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Issue date: 10/13/06 Section: Public Forum

Dwayne Mactavious - Online Editor

Imagine spending the first five weeks of summer touring parts of Europe, taking photography classes with a renowned European photographer and visiting museums in the Scandinavian region that brings you face to face with art pieces you were only previously able to experience in books.

Imagine all that and you would have just taken a peek into the experience I had upon taking advantage of the "Summer in Sweden" exchange program through Missouri Southern's art department.

The 17-hour trip across seven time zones from Houston, Texas, to Paris, France, was long but good.

It was great to have arrived safely and get settled in our hotel rooms.

Upon discovering the lack of connectivity via cellular phones and our laptops' wireless internet, we were disappointed about temporarily having to go without the sense of security you get from and give to your family by contacting them to alert them of your safe arrival in a new country.

After resolving that small situation, we were able to get a bit of rest and look forward to enjoying the next few days of actually being in Paris!

It was interesting to see how small cars and hotel rooms were and how much graffiti there was. I took quite a few photos of some extraordinary graffiti artwork.

Our four-day tour of France took us through the expansive Louvre, the breathtaking Notre Dame Cathedral with its amazing display of stained glass, Napoleon's Tomb at Invalides and eventually to the Eiffel Tower, where we took "too many" photos.

Later that night, we took a boat ride past most of the sites we saw during the day.

But by night I was even more awestruck by the beauty of the city and literally had to remind myself that it was all real, that I was actually in Paris.

After our four days in France, we continued on to Sweden, where we spent the majority of the remainder of our trip.

I had the honor of working with renowned European photographer Orjan Henriksson once again.

Orjan is such a wise and intelligible professor and he really helped me to infuse a new breath of life into my photos.

Two major lessons I learned from him were that your photography is supposed to be personal shots that are of some significance to you, and your photography is not bad as long as its execution is intentional and you communicate your message.

Continued...

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