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The Galway Autism Partnership was formed in 2011 by a group of proactive parents and adults on the autism spectrum to support each other and get out better information about autism. They work hard every day to make sure that the people and families affected by autism spectrum disorders have services and support in Galway. You can find a wide variety of people in their membership: parents, people on the autism spectrum, family members, teachers, volunteers and those working with people who are living with ASD.
Columbus photographer Colin McGuire has several connections to the autism community. His niece works with autistic children daily and his sister-in-law’s son has autism as well. It was because of these connections (and his skills as a photographer) that Colin was invited back to his home country of Ireland by the Galway Autism Partnership (GAP) House to create a photo essay on the children that spend their time there.
As Colin was preparing for his time at the GAP House, he reflected on his experiences photographing his nephew; they gave him insight that helped him to understand how important spontaneity would be when photographing these special children. In Colin’s experience, children are often used to having cameras pushed in their faces from early childhood and tend to turn on a ‘photo smile’ and start performing when they see a camera. The kids of the GAP House didn’t react that way, which made for beautiful and honest candid portraits.
What made it so special was just how uninhibited these kids were in front of the camera. How natural, organic and true they were.
The greatest benefit of this shoot also turned out to be its greatest challenge. A lot of the children didn’t have what you might consider ‘everyday’ communication skills. It can be hard at times to get moments that work as a photograph when you’re not able to direct your subjects. Colin drew from his experiences with his young nephew, and solved this by encouraging situations where the children were comfortable.
My way of overcoming that was to create situations that would provide a particular activity for the child and then I shot and captured moments organically as they unfolded.
One thing that struck Colin besides the beautiful naturalness of the children was the staff at the GAP House. They were accommodating and helpful in every aspect of the shoot and helped guide Colin as he captured moments.
Colin considers his GAP house project personal work, driven by his own curiosity and love of photographing people and children. Colin also gave copies of the photos to the GAP house for marketing programs as well prints to be given as a thank you gift to the families of the children.
It’s nice to create images that can be used to bring attention to such a worthy cause as this. It’s great to make a living from photography but it’s a really nice feeling if you can once in a while use photography to make the world a slightly better place!
Colin’s social media channels have been showing a lot of love for these images, and he suspects that it’s because they strike his viewer in a different way than typical child portraits. See the entire gallery here.
See more of Colin at colinmcguire.com!