Dear NJFrank...

I think your comments are right on the money. The single mother had the little guy to constantly watch her only respond to her commands and ignore everyone else. After raising a hand to get his attention and him ignoring me out of his peripheral vision, I immediately realized that my waiting until the boy turned to look at me would result in his mother taking his picture and them walking off without him ever looking at me.

Since I wanted to capture that smile with my camera even without their cooperation, I knew I had to go ahead and take a picture with him looking away from me at his mom. You are correct in that I should have cropped out the leg on the left and I did want to include the team logo, but not have Chico image overshadow the little boy and become the subject of my picture. Thank you for your excellent observations. Shooter41

This evening, I worked my way upstairs, in Hartman Arena, an hour before the Wichita Wings indoor soccer team's last home game was to start. One of my jobs for the last several years has been photographing children coming into the Arena to help the owners of the team bring in more fans. The children get to pose with our mascot, who is a seven-foot-tall, burnt-orange bird, named "Chico."

Right away, several children burst into tears the instant their parents tried to convince them to have their picture taken with Chico. It was going to be a long night if more children kept throwing a fit and refusing to have their picture taken. Then a single mom shyly came up to me with her handsome little boy, whom she had prepared for our photo session by plastering his hair down and had him dress wearing his favorite tan jersey. I watched as he confidently marched up to Chico and turned around with a serious face as he checked to see what his next order was from his mom. It was obvious that this was not his first photo session.

He didn't even bother to look at me running around with my big camera, wanting to take his picture. All of his attention was directed at his mother, as she held her smart phone up. Then she said, "Charlie...don't forget to smile." An amazing transformation of his face took place as his serious look morphed into the most beautiful smile in the world.

As the two of them left to go to their seats after the pictures had been taken, I trotted along beside Charlie mumbling, "Thank you for sharing your beautiful smile." But much to my dismay, Charlie was only interested in his mother's approval. What would we do without the love of mothers?

The picture I took has way too much clutter behind "Chico. " I cut off Chico's head to make it clear who was the subject of my creation. I was too close to my subject making my flash too hot, so I had to do a lot of editing to my image at least presentable. But somehow, the picture still works for me. I would appreciate the expert photographers on UHH sharing their thoughts on weaknesses in the image and if it works for them, or I need to hit the delete button. Shooter41