One of the things that I enjoy about photography is using it as a tool for good.  I sometimes find myself involved in creative projects that are enjoyable as much as they are growing experiences.

In January someone approached me at Church about one such project.  We recently underwent a leadership change and this person thought this might like a board with photographs of our congregation’s youth.  

I took the idea and ran.  Of course, immediately following that we started getting a slew of snow storms which put quite the damper on our attempt to photograph the youth.  

The thought behind the board was to have a way to track the youth in their various classes and easily see when they aged up.  There were some other things, but that was the original base thought.  

I did your classic headshot style photo of each of the youth.  Of course, working with freezing cold temperatures and foot and a half high snow at as close to high noon as one can get in the dead of winter posed a few challenges.  We persevered however, and some simple editing later I ended up with 35 pictures bearing the names and birthdays of each young man and young woman.

The board went through several renditions as I tried to figure out what best to do with this board.

Here’s the final product:

What do you think?

I am very happy with it.

My goals while making the board is to keep it tasteful and fairly masculine as opposed to pink and flowery and floofy.  I chose to checkerboard the bulletin board provided for me.  I used photo corners to hold each picture in place which allows for them to move.  Each class has a row that can hold ten photos, so there’s even room for growth!

I made labels for each class, playing in Photoshop which I greatly miss.  I really need to find new software of that nature.  (My husband has it on his work computer and oh how I LOVE Photoshop.)  I then marked the class presidencies using coloured thumbtacks.  What I like? They look like M&M’s which are of course my favourite candies! YAY!  I colour coded this and after the presidencies, each class is placed on the board by age from oldest to youngest.

I put a lot of work into this, but it was worth it.

I learned that we have a lot of youth, it just doesn’t seem like it when they are broken up into classes.  I also learned that a great bulk of our youth were born in two different years.  Considering the program spans ages 12-18, that’s saying something! Ha!

Our youth are a special group of teens and I enjoyed chasing them down to get their photos.  Oh you know I had to chase some of them down!  Our youth program wouldn’t be what it is without each and every one of those teens.  They each bring their own special something to our program.  Their cheerful attitudes and their strength inspire me.  One day, when I grow up, I hope I can be as awesome as the kids that make up our youth program.

That said, using my talents and skills combined with having to talk and photograph each of these teenagers let me really ponder each of us and our worth.  In our scriptures we read: The worth of souls is great in the sight of God.  How true it is!  

–Lady O