Pictures

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I was scrolling through Facebook this morning. In fact, I sat down to write a blog post and came up blank. I have so many things I want to say, but gosh. Okay, so let’s get the elephant out of the room… no, I’m not sick… I lost someone extremely important to me. No, I’m not ready to talk about it… Jalapeño. (I’ll explain that someday, too) Anyway, back to the procrastination.

Two ladies pop up with ads constantly, but there are more ads related to photography. The two ladies I’m referring to always talk about polished photos wherever you go. No one around to take your photo, no problem, etc. I look at these polished photos and wish I had photos of myself like that. Come on, that’s what they want. They want to inspire you to buy their book or their course, or their Lightroom presets, so “You can look this good, too.” Here’s the thing… I’ll never look that good, both in real life or in photos, I don’t really want to spend the money on crap I already know (I’ve spent a lot of years studying photography), and three… well… I’m a goofball.

Circa 1998

Growing up, my mom hated photos. She hated being in them. She hated taking them. She hated them. When she and my dad got married, she wasn’t even going to have wedding photos done, but my grandma said that she was paying for it, she was getting her photos too, so my mom bought the smallest, cheapest photo package offered. Then, throughout the years, she’d hide them in the house. Mom and Dad’s marriage license was in between the pages, and when Dad would need the marriage license, he’d grumble. She wouldn’t give him the photos, and I’d be sent out to find them hidden in the house. Usually, I knew where they were, I just never said so because then she’d move them on me.

At one point, I pulled them out, scanned a copy of them, and put them back. That way, I had them. Shhhh, don’t tell, even at 41, I’ll still probably get in trouble. When dad would send me looking for them, I always told him, Don’t get me in trouble. He’d laugh at me, of course, and reassure me that I’d be in more trouble with him if I didn’t find them. {hehe.}

Photos are a funny thing though… I grew up in the era of film cameras. I’ve always loved pictures. Being in them, taking them…. pictures. They tell a story. A story of another time, another place, people. In my lifetime, we went from putting the roll of film in an envelope and sending it off for development, where you’d have to wait a week to get them back, to one-hour, to digital. That’s definitely quite the change. Digital is definitely gratifying, AND if it isn’t perfect, take it again.

With a roll of film, you usually got 25 shots per roll. The average is 1-2 good photos per roll. Man, could you imagine being a professional photographer with that kind of odds? Personally, I’d love to try!! My first digital camera was in 2002.

I got it for my birthday. It was odd. It came with a small memory card that I didn’t have a card reader for, so I had to hook the camera up to the computer. The software that came with the camera turned every photo black and white and upside down. Wow, we’ve come a long way! In the summer of 2005, just after I graduated from college with my Bachelor’s (yes, I have to specify because I have a Master’s too… I’m an educated idiot…), my mom took me to New York City. I’d always wanted to go there, so that was my graduation present from her. Gosh, that trip was amazing!

Man I thought I was cool, standing on the Brooklyn Bridge talking on a cell phone… a flip phone even… circa 2005

Anyway, I bought a larger memory card, plus a card reader. Man, my world was blown! On that trip, I took both a film camera and my digital and while I used the film because I was still unsure of the digital camera, I took more photos with that digital camera. Sometimes I’d even take a photo with the film camera and then immediately with the digital. I wanted to make sure I got the shot, but I sure loved that digital camera!

By 2009, I learned what a dSLR camera was. I wound up taking a photography class with some friends. They planned on starting a professional photography business. They set up an LLC and everything. I truly hoped that I could join them, but they didn’t want me to. I still took the class with them. Before that class, I had no clue what a dSLR was and that other cameras were called point and shoot. Because… you point them at whatever you want to take a photo of, the camera does everything for you, and you “shoot” the shot. Mind blown. haha. A dSLR, there’s that option (Auto mode), or there’s a whole other world where you choose shutter speed, aperture, ISO, in any combo you want. Mind blown again.

Yes, I can still name every camera I’ve owned since the digital era. Yes, if you have a camera that I have never shot with, I will be asking to let me use it. If you bought a new camera, don’t worry, I’ll set up all the settings for you to my liking. I’m annoying. I used to read owners’ manuals about cameras like they were New York Times best-selling novels. Oh… and if you have a Sony dSLR or Mirrorless, please, by all means, I want to shoot with one… PLEASE. Seems everyone I know has either a Nikon (I own), a Canon (I own), or an iPhone (I own).

So we’ve truly strayed off the path of whatever I was going to say, which honestly, I didn’t really have a direction I was going. So does that mean we didn’t stray too far? Who knows. But why will I never look like those gals in those ads? Well, for one, a lot of their shots are taken in “remote” destinations like Paris, London, the world over, and I live in a fly-over state. And 2… well… I can’t be serious in a photo to save my life.