This photo-essay is about aspects of contemporary urban childhood. Its origins lie in a piece of fieldwork carried out in a children's playground in Manchester. I was interested in understanding how children explored and used space; and I wanted to find ways of working with children that gave them some agency in the research process. I trace the unfolding of my relationships with the children and assess how cameras (video and stills) served to mediate these relationships. Increasingly I understood how integral media is to children's experience, to their sense of themselves in the world.