Shared Moments
Camp is all about moments.
We intentionally build memorable events and situations into our days and weeks. Some of the memories would happen no matter what we do (just being together is enough) but others happen only because we made them happen. A couple examples just from today:
- Breakfast Club, Morning Assembly… each talk carefully planned.
- Lunch (we will have a surprise celebration of our 99th hour at camp)
- EP (a blow out surprise event with a Scottish theme, we prepared this event months ago)
We encourage counselors to do this too. During orientation, cabin staff plan their devotions and carefully script first day “moments” with their girls. Department heads prepare first lessons and “mountain top” moments for their classes. Directors plan out every day of the summer with the experience of 99 years and a mountain of surveys to guide our instincts. Camp is not about punching a clock, simply going through the motions will not lead to success. Camp is about working long hours without reservation, fully engaging our body, mind, and soul for the Glory of God and the Best Summer Ever! When we “play the camp game” in this way we find ourselves drawn into inexpressible joy as we fly from moment to moment with wide eyes and big grins.
We share these moments with you. The blog and the photographs are intended to effectively share camp with you. Between the two, photographs are the most difficult thing to “get right”. The root of the problem is the old “Quality vs. Quantity” question.
We are a “Quality” focused camp, but to get campers in several photographs each day we must take a lot of pictures. Thus we take pictures all day every day, and professional photographers do not keep such hours! Our Web Photo counselor team works hard to check in with every program area and do so at different times of the day, to take well composed and clear pictures every time, and to upload the photos in a timely fashion… but they are not professionals!
We have 3 professional photographers who come in throughout the summer, and those pictures are always great! But they are not here most of the time. We have visiting photographers (basically skilled “moms” who come out and take pictures that other moms would like. These are often my favorite shots, but as with the professionals… these moms are not here all the time. Finally, I take pictures when time allows and my photos are pretty great (if I say so myself). This is largely due to my great equipment, that nobody else wants to use (because it is pretty heavy and hard to carry around).
Add all these sources of photographs together and we find we generate a LOT of photos every day. Many are not that great, some are fantastic. We have considered “culling” all the lesser photos from the upload, but that would result in far fewer campers being in pictures… and often “mama bear” just wants a glimpse of “baby bear” even if the pictue is out of focus and not well exposed. For that one person, that picture was important. We hesitate to toss it out (but maybe we should).
Facial Recognition by Waldo Photos was rolled out for Main Camp, and it is already a hit. About half of the camp signed up for it and we think it has proven to be a good way of weeding through the thousands of photos we post every day. Of course, you will miss some pictures (the technology is not perfect) and you will miss some of the “magic” that happens in camp within the general community. That being said, this is the direction we are moving. We know that this technology will get better every year and that in time it will be so good we take it for granted.
Bottom line: we are trying! We do our best to provide significant moments that lead to significant growth. That is our primary focus. Closely associated with that goal is our desire to share these moments with you… so that you can better understand the camp experience: what it is and why we love it.
Thank you for caring.
The Day:
- Began with a surprise light rain… it was not supposed to rain and it should not last long. Everything should be clear by the afternoon.
- Breakfast: French Toast and sausage
- Lunch: Parmesean Chicken and Caesar Salad
- Dinner: (Scottish Theme) Cottage Pie, Bangers, English Pea Salad, Cranachan
The Morning Assembly Devotion is FANTASTIC.