Creative Vision of a Thirteen-Year-Old
There’s nothing more thrilling and rewarding than witnessing and nurturing the creative process in young artists. Their vision of reality is truly boundless, They are not limited by technique, form, or structure the way many adults tend to be. Young creatives experiment. They push boundaries. They are fearless. Unique and inspiring, their work is often nothing short of captivating.
The images presented here were captured by one such young creative, my son, Will. He was thirteen when he took these photographs during a traveling exhibition that used to visit our small hometown airport every fall. The event, called Wings of Freedom, was organized and funded by the Collings Foundation. It featured three restored World War II (WWII) aircraft as part of a living history program: a P-51 Mustang, a B-17 Flying Fortress, and a B-24 Liberator.
Will and I attended this exhibition regularly. On one particular visit, I handed him one of my older Canon DSLRs, equipped with a Canon EF 28–135mm f/3.5–5.6 IS USM lens. After about twenty minutes of basic instruction on the camera's functions, we headed out to the tarmac.
It was a crisp autumn day bathed in late afternoon sunlight. We paid for admission, parked the car, and stepped onto the flight line. My only guidance to Will was simple: explore, play with angles and light, and, above all, have fun. He stayed close at first but eventually found his own rhythm and wandered off, camera in hand. We spent about two hours photographing and exploring the aircraft and WWII memorabilia.
Later that evening, I uploaded Will’s images to my home server and gave them a quick look. Then, life got busy, and they were forgotten for a time. A couple of years later, Will and I stumbled upon them again. As we browsed through the shots, I was immediately struck by his eye for composition and light.
We pulled up chairs in my office and opened Lightroom to begin developing the photos together. Captured by Will and edited alongside me, these images became a father-son collaboration. That said, Will did most of the heavy lifting in-camera. I was genuinely impressed with his perspective and the choices he made, many of which I wouldn’t have thought to try myself.
The Wings of Freedom tour may have come to an end, but its legacy lives on. The aircraft now rest in their permanent home at the American Heritage Museum in Hudson, Massachusetts. While the traveling exhibit no longer returns each fall, the memories remain vivid: moments of shared discovery, quiet pride, and the joy of watching a young creative begin to find a voice through the lens of a camera.
Looking back, I’m reminded that creativity is not something that can be taught. It lives in each of us. Sometimes, it just needs a spark: a chance to be noticed, encouraged, and allowed to grow.
Enjoy!
