Have camera, will travel

I found it interesting that if I go anywhere in the Platte Valley without my camera, that is the first thing people notice.

I love taking photos. It is probably the most favorite part of my job, and that is saying something, because I love my job.

I traveled all over the Platte Valley with my camera this week – concerts, festivals, parades, basketball practice, basketball games you name it – it happened last week.

My camera got quite the workout too.

My camera has two slots for SD cards - (I have three cards that I use). One is a 32GB and the other is 16GB. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I could fill up these cards, but when I have weeks like last week, I come pretty close.

The main reason I have that big of SD cards is when I go to a regional or state tournament, so I don’t have to download the photos after each game.

Saturday, was a busy day with events happening in Encampment and Saratoga. I traveled to Encampment first thing in the morning to take pictures of the greens sales by the Dirt Diggers. They always cute arrangements and this year was no exception.

I took my photos and headed to Saratoga to take photos of the middle school boys basketball game.

This was the first opportunity any of had this fall to go and takes photos of the middle school games.

High school sports take priority, but when we have a lull between fall and winter sports, we do our best to get photos of the middle school kids playing.

The game between the Saratoga and Encampment A team was an exciting one. The Saratoga boys were winning 20 – 10 in the second quarter when the Encampment boys scored 10 points two minutes and 14 seconds.

The Encampment Tigers eventually won the game, but not without a fight from the Panthers.

I showed up in time to take photos of the B game. The Saratoga team lost, but I can’t remember the score because every photo I took before the A game was lost.

After the games, I stopped at the Saratoga Sun office to download my photos and left it on autopilot.

Usually, it is not a problem. This time my scratch disk (computer terms) was full and not all the photos downloaded.

I cleaned up my trash, restarted the computer and downloaded the rest of the photos. After I thought I downloaded the photos, I deleted them from the card.

When I went to check my photos on the computer, they were not there. Panic mode sets in and I check to see if they went into other files. Nope, they are gone.

There was a least one photo in that batch that I wanted to use, but I had lost it.

I could say I was devastated, but I had over 600 other photos I could use, and they were good ones, so I wasn’t too heart broken. It’s a part of being a photographer. They are not the first photos I lost and they will not be the last.

I have lost thousands of photos when I failed to back up my personal computer onto a external hard drive. Now I back up all the time. It’s no guarantee that I won’t lose my photos unless I make prints. It is a price I pay for taking so many photos.

At basketball and volleyball games, I take lots of photos to help me remember what happened during the game, so that I can write about the highlights. I have tried to take notes, but as soon as I put my camera down, that perfect shot presents itself.

Lately, I have been sorting through my personal photos – ones I took long before I started working for the Saratoga Sun. They were taken with film on my old 35mm camera.

Many of the photos I have thrown away, saying to myself, “What was I thinking?”

Other photos bring back great memories of my sons growing up.

It made me realize, that very seldom I am without my camera, in my professional life and my personal life. If I am not taking photos with my DSLR, I am taking photos with my cell phone.

My grandmother was the same way, she always had a camera with her. When she passed away, I received some of the photo albums she had with photos of me growing up. I cherish those photographs and the memories that go with them.

I hope the photos I share in the Saratoga Sun are cherished too.