I spent quite a bit of time not only reading about and playing with the equipment, but also consulting with my college roommate's little boy who grew way up and became a videographer, and with other friends who are great photographers. It was so much fun.
My health didn't quite hold up for the trip to India and that was sad on several levels. But what really bothered me recently, was that at Thanksgiving, with all the family about, I got out my camera and had no idea how to use it. It's not all that complicated. There is a way to sort of make it into a point and shoot, but heck if I could remember how to do it.
"What a waste, what a waste," I kept mumbling to myself. My nephew showed me a couple of things about the camera, but they didn't sink in. I ended up taking a few shots of people with my phone camera. Even getting the pictures from my phone to my computer proved to be a major undertaking and I'm fairly sure that the way I finally did it isn't the way I used to do it. But who knows?
It just really pisses me off when I can't remember stuff like that. New stuff. It just doesn't seem to stick.
A couple of decades ago, I set out on a new life and got myself a really nifty Canon SLR camera. Of course, this was pre-digital, but I've to to say, I took some really good shots. I think I had an eye for it. I took the picture that adorns this blog while on my belly in some mud in the bush of SW Australia. With the lens, I could see a little family in the circle of the curled fern. I have a picture of a single crow flying over StoneHenge that is so perfect, if you saw it you'd think it was photoshopped. But it wasn't. It was just me and my camera that caught it. I have a very colorful closeup of a boy in a dragon costume, catching a breath while he and whoever is the back end of the dragon, dance down a street during a celebration in China. The photo is full of motion, though it is just a still. One of my favorites is a picture taken from the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor. My camera and I captured a perfect Hawaiian sky reflected in a rainbow oil slick, created from oil still escaping from the sunken ship below. To me it spoke volumes.
I remember taking all those shots years ago, but dad gum it, I can't remember how to use my flipping new camera now.
This experience is just odd. I remember my mother saying that she was "getting stupid." I kept assuring her that she wasn't, she was just getting forgetful, but now I understand what she was saying. There is a disconnect. Something that doesn't quite work in storing and retrieving new stuff.
It's sort of like all the old file cabinets are still working quite well and are very well organized, but the newer file cabinets have holes rusted in the bottoms of the drawers. Mice have gotten in and gnawed up information. Dang mice.
For me, it's much easier to communicate in writing than in speaking. That's a loss in itself because those who know me know I'm a talker. But I'm also so fortunate to be a fast typist and a good writer. Here's the weird thing though. I'll look back to three blogs ago and read it and I'll have no memory of writing it. I still lose words when typing, but I lose them less often than while talking. I also write in the morning or early in my day because when I try to do it late it may day, I end up with nuttin honey. I don't know why that is.
So, much of this recorded journey is for you, the reader, but I must admit, much of it is for me, too. I want to keep knowing how to write, and I want to be able to read what I've written.
And I'm so very ding dang grateful for not only the photographs but for the adventures I've had taking them. Life has truly been amazing, and though it's a bit different now, I've no reason to think it won't continue to be amazing.
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