I never dreamed that I would love taking pictures so much. In fact, I have been camera-phobic my whole life. I didn’t want to take pictures, and I didn’t particularly want them taken of me. I’m not entirely sure why this was so, but I suspect that it had to do in part with the fact that stopping the action to take pictures took me away from the present moment. I can understand the desire that people have to preserve memories and create records but trading off the now for a future experience wasn’t usually a trade-off I wanted to make. Plus I never quite believed that all of those smiling faces were necessarily attached to happy people. The disconnect bothered me.
The family I grew up in was not into pictures. In fact I have no idea what I looked like as a baby because there are literally no shots of me until I was about a year old. I was a second child so we know how that can go. That being said my father took enough pictures to record our family’s life and he could get particularly enthusiastic when on vacation. In later years and once the grandchildren came along everyone was more excited about taking pictures. Between my father, father-in-law and ex-husband we filled plenty of albums of us and the kids and I’m glad to have them. But I was never behind the camera.
When I decided to start this blog I knew I needed to supplement what I wanted to say with some pictures so off I went to Costco, and here’s what I bought:
Coolpix. Very cool indeed. Since I haven’t owned a camera since, oh, 1975, I didn’t want too many bells and whistles. I’m definitely a point and shoot kind of gal. But oh my, things have really improved since the kodak instamatic with the little square flash bulbs! Happily for me, this camera came with a very slim instruction booklet and it took just minutes before I morphed into Lisa, amateur photographer.
Time for my Close-Up
Each time I pick up the camera I’m learning how to use its features to capture the shots I want. I’ve been really pleased with the results so far. But today, as I was planning a different post about my garden (zucchini! tomatoes!) and a heroic little succulent I have indoors when I ran into this:
And this:
and this:
Oops. My very smart camera had been taking super clear pictures on auto-focus but when I was zooming in (which today’s post needed) it wasn’t working out. Back to the slim manual. Today I learned about the “macro” setting which adjusts the autofocus for close-ups. Simple enough. So here we go…
We have tomatoes! They are small and still green but it was a thrill to see them, especially in focus:
Wow! You will not be seeing any close-ups of me using the macro setting, that’s for sure 🙂
Next up, our budding zucchini plant:
Ah yes, there it is! Ratatouille anyone??
And finally there’s this:
This leaf is attached to this very unique succulent:
My friend Steven gave us this plant when he visited last year. It had much more growth at the time and it was supposed to flower but over the course of a few months all the leaves fell off and there was only the stem. I felt terrible about this and tucked it away in the corner of my dining room and tried not to feel guilty. I haven’t touched it for at least six months. Imagine my surprise when it started to sprout both from the top and down at the bottom. Amazing example of the power of benign neglect! I’m excited to see what happens next, and I will provide close-ups on the blog.
I’m a Photographer?
Well, yes, I believe I am. And as I write that I am in touch with the degree to which this blog is not only about literary expression, but about the sharing of my design aesthetic. It’s thrilling to engage with a whole new artistic medium, and I’m looking forward to exploring all the possibilities. My readers, of course, will see all of this unfold on my blog.
For now though I leave you with my last close-up of the day:
Blueberry sour cream crumb cake. Looks good enough to eat. I think I will…
third act evolution 