Last week photographer Laurie Skrivan printed out several photographs for a project – television’s digital switch – that she’s been working on for about a year. Editor Lynden Steele served as a set of eyes on the project, and together the two selected the photos to be presented in an online gallery for the project. Then they determined the order to present them in.

Seeing the two of them crouched on the floor with all the prints brought back college memories. Back in college my favorite part of my first photo class was weekly critique. After hours in the darkroom and the scent of chemicals on my purplish fingers, I would walk into class and hang my work on the wall with a thumb tack. We’d spend the entire class talking about each picture. I learned as much during these sessions as I did out in the field.

I’ve missed this photo dialogue in the past few months. In the daily grind of a newspaper, sometimes we don’t take enough time to sit and talk about photos. We talk about deadlines and gripe about schedules and editors. Next time I think I’ll use my energy to talk about photos instead. Throwing prints on the floor is a lot more fun than looking at thumbnails in Photo Mechanic.  Lynden and Laurie, thanks for the reminder.