Another lens from Monsieur Avognan

I have posted before about my co-worker, Monsieur Avognan, our french teacher who became interested in photography after seeing portraits that I’d taken of the students for our bulletin board displays. I am our school’s unofficial photographer and was more than happy to share my knowledge with someone who was eager to learn (and who could maybe help out someday).

Here’s the prior post:

People continue to amaze me

Avognan bought another lens over the weekend, and he delivered it to my desk for my inspection this morning. And oh, my gosh – it’s really cool.

It’s the Nikon 14-24mm wide angle and I took it outside and was able to get the entire school building from end to end. It’s quite a long school.

Nikon AF-S Zoom 14-24mm f2.8 lens




But back to Avognan, who is a joy to work with every single day.

He’s originally from the Ivory Coast of Africa, where he was forced as a child to speak the French language. He remembers growing up in a small cottage where spies would come around at night and out those who were secretly speaking their native tongue.  I asked him if he minded speaking French now, and he loves it, he says. He enjoys what he does for a living.

He competed in track & field at both the 1976 and 1984 Summer Olympics for the Ivory Coast.




Avognan loves sharing, and I’ve decided to just accept this fact and to be as careful as I can with the lenses he lends me. He told me today that if it weren’t for me, he’d never have gotten into photography and for this, I am truly glad. I love walking by his classroom because his outside wall is covered with exceptional photographs of our students who he coaches in soccer and cross country.




At the end of the day, Avognan came to my desk and asked me to take his photo with the wide angle lens. I told him that I thought my 50mm would be the better choice for a  portrait. So I took one with the 17-24mm wide angle, and the photo below with the 50mm.

Nikkor 50mm f1.8 lens

Merci, Monsieur, de toujours partager.

(Thank you, Monsieur, for always sharing.)

: : :

Until tomorrow, my friends . . .