Graduation Exercises
I attended Daughter Number Two’s high school graduation ceremony this afternoon. It seems like just yesterday I was the one wearing the cap and gown and proudly walking across the stage in front of six or seven hundred proude parents. Now I’ve watched two of my children do that. Where does the time go?
When I graduated from high school, both of my parents were there (a real feat, since they had been divorced for 5 years at the time), but there were no pictures taken because, frankly, if either of my parents owned a camera I don’t think they would have known the first thing about how to get a decent picture with it. Mom … maybe. Dad, however, made it perfectly clear that the most technology he could handle was turning his television on and off.
Since I like to consider myself some sort of wanna-be photographer, I made it a point to bring my camera along. We found some seats on the front row, really close to the stage, thinking that I should be able to get some great pictures of Daughter Number Two as she got her diploma and shook hands with the line of guest speakers (which included Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe).
I soon discovered this was a bad choice, because, apparently most people throw common courtesy out the window once you put a camera in their hands. We spent about an hour and a half looking at the backs of all the parents who came to stand directly in front of us to take pictures of their own kids.
I decided to pull out my 3X zoom lens and go up to the walkway that separates the really good seating from the nosebleed section. With the camera set a 4.3X and the 3X lens attached, the effective zoom was 12.9X, so I was still able to get a decent shot of the stage . . . except for the fact that my hands were shaking and I didn’t think to bring my tripod. What I ended up with is a shot of a green-robed smudge near a black-robed smudge.
I really wish I had the Canon VIXIA HV30 High Definition Digital Camcorder that is on sale this week at Buy.com. Not only can that camera do a 10X zoom without the aid of any external lenses, but, being a digital camcorder, I could have done more than just a few still shots.
In spite of the 3 1/2 hour drive, in spite of the aggravation caused by inconsiderate people, in spite of the frustration of not being able to get a satisfactory picture of a once-in-a-lifetime moment, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. This was my daughter’s day to shine and she did, beautifully.
