Long Days Of A Summer In The Backyard: A cousin can be a best friend who just happens to be family. They share a common thread that will enable a powerful lifelong bond with one another, even though sometimes it means driving in the car for hours and hours in a cramped back seat to Peoria, Illinois. I wanted to capture a simple moment during the long summer that undeniably belongs to children. Sometimes these moments occur between invented games of in-between basketball-soccer-tag with Tonka-truck goal posts, or a once in a lifetime moment when two little-boy cousins hold hands. Or it may be a highly treasured dollar store neon-green hair ribbon holding together a little girl's pony-tail. I used a very old lens to achieve the sort of warm soft effect in these pictures. And I try not to get in the way. I let the kids do the rest. Even though it is sometimes difficult to make people and kids feel comfortable in front of the camera, patience and a sense of humor usually win out. These "photo shoots" often take up a entire afternoon. My goal, in effect, is to make a smart, sensitive artistic document for the family. If my handiwork adorns the walls of a home or the pages of a family album, providing meaning and long lasting memory of individuals and events, then I've really done my job for the day. Tony Cifani