Digitally creative

For some reason, my bosses at work signed me up for a digital photo training class at LSU-Alexandria. It's basically a beginning photo class, one of many continuing education classes workers at The Town Talk "get" to take due to some grant money the paper has.

Unlike the other training classes I've taken, this one is actually pretty fun because 1) I actually have an interest in photography, even if I don't have a great eye for it; and 2) because I'm not stuck at a computer in the class. We actually get out and shoot some photos.

The only problem with the class is it starts at 8 a.m. (I have my last of three classes Thursday morning), and since it's 3:15 a.m. as I type right now, you guys can tell that I'm a night owl (hey, I work at night!).

But after the last class, we were given a "homework" assignment to get 12 photographs that we've taken in order to make homemade cards. So I dug through some of my old digital photos that I've shot and picked out 12 that I thought were good photos or had good stories or good memories associated with them. I'd like to run through them with you guys and share the stories, because it was fun for me to go back into the past.

1) The scene is a picture of a sailboat and a skyline in June in Boston. It's a picture from a boat tour that Elizabeth and I took on our honeymoon in Boston in June 2005. I just think it was a neat picture, and it was an absolutely beautiful day.

2) This picture I didn't actually take, but I had it on my computer and absolutely had to use it. It's a picture of my wife taken by her mother for our "engagement" pictures out by the gazebo at her parents' house. The thing that is so striking about the photo is that Elizabeth is laughing. First of all, it's like pulling teeth to get Elizabeth to take a picture. She normally runs away or simply hides her face. Point blank, she doesn't like to be photographed, but she submitted for the engagement photos. I don't recall exactly what was going on off-camera when this photo was shot, but Elizabeth was laughing at something -- probably some silly thing that I did!

3) This third photo is very striking to me. It was taken last October when I went to New York City with my brother-in-law, Jason. We went down to Ground Zero and stood out in the rain. While I was there, I snapped a photo of the big void that is left where the twin towers used to stand. One day, and it's not supposed to take very long, there will be a memorial standing the same height as the tallest tower.

4) The fourth photo is of a lighthouse in Maine on our honeymoon. When Elizabeth and I went up to the Northeast, we visited several lighthouses. And this is my favorite photo of all the lighthouses I shot. It's also the photo Elizabeth has on her MySpace page.

5) My boy, Ryan Moats. I had the pleasure of spending Draft Day 2005 in Dallas at Moats' house. While there, I took several pictures of the party. In one of them, I captured Ryan in a fairly artsy photo (especially for me, who's not very artsy at all). It's a shot of him standing by the fireplace in his mom's living room, and he's framed by the bricks and rocks of the fireplace. This photo is now the one on my MySpace page.

6) Peyton Manning. J-E-T-S! Jets, Jets, Jets! Another shot from my October trip to New York, when Jason and I went to Yankee Stadium and then to watch the Colts and the Jets play. I took a photo of Peyton under center from the stands, and I'm actually surprised how well it turned out. Jason and I were by no means in the nosebleeds, and we actually had some pretty good seats, but I didn't think I'd be able to get nearly as good of a photo as I was able to get.

7) The Green Monster. Yes, I like sports. A lot of these photos have to do with sports in some way, shape or form. So sue me. This one is a photo of Fenway Park's famed Green Monster, the left field fence at the park. This photo was taken from the press box on our tour of the park. Sadly, the Red Sox were out of town during our honeymoon, and we didn't get to see a game. But we did take a tour. And not only did I get this shot of the Green Monster, Elizabeth also took a photo of me atop the Monster. That had been on my MySpace page.

8) Another photo at Fenway. This one is of Elizabeth and me down on the field level. The Green Monster can be seen in the background. I didn't actually take this photo, since I'm in the picture. We asked a kind stranger to shoot us. Not great quality, but a good memory.

9) One of the funniest photos I have, it's of Misti Walker, a friend from college and the wife of one of my best friends, Alan Walker. This photo was taken at "Alan's Pad" -- his so-called bachelor pad out in the woods behind his dad's house when we were in college. It captures Misti's personality to a "T" (her nickname), as she has a football in one arm and strikes the Heisman pose. Absolutely hilarious when it happened, and still funny to think about!

10) Another photo of Ryan Moats at his Draft Day party. This one is of Ryan on his cell phone as he receives a call from the Philadelphia Eagles, telling him they are about to take him in the third round of the draft. It had been a long, frustrating day for Ryan, as he wasn't selected until after 9 p.m. But once he got the call from the Eagles, all of his frustrations slipped away, and he was elated to know he would get the chance to play in the NFL.

11) Certainly not the best photo I've taken in terms of quality, but it's a shot of the New York skyline on my way back into the city after the Jets game back in October. It was a beautiful day, even if the picture doesn't best represent the striking beauty of the sky.

12) Last but not least, a random picture of a sunset. I honestly do not remember where or when this photo was taken. I just had my camera with me -- it may have been when I was looking at houses after moving to Alexandria -- and saw an opportunity to catch a pretty orange sky. So I shot it, and I really like the photo.

Anyway, I was happy to get a chance to go through some old photos thanks to this homework assignment. I like the idea of recording memories, and digital photos have made that so much easier these days. You can shoot as many as you want, delete the ones you don't like and save them. Then if you want to make a print, it's fairly easy to save it to a desk and run up to Wal-Mart, which is what I did for this assignment. I hope you've enjoyed my trip down memory lane, as well.