Friday, September 16, 2011

Part II of today's thoughts...

To attempt to learn more about my camera, I took a short class on nature photography. We had a lecture followed by a field trip to the State Botanical Gardens.

My camera is a Canon PowerShot SX30 IS. The story of how it came to me speaks of the extreme generosity that people can sometimes express. An anonymous donor from the Robert Cooper Audubon Society purchased my camera for me after I lost my original point-and-shoot. My camera is perfect: it is easy for an amateur like me to figure out and it can do amazing things.

On the field trip, I learned how to adjust aperture.
And shutter speed.
And white balance.

And ISO.
Score. Now I can take photos on manual. Can't wait to shoot more!

Friday, September 16th pt. 1

A few days ago my aunt Carolyn passed away. Since I’ve been playing with the idea of starting a blog for a while now, it seems an appropriate time. In one of the last coherent conversations I had with her, Aunt Carol gave me this advice: write down everything important in your life that you want to remember later. I think she said it for herself as much as for me. A minute later, I found myself telling her who I was again and what my relationship to her was.

But I don’t really want to talk about Aunt Carol’s degenerative disease and the suffering that it brought to her and our family. I just want to share what a creative, special person she was. Carolyn was an artist – not as an occupation, but as a lifelong passion. I wish I could share with you some of her prize-winning photographs and beautiful nature paintings – but unfortunately I can’t right now. I’ll try to put some up later, but she did not live in a digital camera era and I am living halfway across the country from where the originals are located. All I can say is her creativity has inspired me to begin exploring nature photography, and to document my life through photography and writing in blog form.

I’m also thankful for the closeness of my family – the way we all came together to share Carolyn’s last years, to take care of her and keep her involved and feeling loved. Go, family.