Lessons from a High School Photographer

As I sit on the softball bus on the way to Choctaw Central, I can’t help but think that this whole AHS photography experience is quickly coming to an end. I have experienced some absolutely insane things, had some of the best times of my life, and would have done several things a little differently. That is why I find myself writing this letter to you, the future “Luke Flippo,” the next photographer.

Let me explain how it all began. Ever since I was 3 or 4, I have hated photos and cameras. I hid from the photos and covered my face in all of them. I got to high school with much of the same mentality. I got a girlfriend, thanks to a little help from Davis Helton, and she was on the yearbook staff. She brought me to a basketball game that she needed to cover, and I carried my mom’s cameras along because she was a hobby photographer in my brother’s childhood and had good equipment. I turned out to be pretty decent at taking those basketball photos. They circulated around the school, and soon everyone was asking me to be at every game. Before long, I was on the team buses and even dying my hair blond with the baseball team for the playoffs. Creating and documenting these memories has been the most rewarding thing I have ever done. I transformed my personal identity. No longer was I just a tennis player: I was a baseball player in the dugout in the playoffs, I was a soccer player…