Dear Camera,

It’s all about capturing that perfect moment. Imagine having all your favorite people around you, doing what you all do best: act goofy, crack jokes, eat until you can’t breathe, and laugh until all the bones and muscles in your body are happily in pain. When I say this, you can practically envision your best buds, right? To me, it’s crucial to arrest the paramount moments: climbing to the top of the tallest mountain in Ohio, winning an award at your sporting event, or riding the tallest roller coaster at Cedar Point. The little things are essential also, though. You must see into every detail, every laugh, every tear cried over some stupid boy, and every smile you have inflicted on those surrounding you. Those are the memories you don’t want to forget, and sometimes we need to be reminded on the little moments shared with our good friends and family. Don’t get me wrong, you do amazing at this action. Because of what you do, I get to look back on every memory made and remember what the air felt like, how everyone was feeling, and how full of food we probably were.

I can still recall some of the very first photographs taken with your precision and astounding focus. When I bring memories of heading out to the baseball fields at White Park to watch my brother’s team play some baseball, I can feel the warm summer air on my skin. As my family and I approached the cool, metal stands, we felt the crunch of the gravel underneath our feet. The stadium lights would soon illuminate the players on the field as they warmed up their muscles by throwing the ball back and forth. Parents are gathered around, anxious to watch their children crush the sphere across the ballpark for a few hours.

One of the best things about the scenes you capture is collecting them as a whole. I love being able to look back at one single period of time and see the many different moods and expressions people were reflecting. The last picture I have of my grandma and I expresses a lot to me about the current time and the things that were happening at the moment. Now, my grandma wasn’t like most. Yes, she was quite young for being a grandma, but she also was the kind of person who made you want to be a better person after being in her presence. She had a certain joy to her that, no matter how horrible of a day you were having, you wouldn't be able to stop smiling after being to her house. Her home always smelt like fall to me, because I always felt so comfortable there. She trained dogs, so the floors would be covered in remains of the Golden Retriever’s manes. The walls were covered in photographs of pretty settings, puppies, and loved ones. In the picture, she is wearing denim jeans and her favorite hoodie which has the Dallas Cowboys logo on it. Her hair was golden brown, and sadly had small streaks of gray beginning to expand throughout her scalp. But her eyes reflect a certain happiness that was so genuine and real. A small touch of pain was noticeable also, both in her eyes and in her actions. I just got the feeling and could interpret that she knew the day was coming. She passed away roughly two months after the photograph was taken.

Never will I forget the day I received you, though. It was Christmas morning. You had been all I had been wanting for the past year. The sun was still peeking through the morning clouds when my 11-year old brother angrily burst into my small, cozy room. He still leaps with excitement on December 25th. Alex forced my door open, commanding,”Come on Delaney, it’s already eight and we have to open our stockings before we do anything else. And we’re all waiting on YOU!” As I groggily began waking up, I rubbed my weary eyes and dragged my sleep-deprived body out of bed to change. I stomped down the steps, because although I was very pumped about opening my gifts, sleep is very important to the average teenage kid. I greeted my family, as my brother began sorting out the piles of presents to everyone. I unfolding the wrapping of each present with excitement and precision. Once I got nearly done with my gifts, I noticed that I hadn’t gotten the camera I’d been hinting at for months. Everything I had gotten was lovely, but the camera. It was like a code etched into my mind: camera, camera, camera, must eat breakfast, camera, camera. Then, my mom pulled out the box they had buried underneath the branches of our artificial tree. I think I was too tired to think of looking for that. So, I tore the paper from the sides of the cardboard box. The scissors glided nice and smooth across the wrapping tape, as the sides of the crate exploded. There it was; a Nikon D3100 The happiness must have stretched across my lips as I lit up and thanked my parents roughly a billion times.

My favorite thing about you is that you can make the world freeze. You can take in all your surroundings, stop time, and collect the details. One time, my friend Emily and I were on a bike ride. I was trying to take a silly picture of her, and you made the goofy scene look crisp and lively. You possessed the tiny fragments on hair flowing off her forehead, the angle at which she bent her legs to gain momentum, and how she hunched over her handlebars to speed up. And when she let go of the handles, and I clicked the magical button, you focused in on her arms to keep them still, although they were in motion. To sum it all up, you help me remember the grand and the cheerless moments. I appreciate every memory I can acquire all because of you.