A Few Words about Photography (skip this if you find camera talk boring)
In the days I was sick, I accomplished what to me is a milestone and a miracle. (With Ed's help.) I sold my old camera on Craigslist. And bought a newer version of the same online. This was a huge, time-consuming, not unstressful deal. I've been trying to do it for a long time and having this window of time allowed me to plunge.
The problem with me and photography is, well, multifold. I first began taking pictures when I was eight years old. With my Kodak brownie. When film was expensive and flashcubes came in packs of little lightbulbs that sizzled before your eyes when you clicked. Those were the days! When we were leaving the U.S. to return to Poland, I was thirteen and fully into the photography business. True, my ambitions were low -- I wanted a Polaroid! Meet the Swinger, Polaroid Swinger, It's more the a camera, it's almost alive, it's only nineteen dollars and ninety-five... (I have a very good memory for commercial jingles.) No point in getting that for a return to Poland. No Polaroid film there.
In my teen years, while in Poland, I learned to work a real camera with manual everything and when I returned to New York at age 19 and signed up for college classes, I immediately took one in film developing.
It's been downhill since then! Why? Because the world of cameras got better and I got lazier.
I stopped playing around with developing because it was too hard to recreate a darkroom and I hadn't the time to use someone else's. And as the automatic functions crept up on us, more perfect every year, I'd default to A way too much: autofcous, auto aperature selction, auto shutter speed... I basically tuned out of the developing capabilities in photography and concentrated on just taking pictures. Lots of them! And when digital photography became the norm (just when I started Ocean), I just plunged right in. Since those early years (time of my divorce, time of Ed, time of Ocean...) I dont have a day where I dont have a camera around my neck. Not a day.
Still, I rarely leave the Automatic mode. It's just too easy to let the camera do the thinking.
Except when I get a new one. Then I relive all its fantastic functionalities! I get re-excited. I'm tickled at the new developments. (And after a few weeks, I go back to Automatic.)
Perhaps this is why I love getting a new camera and I do it fairly frequently -- very two or three years. I sell the old one so that the outlay isn't too great and hound the Internet for what's grabbing everyone's attention. At a reasonable price point, because otherwise I'd just get a Leica and be done with dreaming! For those who don't know, Leica compacts are the gold standard and they are so expensive that I cant imagine anyone stepping out into the real world dangling that thing around a neck. Asking for trouble. Plus it would pay for someone's whole year in college which, frankly, is a better investment. I exaggerate, of course, but still...
The trouble is the market has been weird for cameras that I love (and turns out other serious amateurs love as well): compact, semi-professional stuff. (Meaning small and light but with many of the functions of a larger camera). It's been pretty flat and uninspiring. Why? Because people have so massively switched to phone photography that the major players feel it's not worth the effort to develop this technology for the few remaining enthusiasts out there.
They have miscalled the demand. When Fujifilm announced a new compact camera this year, the demand has been so strong that they are months if not years behind in meeting the preorders alone! For me, this meant, well, two things:
1. It was tremendously easy to sell my older compact Fujifilm (you cant get the older ones either -- all sold out).
2. It was tremendously hard to find the new compact Fujifilm.
While I was sick, I accomplished both and now I am in my window of photographic excitement! You wont notice an iota of difference in the pictures I post here. It's all about how I approach picture taking going forward. What I take with me on trips (I've been lugging my wonderful but OH SO HEAVY camera through Span, through Scotland, wishing I could get behind my compact one...). What I read/watch/learn from the various tutorials on line.
When the person drove here at high speed all the way from Milwaukee to buy my camera, Ed did the sale (I was inside with Covid). The guy asked -- why is she selling this? Ed -- oh, she always wants the newest thing. I'm sure there was an eye-roll with that statement. It's not false, but it's not true either. I want the newer model if I think it will add something to this activity that occupies a huge chunk of each day for me. (Photo shooting is only step one. Photo editing can take... a while!) I am so excited to get behind this very, very fortunate purchase (only one store in New Jersey had just received a supply and they had exactly one box in stock -- it was meant to be!).
I write all this for two reasons -- I should give some mention here to this project that takes up so much of my time (thinking about and equipping myself to do photography) and, well, I'm super excited about it! It's a big deal to have received (last night) a new small fixed-lens camera! For me it is, anyway.
Okay, back to the business of writing about my flowers.
Flowers, Flowers, and More Flowers
Out snipping, early on. (And bug swatting.) It takes a long time to work through close to 500 flower heads, which, by the way, are wet and juicy and sticky and require a hand rinse with the hose every few minutes, especially since I am also dangling a camera at the side. (The clunky big old camera for now.)
Every now and then, I look up and take in this world of flowers.
(the trumpets are in bloom!)
I know the good positioning by now. You dont stand in the thick of flower fields every single day without taking note of how things look from this way, from that way...
And yes, they're looking good. Snip, squash oriental lily bugs, snip.
(triplets! Their one day of glory...)
It's late by the time I'm done.
This is It
A Polish friend of mine recently asked, in a speculative way -- how do you practice happiness... I immediately answered. Not because I have great knowledge here, but because I love this topic and it makes me happy just to think about it.
Here's what I do know: everything, everything about breakfasts on the porch -- leisurely breakfasts on the porch, makes me happy!
In preparation for this, I biked over to the new development, first to check on Steffi's House (nearly done!)...
Then to Tati Co coffee shop -- they'd just gotten a fresh order of pastries from Madison Sourdough!
Croissants (almond and chocolate, split), summer red berries and ripe peaches, milky coffee. And Ed. That feeling of contentment, indeed, in this case of happiness runs deep.
Back to Photography
People often ask me -- what camera do you use? And I always say -- it really doesn't matter, it's not the camera that makes the pictures, it's you. And I really believe that. Particularly for those of us who mostly post online or make photo books for our kids (whether they want them or not!) -- taking many pictures, using a good photo editing program -- this matters so much more than spending money on a camera.
However.
For those of us who do take lots of photos, every single day, the camera is a part of you. It's your third arm. It's your friend. It doesn't have to be fancy or expensive, but you do have to really like it.
And I love my new little friend. Maybe it'll last way into advanced old age. Maybe. I take good care of these guys that hang on my shoulder. My new buddy will be my one reliable travel companion in future trips. In the meantime, here are just two photos, taken still tentatively, with the newbie.
with love...
