Years ago Boeing invited me to attend the first flight of the 787 Dreamliner at Paine Field not far from Seattle, Washington.
I flew out to the Seattle area to witness the event on a cold, rainy day.
You can read my story here.
Back in 2007 I was in Sydney, Australia when the first commercial flight of the Airbus A380 landed.
I was able to witness the arrival and take a few pictures. You can read my story here.
Iāve thoroughly enjoyed photography since I was a youngster. So my picture taking has spanned more than five decades.
The photos that I take belong to one of two ācampsā ā snapshots and memorable.
This article is the another in a series Iāve named āAbout this photoā to draw attention to a few of those memorable photos that may be hiding in a shoebox or on your hard drive.
Some individuals have photographic memories. I instead have memories about certain photographs.
Most of these special photographs were taken long, long ago. They are indelible and remain riveted in my mind. And so, in this āAbout this photoā series, Iād like to key in on one of these unforgettable photographs to bring me back to the time and circumstances under which it was taken.
Taken late summer 1970, this is a photo of my girlfriend along Lake Michigan. We spent many weekends at this beach that summer.Usually the beach was very crowded, but on this cloudy and windy day, we had the run of the sand and shore to ourselves.
The red lighthouse was a familiar site to anyone who knows this area and remains a key attraction to the beach today. Itās a lucky coincidence that my girlfriendās jacket was about the same shade of red as the lighthouse.
The reason that this photo is etched in my mind is that Iāve been married to this lovely lady for 50 years now.
Now letās skip forward some 40+ years.This photo was taken a few summers ago. Here we have two young girls having fun at the same location on Lake Michigan.
You can see the same red lighthouse along the water albeit at a slightly different angle.
These are two of our young grandchildren. As we were walking along the beach I was reminded of the 1970 photograph when we approached the red lighthouse.
I asked the two girls to pose on the bench in the foreground. This photo captures the familiar feelings of warmth and affection that has somehow remained with me for more than 50 years..
Along the way, Iāve taken a huge number of snapshots. However, the number of memorable photos that Iāve taken is far smaller. Yet itās the memorable ones that have a magical ability to steer emotions, feelings and pleasure into our minds, even years later. Simply amazing.
Written by
Arnie Lee