Panoramio Anyone?

Not long ago, I dis­cov­ered a web­site called Panoramio, whose tag line is “Pho­tos of the World”. It is a geo­graph­i­cal photo col­lab­o­ra­tion site that uses Google Earth and Google Maps to link pho­tos to the exact loca­tion from which they were taken. All uploaded pho­tos (sub­ject to review), will be included in Google Maps through Panoramio’s inter­face. Dur­ing Google’s review they may also choose pho­tos to include in Google Earth. This is a really fun way to con­tribute and view pho­tos taken all around the world.

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I Miss My Superhero

My dad, Don­ald O’Neal, was a pro­fes­sional pho­tog­ra­pher for almost 38 years. He grad­u­ated from Florida State Uni­ver­sity  (Go Noles!) in 1969. He began teach­ing pho­tog­ra­phy at Hoover Junior High School the same year and even­tu­ally moved to teach­ing the same sub­ject at Mer­ritt Island High School. Dur­ing this time, he per­fected his craft by shoot­ing wed­dings pro­fes­sion­ally on the week­ends. After he devel­oped the film, he would assem­ble assem­ble photo albums by hand for the happy couples.

Dur­ing my sev­enth grade school year he helped me with my sci­ence project which was explor­ing the work­ings of a cam­era. He helped me cre­ate a pin­hole cam­era from card­board and tape. We went out­side to our front side­walk and took pic­tures of a house across the street while he explained how the dif­fer­ent aper­ture set­tings, shut­ter speeds and focal length when changed, affected the final result of each pic­ture we took. I always wanted to learn more about this trade of his but they didn’t offer this elec­tive at my high school. When I went to col­lege I wasn’t sure then what I wanted to do and lost inter­est quickly. Now, I find it tragic that I have just now found a pas­sion for pho­tog­ra­phy; some­thing I feel deep regret over not learn­ing more about from my father.

He had a goal dur­ing his retire­ment years to sell prints of his won­der­ful pho­toart. My hus­band designed and cre­ated Wall To Wall Pho­tos with detailed notes from my father of what he wanted it to con­tain and how he wanted it appear. In addi­tion to pho­tog­ra­phy, he had a pas­sion for inte­rior dec­o­rat­ing. All of his homes were metic­u­lously dec­o­rated and he was com­forted in his last years by sur­round­ing him­self with his pho­tos. He enjoyed trav­el­ing and used those oppor­tu­ni­ties to cap­ture the beauty of places on our planet and those peo­ple, ani­mals, and things which inhabit it.

Unfor­tu­nately, his life was cut short just before his six­ti­eth birth­day by prostate can­cer. He was my per­sonal super­hero. I love him and miss him more than my sim­ple words can express. If you knew my father, I encour­age you to please leave a note with your remem­brances here.

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