Collages and Video Editing Memories

I've always been a fan of photographs.  With the advent of digital photography, I took a lot of shots and made physical copies of my favorite photographs.  However, a few years ago,  I took interest in two things that also involved media. 

First, I learned to love making photo collages.  I had purchased an iPad 2 for my mom but used the device occasionally.  During my time on the device, I discovered a few apps I liked including one called "Pic Collage".  It was a free app that allowed you to create free form collages.   After using the app for a while, I feel in love.   I loved using the app to combine multiple photographs focusing on one subject matter.  In a sense, it was a digital version of scrap booking.  

Second, I learned how to edit and create digital videos.   The credit for the initial motivation goes to a person I know.  The person was doing some video projects for a basketball league I play in.  It was due to this person that I started investigating how to edit and create digital videos.  As I had a iMac, I realized I had a built in program called iMovie.  It was a simple matter of importing video into the program, editing the video, saving the result to my computer and then uploading online.  

When I first started doing these two things, it was mostly for myself.  I created collages of subjects I liked.  I created highlight videos of my basketball games (though others were involved too).   It was quite fun to do. 

In the past week or so, I was creating a collage for a vacation trip that dated back to 2005.  There were some nice photos and I wanted to share with my friends.   While I was creating the collage, I stumbled upon some VIDEO from another trip in 2005.  After the collage was done, I quickly created the video as well.  

I was surprised at the positive reaction to the collage and video.   Many people thanked me for bringing back some great memories from 2005.   Though I did not realize it at the time, 2005 was both a time of transition for personally and a special time for that particular group of friends.   The group had mostly met a year earlier and hung out a LOT for a few years after. 

Today, the group has mostly dispersed.  Pockets of people still talk and meet up every now and then.  It is not likely the entire group will be getting together like we did in 2005.  However, the memories we shared will always remain and thankfully, I was able to capture them in collage and video form for my friends to enjoy.  That definitely made it worth my time to put them together.