updates updates updates

On the technological front:
I bought a Fujifilm FinePix A500 series digital camera for 40.00. Regular price on such an item in the store runs between 150.00-179.00. I bought it from Dylan just to be able to start learning how these crazy things work.
First lesson is a lesson I should have learned from a regular point and shoot: understanding the fundamentals is well... fundamental to taking a good shot. I always thought that the camera was designed to do the work and one just had to point and shoot. WRONG!
WARNING! DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER!!

Second lesson: it ain't as easy as Pam(sister) makes it look. We both went to Cedar Point for our senior trips. My photos were grainy and nobody was really where in the photo I wanted them. I took a picture of the same Ferris wheel she did. Mine looks like I took the picture. Hers looks like a postcard. I watched it come off the photo processor when it was developed so I know it came from her camera and she took the photo because no one else was allowed to touch it... not even Heather.

And there is a statement on our creativity. I can draw the cows coming home. She can compose a picture of the herd that makes you think you are walking in the field yourself. She says she is not creative. I say she is creative where I am not. It is in the vision. Our depth of field is different. I can tell because it is so dang blasted hard for me to take a good shot!

So the first day I have the camera I start taking pictures of my artwork. I took 15 shots and washed the color out of all of them. So then I read the manual (told ya, tomboy) that meant three things: a. I had to adjust the ISO which sets the sensitivity to light settings; b. consider the ambient lighting to set the white balance; c. suppress the flash [take away his Wheaties, ba da bum]. So erase the photos and start again. The photos that are on the AOG site were taken with the webcam [what a pain!]. The new photos are sooooooo much better but still not what I wanted [see Michelle Ward's site].
This camera has a MACRO setting which is specifically designed for close ups so that I can show detailed embellishments that I am particularly proud of, meaning that they turned out way better than I expected. The reason for this is also so that I can have a record of HOW I did something so that I can get it right without struggle later. This is great for the technical things like wire wraps, jump rings and frogs (two part buckles sans straps).

Just in case you are wondering, yes, I do expect that I can just pick up a camera and instantly know how to do something. Part of that is because that has been true of things I felt no pressure to understand. And in part because I have had so many teachers tell me that I have an amazing talent that way. My art teacher at Baker said she imagined that watching daVinci work would have been like watching me with a new medium... far more successful with the first attempt in a completely new format than the average person would have after weeks of struggle. I think that must have gone to my head. It is TOTALLY unreasonable to expect that everything should be easy to grasp just because so many subjects don't get too far away from me. So believe me when I say I am easy to anger when dealing with myself. With other people I can have the patience of Job... me, not so much.