I looked through some photos I took almost 20 years ago. I wish at that moment, I’d realized what a gift and curse photography was. I did photography back then only for special occasions. I was really bad. Looking through the old photos, I can’t find one I like. They are just memories. That probably means more than a good photo anyways.

My first dive into the archive was in 2005 when I was still in the military stationed at Camp Shelby Mississippi for the Hurricane Katrina relief. I was there for a month. All my photos were taken on a disposable camera. Some of the photos are actually quite wild looking. To see how badly damaged that region was. I was part of a team going door to door asking people if they needed help. I saw a lot of the region damaged. My most vivid memory is when I drove out to see a small town named Waveland. Ya, that was the name of the town and it got hit by a 30 ft. wave. Go figure.

Camp Shelby was a hot hell hole. It really sucked. The humidity there was shocking. I thought after the Katrina relief, I’d never be back again. Then about 6 months later my unit was called upon to go to Iraq. And turns out we were to train in Camp Shelby before deploying to Bahgdad. So once I again, I photographed our training for about two months. This time with a little Nikon Cool Pix or something. I also used it for a year while deployed overseas. I took a lot of photos of the different bases, castles and just random military stuff. They are all horrible photos. My most memorable photo maybe is one I didn’t even take, the photo I had someone take of me next to a thermometer reading 110 degrees. It was taken at 9pm. I should’ve taken it during the day because it would’ve said 125. Oh well, I didn’t think that far ahead. If only.

Imagine the cool photos I could’ve made if I took it more seriously. I saw a lot of wild stuff overseas and basically captured none of it. Those memories are slowly fading away. At least I’ll have my current memories for life since I’m obsessed with photography now.