Anthropometry

In an exciting turn of events, I was taken along to the field the other day as the photographer for an anthropometry training session. Anthropometry is the measurement of people, and doing it in a way that is accurate and standardized is a key piece of measuring growth as part of a study. This session involved our  interviewers practicing all of the different measurements on volunteer kids. I promised at the outset that I would not post pictures from the training online, because they are confidential and study property and such. Still, I thought I would write about it briefly because I really am trying to keep my blog updated with what goes on here and because it was a fun and extremely demanding day of photography. The office where the training took place was small with dim lighting and kids move constantly, especially when you are trying to measure them, so I have hundreds of  blurry pictures of children. Still, the 30-some pictures where I managed to get the focus and shutter speed right are tremendously exciting and the whole day gave me the push I needed to take off the training wheels and switch to using full manual mode.

To keep the post from being too dull, here is a picture I really like from the training session day of a kid who had nothing to do with the study.