memory of an afternoon in 1974

I am taking a photography class over the summer--"beginning digital photography". It's one of the classes I skipped over a while back, but always wished I had taken. So I am going to summer school. My friend Paul is teaching it--he is the perfect kind of teacher--he has a real passion and enthusiasm.

This afternoon we were watching part of the PBS American Experience series on photography--it's a great series if you ever get the chance to see it.

Part of the eposide was about photography in the second world war, and there were some images from the liberation of the concentration camps.

I remembered when I had first seen those images. It was in my high school history class, one warm spring day, shown to us by our teacher, Mr. Remington. I remember that day so clearly.

I wasn't a good student. I cut class all the time and didn't really care about anything other than partying. My friends and I would taunt the teachers mercilessly, and I sometimes wonder why more of them didn't run off screaming into the night.

Anyway, I remember how different the class felt that day, almost from the moment I walked into the room. A film projector was set up, and Mr. Remington told us a little about what we were to see. I remember how serious he was--it was one of those times when you knew not to be a wiseass. He closed the curtains and started the film.

Something changed in me that day. I didn't become a better student or stop smoking pot, but I did begin to understand, in a very primitive way, that the world wasn't just about me. It's hard to explain, but I can trace a line from that afternoon to another afternoon last year, when I stood in a former high school in Phnom Penh, and cried as I looked at more pictures.

Part of who I am as a photographer is because of what I saw that warm afternoon so many years before, and part of who I am as a teacher is because of Mr. Remington and all the other teachers who taught so passionately.

Thank you!

This started out as a comment to something gurdonark wrote, but by the 5th paragraph, I knew it had to be its own entry.