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Behind the camera’s eye

Dale ShrullPost Independent staff
Post Independent/Kelley Cox
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Howard Orona likes looking at the world looks through a lens.He always has.That’s why he has piles of photo albums at his home on Parachute Creek.It’s a hobby that he wishes could have been more than just a hobby.”It would have been nice to have done it as a profession, but it didn’t work out that way,” Howard says with a laugh.Instead the 41-year-old Parachute native turned to the postal service, where he’s worked for the past 19 years. He’s now the postmaster at the Silt facility.Howard says his love of photography came into focus back in high school, but he’s never had any training.

“I never took classes, I just took pictures,” he says with another laugh.He admits that his little digital camera is his constant companion, and he’s always on the lookout for the good photo. Two years ago when he heard about the Post Independent’s A Day in the Life of Garfield County section, he knew he wanted to take part.When he saw his picture in print it was quite a thrill.”I was really excited. I’d never submitted anything before, so I was excited when I saw my picture,” he says.When this year’s Day in the Life was announced, he was very excited that it was on a Saturday, and Howard wasn’t about to miss the opportunity.He started early and was still shooting after 10 p.m.Howard is always the photographer. At family functions, vacations or whatever, he’s always the man behind the camera.

“Most of our pictures are without me because I’m always the one taking the pictures,” he says. “I don’t mind.”For Howard taking pictures is all about freezing that moment in time. It has always been the appeal of still photography. Capturing that single moment with a click of a button.”It’s nice to capture that moment, then to share that moment with others,” he says.That’s what the Day in the Life section does. It allows people to capture, then share those frozen moments with so many others.Even in these modern days of Internet bells and whistles and video, some people, like Howard, prefer the those single images.”The last couple of vacations we took I didn’t even take the video camera,” he says.Vacation time is when Howard works his digital camera overtime.



More than 1,200 photos – that’s how many Howard snapped during a recent trip to Europe. Scenes of Italy, Greece and Venice, images of his kids, Cordero, 10, and Delcia, 8, standing next to sights they had only seen in history books before.The photo album pile just got bigger.It was a lot of fun taking pictures on Sept. 9 as part of the Fall 2006 A Day in the Life of Garfield County, Howard says. But for him, every day is an opportunity to take a picture, capture a moment and share a moment. That’s why his camera never stays home.Howard will continue taking pictures and filling up photo albums – photo albums filled with everyone but him.It’s a typical day in the life of the man behind the camera.Editor’s Note: A Day in the Life of Garfield County is not a contest or a competition. We selected Howard Orona to feature in this photography profile for his variety of photographs and overall work he submitted for the section.

The A Day in the Life of Garfield County section will be inserted in Thursdays Post Independent. The section features photographs from residents who snapped photos on Saturday, Sept. 9.


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