Say Cheese!

I was walking down the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica over Labor Day weekend when I saw the sign in the Mac Store window advertising a free digital photography class. I snapped a picture of the information (yep, I'm even too lazy to put a note in my phone now) and fast forward to this week -- when I found myself sitting in that Mac Store, waiting for the class to begin.

I was excited. A) The class was free. B) I love all things Mac. And C) I love taking pictures. Love love love. I have since I was little. When I was in 8th grade I went to Fine Arts Camp in Port Huron and my emphasis was photography. That week I got to take pictures on a real, grown up camera (remember, this was before iPhones and Instagram and digital anything) and spent most of my time in the darkened bathhouse developing my black and white prints. I can still remember what it smelled like, the chemicals and that musty old building. It was amazing.

In college I lived with a photographer, Kelly, and so I spent many a long winter night holed up in the developing lab with her. I'd go to keep her company and help however I could. I still have two of the prints she made of our college house hanging in my living room today.

For me photographs are all about remembering, capturing, engraving moments in time. They're about those stolen smiles and those awesome shots and those funny pictures you laugh at each time you see them no matter how many times you've seen them before. I have this picture of Angela and my mom on the swing in our yard a few summers back that makes me smile just thinking about it. I have another picture of Emma, one of the grandneighbors, hiding in an old pickle crock, and it instantly transports me back to afternoons full of hide and seek and giggles. I have a picture of my parents and Mom #2 dancing the night away that I used as a jumping off point for a script. To me, that picture is the last memory I have while the world was okay.

I have pictures of my grandparents and family and friends scattered throughout my house and just recently I've started a wall of canvases (two walls really) of photographs from home, from Michigan, that I've taken. Pictures that might not mean anything to anyone else but pictures remind me where I came from and what it most important in this world.

The wall of canvases has begun

So course I want to learn more. I want to be a better photographer. I want to take amazing pictures in Paris next year. I want to have to crop less and shoot more. I want to learn how to run my camera and what to look for in another. And this class? It helped me get an awesome jump on all that. It was run by the owners of Digital 1 to 1, an online photography curriculum designed for regular people who want to take extraordinary photos. They spent an hour explaining composition, why you might need a flash on a sunny day outdoors, what megapixels are, and how to buy the right camera for what you want to do. It was great.

I love pictures. Each time we went home this summer we pulled out old photo books and sifted through them. We were looking for specific shots of my grandparents but we were also remembering. We were laughing and oohing and ahhing. We told stories and shared memories. We were there. For a moment, we were back to that place, saying cheese and being together. It was magic.