The camera doesn't lie. . .

I have been an wannabe photographer, since I got my first Brownie camera when I was only eight years old. Okay, I'm not that old, but I got my first B/W camera back when printed photographs were square with white around all four edges.

In high school I used my grandfather's old SLR and took pictures for the school newspaper. We had our own developing lab and everything.

Finally, when I started college, my father bought me my own Canon SLR. I must have taken 30 rolls of film on my summer trip to France between my freshman and sophomore years. It cost more than $200 to get them all developed when I returned and they all ended up in a file cabinet somewhere.

I used that camera for years, traveled back and forth to Europe with it two more times and still had it when I moved into my current home 10 years ago. Of course, I was using a much smaller and lighter Pentax by then. So the camera ended up in the basement until I sold it in a yard sale to an old camera buff last fall for $10. It didn't work by then.

Over the past five years or so, I have been working with digital cameras, upgrading every year or so from my original 1.7 MP Kodak to my most recent acquisition, my hefty 10.2 MP Canon Rebel XTi. Since I finally convinced my husband to let me invest in the Digital SLR (18 months, no interest), I have spent an additional $300 - $400 on lenses, filters, a mega-tripod, camera backpack and miscellaneous accessories. Thankfully my husband hasn't grumbled too much over the additional expense.

I've been wanting the SLR for two years now and I finally had a good excuse, in addition to my 15th Anniversary. In just three weeks, I am taking my 12-year-old autistic daughter to the Grand Canyon on a school sponsored tour through the Grand Classroom program. I intend to photograph the trip and create a videography for her science teacher and our family.

In preparation for that trip, I have been learning how to use several new photo and video editing programs, including Ulead Video Studio 11 plus, Photo Elf, Picasa and Adobe Photoshop.

I've been taking pictures of my daughter's soccer team, since April when I purchased the camera, and I created a DVD for her team, which included some 350 action shots taken during two tournaments and a couple of regular season games.

When I viewed the finished DVD, I was absolutely astonished by what I saw. My daughter is a completely different person on the soccer field. She is confident, aggressive, agile and simply larger than life.

The same girl, who constantly struggles with her social skills and speech in unfamiliar surroundings, even when her friends are there with her, is now socializing with her team, attacking the ball with a vengeance and high-fiving her teammates whenever they get a great shot or great save. This is a major step forward in a lifetime full of two baby steps forward and three big steps back.

As they say, the camera doesn't lie and I am now the one, who is speechless.

See ya soon at the Grand Canyon. I will be posting pictures and trip notes on a daily basis.
Nianya