperative.