JONIZZLE

Here at home sits my old and dusty desktop computer. The screensaver is every picture that I have taken or accumulated since the year 2000. While I type away on my newer laptop, some photos and faces catch my eye in the background on my old monitor, and I'll find myself staring at picture after picture and recalling old names, old faces, and old places.

It's a great personal joy for me, as these pictures are a visual timeline of my youth. The quality of the photos changed as technology did, and along with that, the faces of the people I spent the most time with changed, from group to group and place to place, as I grew older myself. I'll see pictures of friends who I haven't seen in years and I'll be sad. I'll see pictures of friends who I still know now and laugh at how young and thin we looked. I'll see pictures of my JH campers who have grown taller, older, and are turning into fine young men and women and feel old myself. And I'll see the many, many, many, MANY pictures of all the girls I have loved/liked/had crushes on, and I'll laugh (for being a creep and taking so many pictures of them). And I think it is good for someone to see all of these. To see who they spent time with, who used to be their closest friends in the world, who they used to be in love with, the different countries they went to, and how much youthfulness we all once had. Because the way I view things, we are all the products of what we were, where we were at, what we felt, and most importantly, who we were with.

This is one of those good times when I look back on a part of my life and am grateful for the decision I made to snap away. I slowed down when friends kept yelling at me for taking bad pictures of them all the time. But whatever, in seven years you'll laugh about these pictures and be glad I took them. So this is a warning that I am going to try to take many many photos in Illinois this upcoming week. Yes, I will try to give you warnings so you'll be ready. And hey, I'm even starting to think about upgrading yet again to an digital SLR. ISNT THAT EXCITING BRIAN?!?!!

I've missed out on a solid two years that could have been part of my digital timeline, so I am eager to start again. There have been too many lovely people and memorable places that I have been to just keep all the photographs and stillframes in my mind. I'm getting old. It's time to (again) record all of these things on (digital) film.