Today, May 31st 2010, I took some photos of World War II Veterans for Marshall Chamber Of Commerce.

Today is the 5th anniversary for my family and I to live in the US and I’m ashamed to say that this was my 1st Memorial Day ceremony that I have ever attended. It was a very humbling experience. The guest speaker, William “Bill” Palmer, spoke of all the numbers of men and women, over 600 000, who had lost their lives in serving and protecting this great country. He broke down the 600 000 in to the different wars that the US had been involved in. A great site to look at is www.abmc.gov to get more information.

After the guest speaker, Judge Jim Ammerman II went on to acknowledge all the families of lost ones from the  different branches of service. Each family member stood up and announced the name of their loved one and where they served. It was all very emotional, but I lost all composure when a 9 or 10 year old boy stood up and said he had recently lost his Dad in Iraq.

Having lived in 5 different countries I can honestly say that there is no greater nation where its people honor and are truly thankful to the armed men and woman who have served and have given the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

I for one am truly thankful to the veterans of this great country and to the current armed men and woman who stand to defend this country – Thank You !

Almost 10 years ago when photography became more of a hobby I started shooting motocross at local meets in Cape Town, South Africa. I used one of the 1st digital cameras Kodak produced. It became quite an art to take fast action photos because of the delay between pressing the button and the shutter actually opening and closing. You had to follow your subject like you would with a video camera. Those were the days!

In 2003 I purchased my 1st digital SLR, a Canon 10D. It revolutionized my photography in the area of motocross. The action shots I could now take were incredible and the control over the camera was amazing.

One of the 1st creative images I wanted to produce was the ability to capture movement whilst still keeping the subject in focus. After a few tries I got it! I had captured the image I was after. I have a good friend in Johannesburg who is also a photographer and someone I admire and have a lot of respect for his photography skills, so I emailed him the photo and asked him what he thought. A few days later he sent me the image back after he had Photoshopped it and said this is how it should look like. Well I was devastated, I thought my photography skills were lacking and I should take up another career. Well that lasted about 5 secs until I realized that he had actually taken my image that I liked and created and butchered it in Photoshop.

It was at this point in my photography career that I realized that photography is so subjective to everyone else’s opinion. What I think is a great photo, someone else might think it’s a bad photo, what I think the colors are bright and radiant, someone else might think they are over saturated.

At the end of the day it is what you captured! Do you like it? Does it reflect what you saw?

Photography is in the eye of the beholder!