A bookstore's children's section can be a photographer's delight

Have you ever studied the layout of a children's section in a retail shop? Many of us no doubt dawdled for as long as we could in toy sections of department stores when we were kids ourselves, but we were too young to stop and consider why things were positioned the way they were. We were so much in awe and in fantasyland, it really didn't matter.

But how about as an adult? Have you studied the toy section layouts to appreciate why everything was placed and displayed the way it was? Have you stopped to take in the bright colors? Or the arrangements of "like" objects (i.e., stuffed dolls, games, books, trucks and cars, etc.)? The location of decorations (up high, down low, eye level) and considered what age child those placements were aimed at?

I was in the child's area of a bookstore on Saturday, when Lee Ann and I went to meet her son and their family, including Lee Ann's 3-year-old granddaughter Elizabeth. We spent a good amount of time in that child's area on a day that was devoted to a Harry Potter book party. I've never read a Harry Potter book or seen any of the movies, but Elizabeth's mother is a huge fan, and back in Indianapolis, my oldest son and his son and my oldest daughter and her children are Potter fanatics.

The questions I posed above didn't occur to me until we had been hanging out in the child's area for at least 15 minutes. At that point, an adult's attention begins to stray, which happened to me. And I started noticing the toy arrangements, the extraordinary bright colors, the displays dangling from above -- well beyond even a tall adult's reach.

I couldn't help but wonder whether the store was trying to immerse children in a visual kalaidescope ... and, of course, use it to keep them wanting to stay longer and, thus, increase the odds of parents purchasing something for their child -- even if only as a means to get them out of the store more quickly!

Considering that this was a Harry Potter book event, I might have expected an inundation of Potter-related merchandise. But by the time we got there (which was well after any of the scheduled special events), the children's area seemed pretty tame ... and not Potter-heavy.

Still, I did find lots of things to photograph. Considering I did not go there planning to take pictures, all of the images in this post were taken with the camera on my iPhone X. As always, to view a larger, sharper version of a photo, simply click on that image. To view a full gallery of images from the shoot, follow the link in this sentence.

I eyeballed the above and below as possible pickups on a future visit to get for one my grandchildren for Christmas. 

My 4-year-old grandson Maddox, who lives in the Chicago area, enjoys playing with Legos, so I checked out the above and below for more ideas on future Christmas or birthday presents.

Above and next seven below: Examples of the elevated displays, many of them featuring characters from Dr. Seuss and Winnie the Pooh stories.

Above: A perspective shot of one slice of the bookstore's children's section.

Above and next three below: Examples of stuffed animals. 

Above: My 4-year-old grandson also is crazy about trains and railroad tracks. I was imagining how he would immersed himself in this easy-access display.