Light Through the Spectrum | Terra Cooper Photography | Jack

This is the third session in my Light Through the Spectrum personal project. If you missed my other two, here is a little about it.
The name of it is Light Through the Spectrum-and it is a look into the life of children with autism in their own environments and highlighting their passions and things they love most.  I chose that name because on the light spectrum not all light is visible light (like ultra violet or infrared light). I believe that there is so much we are not able to see in these kids world and I would love to try to even get a glimpse into their world! I also want to show how much they have in common with kids their age and hopefully bring awareness to that so their peers are able to connect with them over these commonalities.

Meet Jackson.


When I first met him he was pretty quiet.  He would only say a few words to me like “picture” and loved when I took his picture and loved even more looking at them on the back of my camera.  He loved his stuffed animals and wanted to show me them and take pictures of them.


He had the coolest room-with a rock wall, ladder and hammock swing!


He was really brave on his swing and ladder-I think he has a future in Cirque de Soliel!




This one below was actually the very last picture I took and it still is my favorite.  It just makes me think of super heroes!




Meet “Bemitznosit”, Jack’s snowman.  That was his first word-his mom said German may have been a better language for him!  Bemitznosit goes everywhere with Jack and is very loved.


He wanted me to take pictures of all of his favorite things-mostly when they were covering his face.  He would pose for me and wait for me to take the picture and then want to look at them.






He loves to read with his mom and his favorite things are movies-so his favorite books are the ones about movies.












He started to warm up to me and would talk to me in movie quotes!  He totally would win me at a movie quote talking contest!  I love doing movie quotes and it was so fun to try to guess which ones he was quoting!








Because he loves movies so much his mom came up with a great idea-she took DVD covers and cut them in half and laminated them.  Then he can play a matching game with the front and back of the movies.  So creative!






He took a break to play a game for 2 minutes on his mom’s phone.  When the time went off he happily handed it to her.  I need to work on that with my kids!








He wanted to show me his brother’s drum set and played on it for a minute.


He then wanted to show me one of his favorite things-all the DVDs!  His favorite movie is The Grinch who Stole Christmas.  Always a good one!


One of his other favorite things are bread sticks from Olive Garden.  This was the only picture he smiled for when he did his pose for me – he loves his bread sticks!


Jack is pretty excited for the new Paddington movie and has a poster in his room that he was pretty excited about.


He was quoting another movie where they said “write down my name is Mike” so he ran to get a paper to write “Mike” down and then brought it back for a picture.






These hammock swings are seriously amazing.  I think everyone with kids needs them!










His mom came up with a great storage idea for all of his many “stuffy’s”-they all live in this house called his “Stuffy House” and he can go and lay in it and snuggle them all.






It’s his happy place.




Jack found some storage containers and wanted to show off his contorsion skills. 




He found his favorite blanket and got comfy in his little storage bed he had made.


Jack is such a sweet boy and I love seeing all of the things his parents have come up with to help him explore his passions.  I’ll be doing these throughout the year.  Follow them at #LightThroughtheSpectrum