I have taken some photos

In 2009, I accidentally received a digital camera from the Oracle corporation. This is because, along with a handful of other 10 and 11-year-olds from my elementary school, I participated in the now defunct Thinkquest competition hosted by the tech giant. The aim was for students from around the world to create informational websites for peers to use as a learning resource; our site that year was titled S.O.S. Save Our Species and it focused on themes of biodiversity, ecological conservation, and climate change (sadly the archive link freezes on the intro screen, and the site is completely inaccessible as a result). The judges at Oracle liked what we had made enough to give us first place in the U12 category, which meant a trip to their headquarters in Silicon Valley, along with a small cash prize and a laptop (this was unbelievable for 10-year-old Ben). When they first announced the winners, however, our submission was mistakenly listed under honorable mentions, which had a different prize - a state of the art digital camera. They followed up with us about the clerical error and decided to let us keep the cameras we briefly thought we'd won.

Either way, I ended up with this highly specialized piece of equipment at an age where I was still licking metal poles in the depths of a Wisconsin winter "just to see what would happen." Perhaps intimidated by its complexity and price tag, I shied away from trying to use the camera, and forgot about it with time. Somewhere along the way, my father picked it up, taking an introductory class and purchasing a copy of Digital SLR Cameras & Photography for DUMMIES, which I have started to flip through as a reference myself (thanks, Pops). I still have essentially no idea what I'm doing with this tool, but I have enjoyed embracing the struggle of trying to learn to use it. Here are a few of the photos I've taken with it so far, and I'm hoping that I will have plenty more to share in the future.