The New York skyline has been used in photography for as long as people have been aiming cameras and subjects have been saying “cheese!” The skyscrapers, traffic and parks have filled the backgrounds of memorable shots for years. For drama, passion, suspense or romance, the Big Apple can offer a setting and tone unmatched in the world. Now, an author has taken to the New York City streets to show how this holds true for children’s photos as well.
Jane Goodrich, a native of England and current resident of Westchester, NY, has a new book out, New York Is My Playground. Goodrich shows how the steel skyscrapers and bustling subway stations are just as homey as anywhere else in the city for kids young and old. The book is filled with wonderful photos of children at play in the city they grew up.
Goodrich has been taking photos since she was a child, when her older sister had a camera. She worked in advertising briefly before becoming a full-time photographer. She has previously published two books, one focused on helping her clients understand how to help their children take quality and lively photos, and the second a children’s book called Where’s Charlie’s Nose? It was dedicated to her young nephew, to help him learn parts of his body as a toddler.
Outside of book publishing, Goodrich’s specialty is in family photography. “What really is a personal project and more a passion of mine is capturing kids in their moment of play and wonder,” she says. While taking pictures of children in the city, she realized how special these images were, and decided to make a larger project out of it. New York Is My Playground was born.
The pictures in the book are full-page, colorful, and vibrant, showing New York City kids in their natural habitat, comfortable in the city they call home. Each page is captioned with a short burst of a sentence, written by Bob Raczka, a highly respected author of children’s books based in Illinois. Goodrich had worked with Raczka previously in Chicago, and he was very enthusiastic when she broached the idea of the book. Goodrich sent him images and he wrote the captions to accompany them. For instance, a shot of a girl spinning in a fluttering multi-colored tutu and pink shirt has the caption of “New York Makes My Feet Happy.”
“He picked the images, and then just wrote against it, and it just brought the images to life,” Goodrich explains. “The images are great, but the story behind it, I feel really helps tell the story.” Goodrich took over 3,000 photos for the book alone, and the pair went through them to find the best shots. Goodrich and Raczka also plan to do a second book, in the same vein as this one but set in Chicago.
Goodrich saw that there was a lot of books available for infants that used New York City as a way to learn the ABCs or numbers. But she wanted to make a book for slightly older kids, since there seemed to be fewer of them. Goodrich often found that perspective was a challenge, combining a small child with a towering building or the Statue of Liberty, but she feels the end result was worth it.
The book shows both sides of New York, with shots of iconic locales like Times Square and Bryant Park, but also quieter spaces that are free of tourists. “I tried to get a range…a few iconic, a few art pieces,” she says. Goodrich also wanted the pictures to be specific to a child growing up in the city, which is why she targeted locations that true New York City kids would know, like the lions in front of the New York Library.
Anyone who has worked with kids and photography knows that there are some natural challenges that present themselves, and Goodrich didn’t hire professional child models to be in her shots. “Kids can get very distracted, so you have to have a few images in mind for that shoot, and not necessarily get hung up on one. The kids might do something else you didn’t even think of,” she explains. “I let the kids guide me.” Goodrich’s experiences with kids contributed to the successful shoots. She would often give them something to do, or a toy to play with, rather than specific instructions she would give to adult or professional models. Goodrich also professes to have a natural ease with children, which helps the shoots.
“Kids are uninhibited, so if you treat them like humans…with respect, they’re going to respect you. They also find me funny for about ten minutes,” Goodrich says. Her efforts to be silly would often require her to do things a regular photographer wouldn’t have to do, such as lay down in front of trash bags on the street. She even admitted to slightly hurting her ankle during one of the shoots. “For me, it’s just fun. I like having fun, meeting these kids, finding out what motivates them and finding out very quickly,” she says. “I’m actually better with kids than adults!” Goodrich also notes that some kids would require time to warm up while others just stepped in and were ready, so the key was to understand what the child needed to feel comfortable.
The different moods of the shoots were often directly impacted by where they were shooting. “The energy of New York is very interesting for children,” Goodrich explains. “[In] the Times Square shot, [the child] was running around, but it took her about 30 minutes to warm up because she was just in awe…and just staring at the billboards.”
Four children featured in the book are actually children of fairly well-known New York bloggers. Goodrich had worked with them previously so she knew that these kids could jump or move in a certain way that would be great for the book. “These moms were great,” she says. “I feel like mom bloggers take a lot of pictures of their kids, so they’re more used to the camera.”
Ultimately, for Goodrich, the overarching theme of the book wasn’t just about showing off the biggest city in the world. She wanted to encourage children to be comfortable and excited out in the places they live in, even if they are not living in New York. “I feel like the concepts of the book can be anywhere. It doesn’t necessarily have to be an urban city,” she notes. “Explore your surroundings! Anywhere can be your playground.”
To learn more about the book and about Jane Goodrich, visit janegoodrich.com! To buy the book on Amazon, click HERE!
