Photography is great, but teaching can be so rewarding!

I'm obviously a photographer, that's what this blog is all about and it's what I usually post about on Facebook...BUT my primary career is teaching. I don't teach an important subject like English or science (although a math teacher, Mr. Kerrigan, sparked the idea of going into education). I teach Communication Technology which involves graphic design, video, photography, and most importantly the yearbook. I consider myself lucky that I get to work with students for three or four years as they take the multiple levels of my classes. In that time, I get to know most of my students pretty well, but especially those select few who are picked to work on the yearbook or are in my Technology Student Association club.

Ever since I started teaching at the middle school level in 1994, there have been students who I've connected with on a personal level, but I have always had a clear and purposeful separation from kids. There are some that I still talk to or at least touch base with on Facebook every now and then. But this graduating class has had students who have truly made an impact on me like never before.

Several years ago, a friend of mine commented that she felt like she wasn't changing the world as a teacher like she thought she would. I never had that kind of motivation, I was there to do a job and not make an impact on student's lives! That was for the real teachers. I was teaching "shop" to middle schoolers. I just wanted them all to leave my class with all their fingers. I succeeded in that too...mostly...but that wasn't my fault. He took something out of my class and had a "model rocket" experiment go bad and he lost part of his thumb. I ran into him a few months ago, he's doing well :)

It wasn't until I started teaching high school kids that my attitude started to shift. I started dealing with young adults who could hold real conversations and could joke around without getting carried away. I also started working with students for more than just one year at a time. When I first started at Delmar Middle and Senior High School, I taught grades 7 -12, so I really got to know some kids after all those years. As time went on, my classes shifted to a computer lab, I ended up with just high schoolers and I started to get a different type of student. I actually had valedictorians and honor students in my class! I had always heard rumors about these students, but I finally got to work with them! I loved working with the tech ed classes in the shop building stuff like picnic tables, catapults, hovercraft, CO2 cars, robots, and even cardboard boats. But I enjoyed having a calmer subject with focused students! Suddenly, I wasn't breaking up fights, lecturing about playing around with dangerous tools, and making sure nobody was doing anything stupid like drilling holes in my tables. I also started working on the yearbook.

My role in the yearbook class became more of a guiding force than a teacher. We learned a lot together, and I still learn a lot each year. We worked together on it rather than me just teaching lessons and giving assignments. We took ownership of something that would be read by hundreds of people and kept for years to come. I wasn't pushing these students to do a good job to get a good grade,they had the internal motivation to get it right! I spend a lot of time working closely with the yearbook students and I definitely become closer to those kids than those in the other classes just by the nature of the work.

I've missed one or two graduation exercises since I started at Delmar, but there is nothing that would have made me miss this the class of 2012 graduate. For whatever reason, this class had a big impact on me. I had a lot of fun with this group, but I've also had some frustrating and stressful days with them as well. I've sat by their hospital bed after a car accident, I've listened to their deepest secrets and heartbreaking stories, I've cried with them, I've yelled at them, they've yelled at me, and I'm sure I've lost some hair because of them. BUT, there has never been a class that I've been so fond of either. I respect them, I admire them, I've been inspired by them, I love them, and I will miss them dearly.


Good luck to the class of 2012! I look forward to the great things you will do in the future.

Custom wedding album design

It was time for a new sample album and it wasn't difficult to decide which wedding to showcase. There have been lots of great weddings, but this one had a great looking couple, great looking guests, a great band keeping everyone energized, and we got some great photographs of it all.

 Leslie and Jason hired me to photograph three days of wedding festivities- a small private ceremony on Thursday at his grandparent's ocean front home in Rehoboth, the rehearsal dinner on Friday at Kings Creek Country Club, and the full wedding celebration on Saturday at the Seacolt House.
The family brought in a caterer/coordinator from Baltimore who took charge of everything. I wish I could remember who the florist was because they did an amazing job. Kristen and the Noise literally rocked the house and may be part of the reason they don't allow weddings there anymore...at least for now. I hope things get worked out, I'd love to shoot more weddings there.

Being a showcase album, we designed a larger book than our usual 10"x10" forty page album, this one is 12"x12" with fifty pages. It was nice to be able to spread things out a little and really give the photos the emphasis they deserve. The metallic print used on the cover looks amazing in person, this photo doesn't do it justice. We decided to focus on just the main wedding day as the other two days were more casual affairs. If you'd like to see more of this amazing wedding, visit my website at http://www.samellis.com/2011Weddings/Leslie-and-Jason

Don't let your wedding photos sit on a disc in a drawer! An album is the best way to reflect back on your day!

The Lost Album

Hello...is this thing working? OK, I don't blog often. It's not that I don't have anything interesting to say, it's just that I don't think about writing about it... I tend to post on my Facebook page more than anything.

Last month, I sent out two albums for clients. I was surprised when one of them emailed me and said that they hadn't gotten their album a week later so I checked the tracking number. For some reason, the Post Office showed that the album was last checked in at the Philadelphia processing center and was due to be delivered a few days after I had mailed it. I called to try to find out why it was just sitting there and they told me someone would get back to me in a couple of days. I let the client know that I was trying, but it was out of my hands.

In the meantime, it turns out that the shipping label had come off of the box and the package made it's way to a post office in LOVEtesville, VA! The Postmaster there tried to find out who the package belonged to and opened it up to find the album. Living in a small town, I don't find this to be unusual. I had something similar happen with a Christmas card, and the postmaster opened it, recognized our photo, and returned it to us so we could send it out again!

This woman went above and beyond though. Apparently, she Googled their names (they were printed on the album cover) but had no luck. She actually said she "goggled" their names- cute, huh? She then Googled the name of the church, but they didn't have much information on them. They gave the Postmaster the priest's email address since she was a visiting clergy. She gave the Postmaster their postal address and email so she could get the album to them.

In her email, she said, "I must say, what a beautiful wedding. And may you be blessed with all life has to offer. I do believe things happen in our life for a reason and I guess there was a reason it ended up here. I am very thankful to have found you. The standard procedure is to just send it to Atlanta, GA, where lost mail goes, but we are just a little PO and try to make every effort to help mail get to it's destination."

I couldn't help but share this nice little story. In all the hustle and bustle in the world today, it's so nice to hear about people who take time out of their day to help others. Many thanks to this kind woman at the Post Office for doing more than delivering the mail, but for finding a wayward package's home.