Out There Be Monsters o.o

Out There Be Monsters o.o by =SofiaERamirez is one of those 1/100 serendipitous snapshots photographers are lucky to get.
As described, it depicts the reaction of an 8 month old little girl who sees the world beyond her own, for the first time.
Technically, the photo is wonderful. The child is absolutely adorable -- her shiny curls, button nose, little hands and wide blue eyes. The angle of the shot is excellent, because not only does it show lots of solid geometric lines and diagonals for interesting visual pathways, it conveys her environment -- an old fashioned white wooden crib. The post processing is quite well done -- a high contrast mix of glowing high key overexposed areas and solid black underexposed areas, while still keeping the crucial areas perfectly exposed. Together with a drop in saturation, it gives the entire image a dreamlike quality that perfectly fits the story.
There is so much expression in every aspect of her response, the m(o.o)m little hands and nose peeking over the crib, but most of all her eyes, conveying a mix of wonderment, disbelief, surprise, anxiety and fear.
I think we've all had that experience at some point in our life: We're going along, living our life, confident of its contents, when something happens that completely blows away what we had considered the world to be. Suddenly our world view is expanded and we feel terrified, confused, vulnerable, and we'd like to just curl up in our crib and wish for bygone days when we were protected, when bad people only existed in storybooks and the possibility for suffering and sorrow was never even considered.
I cannot recall the nature of my thoughts at 8 months, but I find myself wondering, how has this little girl's world changed because of this extreme discovery? What are her thoughts and feelings? Am I reading too much into it? I don't think so, because as much as we distance ourselves from the experience of infancy, such experiences are even more impacting than they are to we who have had years of conditioning to unexpected discoveries.
♥