Giving back

How many of you give back to your community in some way involving photography?

I have done it in 2 ways. Last year I went and spoke with the camera club at my son's high school. The kids seemed to enjoy the talk I gave and they had a chance to ask questions about my work. The teacher asked if I could come back every other year and give my talk. I agreed to do that.
This year I am doing it for my other son's jr high school. Actually I did it last fall but it has come back again. His grade's science classes were doing a study about ecology and the enviroment. They went down to a place called Eagle Creek which is the run off from a resevoir here in Indy. The teachers had asked if anyone had a camera and could they come along and take some photos. I did and before it was all over and the kids were back on the bus, I gave the teacher a CD with about 150 images on it. She was most surprised and very pleased. Well one afternoon this week I get a call from the school. It is the yearbook advisor and she wants to know if they can run a few of my photos in the yearbook. The first thing out of her mouth after asking me if they could use them was, "We will be sure to add a photo credit to them." How could I say no?

Remember, give back something if you can.

Now tell us what you have done.

Jeff

Here is what this photog can come up with...
End Jan, 2004, did some pics for an Amatrur Radio rally (hamfest). Here is to hoping it makes RadCom (similar to QST over here).

Did pics of a then 9 month old daughter of a coworker that was out of country on business for several months.

In high school, did a pic of a local farm in May, 97 that made the local paper and no credit unfortunately. It was B&w and it did everything from taking the pic to developing negatives to final print and submitted it. It was somewhat discouraging as it takes a fair amount of time to do it all. Anyone that has done B&w knows what it takes. Thankfully now there is digital!

Umm...can't think of any more at this time.

My daughter is interested in theater, and every year she participates in the school play. This year they asked me if I could take some pictures for them (there's that "he's got a good camera" thing again). So I saw it as a good project - to shoot rehearsals as well as the performances and give them a pile of images. We briefly discussed selling a CD to make money for the school, but abandoned that idea. Ultimately we decided that I would give them a CD full of images and they would dupe the CDs and give one to every one of the cast and crew.

I went to early rehearsals, construction day, dress rehearsals, and both performances, and I took over 500 shots with the Drebel. One thing I thought about was that the kids (or mom & dad) may want to email some to Grandma or Aunt Myrtle - a full-size image wouldn't cut it, and I couldn't expect them to grasp resizing, even if they had a way to do it. So for each shot I selected, I included a full size image as well as one resized to 600x900 pixels, and placed the smaller ones in a separate directory named 'emailsize'. The trick was to guess how many pairs I could fit on a CD. I ended up with 647mb.

The Director is into scrapbooking and she created a scrapbook, and at the post-play party she had all the cast and crew autograph it. At the end of the party the Producer announced that each member of the company was getting a copy of the CD (it was a surprise). The tech crew and the pit were especially pleased, because its tough to get pictures of them during the performances, and they said the shots I got made them feel like part of the show.

Cost of 24-70 L, new monopod, and 2 new primes - $shhhh, don't tell my wife

Value of parents and crew who stopped to thank me - priceless!

Thre are always nice things you can do for people that they appreciate, and allow you to engage in your favorite activity. I happened to notice some people recently taking pictures of the house across the street. They were using a small Elph-sized digital camera, and it was late afternoon. They were having no success at all. Just being neighborly, and because I knew the house to be vacant, I walked over to see who they were and what they were doing. It turns out they were buying the house, and were desparately trying to get some pictures to take home to show the family. Our homes here are quite wide, and there was no way they were going to get a reasonable shot of the entire front of the house. I told them that if they had an email address, I'd take some pectures and send them some.

The following day, the sky was beautiful---white, fluffy clouds, clear---and the Sigma 12-24 made it possible to get a shot of the entire house in a single frame.

I received a lovely note from the people, and they loved the pictures. It didn't cost me a dime, but I've made a friend for as long as we and/or they live here.

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CoolToolGuy, you really are cool. I can tell you right now, 25 years from now someone at a class reunion will be breaking out a laptop and doing a slide show of that cd. You made a lifetime memory for a bunch of people. I wouldn't be at all surprised that you may get some work off what you did.

Belmondo....you ain't kidding nobody. You are lining yourself up for some of your new neighbors beer and steaks. LOL No just kidding ya. That was a nice thing to do and what a great way to meet the new neighbors. I am thinking that if anyone ever asks those people if they know of a photographer, your name will come up.

Canuck, the pictures for the out of the country guy, well I am betting that you brought a tear to his eye when he opened his email in a lonely hotel room one night. The ham operators will pass your name along too.

Now what I did, I did for the kids in those classes and the club. I don't expect anything out of it, never did. Sometimes I like just doing things for people just for the pleasure of doing it as I am sure you guys did too.
Great job. Anyone else with an expierence they would care to tell us about?

As a former football player (only a year) the biggest thing that always seems to be missing at the end of the season are some good photos. Sure there are the ones in the local paper, but those are always the RB's or the QB. The rest of the team usually gest screwed for that.

I talked with my (now) former coach and asked if he could give me some access to some otherwise restricted areas (there is a shot in particular that i have in mind where the team goes into a small room at halftime). He said not a problem. This will get me on the field among other places. I fully intend to make the entire team happy with some photos of themselves .