Meet the adorable Lana – a gifted three-year-old from Brooklyn, New York who already knows her way around a camera.
Lana’s newfound interest in photography was sparked when she saw her dad Pascal Michel’s camera and started experimenting. “I was setting up my camera to take a new LinkedIn photo while Lana wasn’t home,” Pascal tells ESSENCE. “I didn’t put it away before I picked her up. When she came home, she immediately ran to the camera and asked if she could take pictures. I asked, ‘you want me to take pictures of you?’ She said ‘no, can I hold it?”… I said ‘oh ok, my bad you want to do it yourself…’ I turned the camera on for her, and she took charge and just started shooting.”
Without any lessons or guidance, Lana turned out to be a natural behind the camera. She even staged a mini photo shoot with some of her favorite stuffed animals (who we hear were very cooperative behind the scenes!)
“At first it was my Ant-Man Funko Pop, then her Teddy bear and Paw Patrol toys,” Pascal says. “I put [the camera] on the tripod because her hands are tiny and I didn’t want her to drop it, but she hasn’t. Now she wants to use it without the tripod.”
And can we talk about these angles?? Miss thing is not here to play games.
“She appears to have a real interest in photography,” says Pascal, “and I plan on keeping her engaged with this activity and any others that interest her along the way. She’s only 3, but she’s really smart, excelling in school and often has me in awe about the things she knows. So I wasn’t surprised when she knew how to use the camera without me showing her how.”
Lana is making her folks proud each and every day. Pascal says her daycare recently transferred her ahead to pre-K early. “I felt like they told me she got into Harvard. I cried I felt so proud lol I often wonder if I’m doing a good job as a father and every day she shows me that I am.”
This isn’t the first time Lana and Pascal have gone viral. Dad shared a photo of a hairstyle he did on Lana when she was just eight-months-old and the internet went wild. “People have been tagging me on Black hair Instagram accounts for three years,” he says.
We love seeing Black fathers in action. Keep up the great work, y’all!