Stephanie Croston

    Since the invention of the camera, people have been documenting their lives through photographs. Old pictures show solemn families standing or sitting very still. I'm sure life was hard,
    but was it that hard?
     With today's cameras, you can catch a hummingbird in mid-flight, a child in mid-laugh or a
    racecar in mid-turn. But you can find some strange things, too.
     Since I've had to take pictures for work, I've found I watch other people who are also taking photographs. Maybe I'm looking for a tip or a way to do something better or differently, I don't know.
     So, I was wondering how people decide what to photograph. With digital cameras, the
    philosophy has become – shoot first, decide if you want to keep it later.
     That's fine if you've got a
    digital camera, but my personal camera still uses film, so I have to be a little more discriminating.
     Anyway, when I'm shooting an event or a scene, I look for interesting or unusual patterns. For example, as I was walking through the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, I noticed a small American flag among the numbered headstones representing unidentified soldiers who died in the Civil War.
     That was something unusual and deserved to be chronicled in film.
     At the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C., I saw a single peach-colored rose leaning against the base of the wall. Its color stood out against the stark black marble of the wall – something definitely interesting.
     I also look for faces. That goes for pictures of memorials and statues, too. A picture of a
    memorial that don't show the face of the honored person don't make a lot of sense to me.
     But I saw someone the other day taking pictures of the backs of the statues at the Korean
    Memorial. Why? What significance does a statue's back have?
     Something else a photographer of any age needs to watch is the background. How many
    pictures have you seen that have horns or fountains or other extraneous things coming out of
    people's heads?
     I saw something the other day that drove this point home for me.
     At the Natural History Museum, part of the Smithsonian, a young couple was having their picture taken next to an exhibit showing two lionesses attacking a water buffalo. So far, so good.
     But they weren't in front of that particular exhibit. They were off to the side at the backside. So
    their lovely picture will include a water buffalo butt. Not the best background a person could find.
     Sometimes, though, the whole point of the photo is that its subject is unusual or silly.
     I've got a picture someplace of my brothers with golf balls in their mouths. I've got another one
    of my brother Andrew eating birthday cake with his fork halfway to his wide-open mouth.
     My most recent addition is a picture I took earlier on this vacation. At a Days Inn in Harrisburg, Pa., I saw something that made me laugh, and I had to take a picture.
     The soap they have sitting next to the sink reads – Calm Facial Soap.
     Calm facial soap? I'm glad I took the picture.