The first day

So... There is the first photo. Is that the largest size I can get from this blog's standard machinations? if so, I will have to work something else out.

The caption could be "weird trees". A forest fire took out hundreds of acres of black spruce around Ft. Greely some years ago and their black skeletons are still Seuss-ishly standing guard today. The photo is untouched, and for sure at least the color could use some help in the G.I.M.P. because this camera doesn't seem able to understand what a sunset really looks like.

I've never kept a blog before, and hope this will be an exception. Here's a bit of background to get started.

Although I have always liked snapping photos both from a creative and a technical (ie I like technology) aspect, I received a bit of a cattle-shock in this department by being asked to photograph someone's wedding. I was actually asked almost by accident, not because of perceived ability - but that's another story. Being versed enough in the lore to at least glimpse the enormity of what I was getting into, I started some research. I began to be fascinated with the subject of photography in a depth I had never thought about before.

To cut a long story short, here I am today. I borrowed a Canon 20D (having previously inhaled the manual), some pretty decent lenses and a 580EX flash and armed with my recently won theory spent a day experiencing something new and quite wonderful. I made a lot of mistakes. I understand what some of them were, but not all. However, I got some good photos (at least, ones that made the family happy) out of it. Maybe I will put together a sampling into a web album in order to get some comments that might help me out.

Back to today - the proud owner (still) of a Fuji F30 point and shoot. Sorry, thats all you are going to being seeing for some time... I am saving up for an SLR. It will probably be Canon, since I already acquired a glib of knowledge about their line. I hope it will at least be a 20D, since I have used both this and a 350D and would say: no comparison. Perhaps a photo might come out as well from one as the other... but the controls are just not in the same league and there is not the same tangible joy of using a good tool.

In the meantime the Fuji is really great for a compact point and shoot. It is my work camera and I have it with me wherever I am which obviously I could never duplicate with an SLR. You will probably hear more about it in time.

Six Trees.