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Alanna and her silver camera

<p>Alanna Sweet, a first-year student, uses her digital camera to document her time at Miami University, just like her father did with her childhood. Photo from The Miami Student Archives</p>

Alanna Sweet, a first-year student, uses her digital camera to document her time at Miami University, just like her father did with her childhood. Photo from The Miami Student Archives

These stories were written by students for their JRN 101H class. They are reported stories about the lives of other students on campus.

She stands there, grinning behind her silver camera, taking pictures of the people who will one day be part of a memory.

Alanna Sweet was now documenting her own story.

A few months ago, Alanna chose to attend Miami despite her childhood dreams and her family's wishes.

Before she left home, her Dad gifted her a camera, one exactly like the camera he’d used to document Alanna’s childhood.

Her childhood pictures brought her back to a place of laughter and comfort.

Inspired by receiving her own camera, she was ready to document the memories she had yet to make.

One day bringing her back to a place of excitement and newness.

It was the third weekend of the school year. She’d been invited to go out with a completely new group of people.

Alanna arrived at Dodds Hall to 11 people, everyone asking each other the basic welcome-to-college questions: what’s your major, where are you from, what hall do you live in?

Amidst all the talking, Alanna remembers her camera and pulls it from her purse.

"Hey, we should all take pictures together on my digital," she says.

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Easing the awkwardness, she began to snap photos left and right of the smiling faces she had just met.

In the photos, girls were hugging each other for the first time, boys were posing together making amusing faces and everyone was taking big group photos, despite being strangers not even 30 minutes ago.

This was it. This was the start of Alanna documenting her story.

Her camera was capturing moments of her first year, freezing them in time, while creating connections with newfound friends.

These connections were all thanks to her silver camera.

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