A love story

So maybe you noticed that in my last post, all the pictures were super-saturated green? Yes, I just got a new camera. And I have learned that all-important lesson: no matter how much you spend on a camera, it's not ready to take pictures straight out of the box.

This is a love story but also a story of obscene egotism. That's the way I like my stories. Sometimes I like them with a healthy dose of amnesia and evil twins, but not in this one. Anyhow, about a year ago, we had this little get together at church where we had to share something we had created with our own two hands. Many people brought scrapbooks, some brought quilts or needlework, but I brought my photobooks. I suppose that photobooks are about the same as scrapbooks except that there are no scraps in them. They are linen-wrapped, hardbound, (vanity-) published photo albums. They have captions and maybe a consistent background color/texture, but they aren't like scrapbooks (which frankly make my skin crawl). One lady, sweet Diana Riley (aged 73), was very taken by them and became convinced that I was an amazing photographer based on these photos. Let me tell you a secret: only about 1 of every 50 pictures I take ever make it to be printed.

A few months ago, I received a phone call from Diana that began, "Jenny, I was wondering if you would do me a favour since you are such a wonderful photographer..." At that moment, if she had followed up with "So could you rob a bank for me," I probably would have done it. Flattery is an efficient fuel. Fortunately, Diana would never in a million years take advantage of someone's character flaws, and she presented me with her odd favour. My friend Kira who also attends church with us had a baby a year ago. With Kira's amazing fashion sense coupled with the baby's abundant genetic blessings, Rosie the Riveter is about the most adorable little bundle of scrumptious you will ever lay your eyes on. And like her siblings before her, she was bald as an egg except for a bit of blond fuzz. So Kira, always on the cutting edge of fashion and being from the Mormon West where gluing hairbows on babies' heads is acceptable, kept bringing Rosie to church with a different type of headgear every Sunday. In the UK, babies wear hair accessories only when they actually have hair, so all of the Brits (including Diana) were intrigued with the assortment of head garters, floppy hats, tiny clips, and, yes, bows glued to Rosie's head. Diana wanted me to photographically document this amazing phenomenon so that she could A) present Kira with a photo album of her child all cute yet hairless, and B) prove to all of her friends in the retirement home in which she lived that those crazy Americans are both resourceful and peculiar. Finally, she wanted this to be a secret. I don't know about your sneaking skills, but I would have a difficult time surreptitiously taking photos of a baby not my own, even a perfectly pleasant baby like Rosie. We compromised on the sneaking part, and Kira, being a good friend, allowed me to come and take pix of the baby without me explaining why. (Kira is extremely good natured that way.) Ariel allowed me to borrow his (office) camera, a Nikon of Amazingness, and this is where the story becomes a love story.

The camera takes up to 8 shots per second. That may not mean anything to you, but when you're taking a picture of a baby, that means you are bound to get a good shot every once in a while. All in all, I took about 300 pictures of Rosie over two days, and got about 20 great shots of her, a new and improved ratio. Did I mention the Continuous Auto-Focus? It tracks a moving child, and calculates the correct range. What about the ISO going all the way up to 3200? with built in noise reduction?! I was in love. But my new love belonged to another. And one day, Ariel came home and announced that the camera was being packed up and sent to Warsaw. Then began the begging. Ariel at first relented to the pleas to buy a Digital SLR, but he wanted me to get a lesser model. But it was too late. I had experienced the sweet nectar of the top-of-the-line, and everything else tasted like ashes in my mouth. So I made a deal with the devil. (His handle isn't EvilGM for nothing.) He agreed that I could get my beloved camera if I gave up buying books. When he first voiced the deal, I nearly refused. Could I give up my beloved books for a camera? Could I ignore the siren-song of Amazon's "Recommended Especially for You, JennyB" list each time I went to the site to check on the order status or to buy a lens filter or spare battery? So far, the temptation has been great, but the rewards are already paying off. And I fixed the saturation problem.