I had the honor of being invited to Colombia, South America, to speak at an international conference for college students about my photography and life in New York City. The conference was sponsored by Colegio Mayor De Bolívar, a technical college in Cartagena. My goal was to educate the students about photography and inspire them to pursue their goals and dreams in life. I gave eight presentations in five days to approximately 500 students. Many came up after my lectures to take pictures with me and several shared that my talk had really got them thinking about their own dreams in life.

But the best thing that happened was on the last night of my stay in Colombia. I was out shooting with the gentleman who did the live translation for some of my talks along with his wife. They are amateur photographers and after hearing me say I was looking for someone to drive me around Cartagena to take pictures, they very generously volunteered. It was nighttime and we were at a distant location away from the colleges. I was helping them with various camera settings and so on. While we were there, a group of young college age men sat down near where we were shooting. After about ten minutes, one of the young men came over and said “I know who you are. You’re that American who is visiting this week talking about your photography.” I was a little surprised he recognized me but after he recounted several points of my talk in great detail, I thought he had attended one of my lectures. I was about to ask him if he had enjoyed the conference when he said he had not been there - it was a friend that told him all about me and my photography. He said his friend was telling everyone about me because I had totally inspired him to pursue his own passion for photography and to live a creative life. I was blown away. I couldn’t believe that someone would be telling their friends about me, especially in such detail. It felt amazing to know that I had made a difference in at least one person’s life while I was there. I'm really happy I was able to go to Colombia and grateful to the Colegio Mayor De Bolivar for inviting me to speak at this year’s conference.

I'm also really happy I was able to take some photos of the beautiful City of Cartagena, Colombia while I was there. You can see all those photos here.

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