Every month I participate in a blog circle (photography project) called Songs of Life with a group of talented photographers. We strive to shoot images that represent both our life, and lifestyle photography, and we take our inspiration from music. This month our inspiration was the song “Jungle Gym” by Jack Johnson (listen here).

The lyrics of this song immediately made me think of the fun that Elayna has downtown, and I especially connected with the lines,“Look at this big great world that we’re living in. There’s lots of fun to be had on these streets… The city’s nitty gritty but it’s so much fun.”

As usual, Elayna was all too willing to gallivant around with me, not finding it remotely odd that I suggested she bring her music player. She loves to sing and dance and the city actually seems to really inspire her. After we spent some time dancing by the graffiti art that we found, we spent some time at a beautiful piano that has been painted by an artist and left for public use. The artist happened to be there, a beautiful young woman named Jen, and she told me that there are several more pianos around downtown Des Moines for this purpose. What a fantastic program! A young man who I guessed was having drinks downtown with a friend came over at one point and asked if he could play Elayna a song. I was shocked (and reminded not to judge a book by it’s cover) when he played a complex and beautiful song about love. He had E twirling and dancing around. It was magical! We definitely need to visit our urban ‘jungle gym’ more often. There is so much to experience.

It’s always so much fun to see the smiles that Elayna brings to people’s faces. She is a performer, this girl, and she can’t seem to contain the music she has inside! I continue to be thankful for the light and joy that she shares with the world.

Hope you enjoy this over-share of my best girl!

To see another photographer’s interpretation of this song, please check out the talented Sharon Spall of Sharon Spall Photography’s post! 🙂