June 17, 2016

The $5000 Camera

WHAT IF HE WAS WRONG?

I mean, he wasn't, but WHAT IF? 

I posted the picture below on Facebook earlier in the week. It was the class composite of the Class of 1990 at Elk Rapids High School. It's hard to believe it's been 26 years since we walked across that stage, I had written. It's amazing how fast time has gone. 


Freshman Year

The fall of 1990 I entered life at Central Michigan University as a freshman. I hated my first year at CMU. Everything was new. I didn't have my friends with me anymore. People had different views than I was used to. It was a whole new world. Six weeks in I called home and said I was quitting college. I just wanted to go back and work at the Grand Traverse Resort. I was happy there. My mom told me that I had to stick out the first year. It would get better, she said. I'm sure it was hard to argue with me because she probably would have liked it if I had just quit and returned home. But I stuck it out.

Goofy Classes

I took goofy classes because I thought that's what you did when you went away to college. Geology. Anthropology. Political Science. Those kinds of classes. I decided in my infinite wisdom that I would save classes like English and math for later. I did okay that first year but not great, not what I was used to. I came home for the summer and worked at the Resort again and decided that my future at CMU would be okay and I would just have "a great sophomore year."

Borrowed from the blog Samantha's Blog without permission. This is Dr. Parker. 

Dr. Parker & "Being Right" 

When you look back in time, some things finally make sense. Dr. Elliot Parker was a photojournalism professor during my time at CMU. He had it going on: the classic harried professor look. He would lecture to us in JRN 220, introduction to photojournalism. He was unique. One Friday morning in 1990, he started to talk to us about this coming "super highway" that would change the world. He raved about it and talked about what it would impact. Now, hearing me write this 26 years later, it doesn't make sense that his rambling was "out there." But it was. I remember when we walked out that day, looking at each other and muttering. We also had to go to the technology department and get our "electronic mail" address and send him a message. For a grade.

FOR A GRADE!

$5000 Cameras

Later in college, my senior year, we had to write a paper in Advanced Photo Editing. The topic had to be on the coming change: ELECTRONIC PHOTOGRAPHY. Come on, if Kodak doesn't think it needs to change, then why should we write about a $5000 Sony electronic camera that no one could afford. BECAUSE THAT'S HOW THE CHANGE PROCESS WORKS. It's amazing to think back that two things that are in our pockets today were just simple ideas a quarter century ago. One of the ideas basically put Kodak out of business after more than 100 years as the photo company.

It's a simple proposition. Pay close attention. Pay. Close. Attention.




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