Wednesday, I was the guest speaker at Ellie’s Digital Photography Class at Joplin High School. Though I didn’t tell her at the time, but leading up to my speaking engagement I was pretty nervous. I wasn’t nervous about teaching high schoolers about photography; I have done that dozens of times. Mostly, I was nervous about not embarrassing her. Do you remember the scene in City Slickers when a baby Jake Gyllenhall is mortified by his dad’s (Billy Crystal) presentation to his class? Well, that was my big fear.
It was such an actual fear that I sent Ellie the photo below as clothing options for the hour-long talk I was to give to high school students. The last thing I wanted to overhear is ”Ewww, what is Ellie’s dad wearing?” Again, not for my sake, but for Ellie’s.
Anyway, all joking and jesting aside, it was a blast talking to the Digital Photography Class about what I do. I told them that growing up, I didn’t even know you could be a photographer as a full-time job (truth), but that I have been fortunate enough to travel all over the globe shooting incredible events to support my family for more than a decade (also truth). It still hits me every once in awhile that I’m one of the fortunate people who absolutely LOVE my job. Thank you to each and every one of you who read this blog and support me in some way! I wouldn’t want to do this without you!
One last thing, in preparing for this blog I was thinking back to other times I have gone to speak to Ellie’s class. Once was in 2nd or 3rd grade about ”flat stanley” but I came across this blog post from when I taught her pre-school class. I completely forgot about it until I read this.
Talk to you soon,
Dale
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