The Photography Bug

A friend who recently bought a Lumix GF1 gave me several 10 to 15 minute “lectures”, a photography 101 of sorts. So there was talk of shutter speed, apertures, contrasts, histograms and then some. I was a bit dizzy afterward but my interest was piqued. He was by no means the first one to eagerly explain in great detail the nuances of digital photography, but somehow, his talk enticed me into reading, experimenting and trying out some simple but quite surprisingly neat camera tricks. I don't have a single artistic bone in my body. You see, I can't draw (I can only do stick men). I can't paint. I can't sculpt. Heck, I can't carry a tune to save my own life. Now, when I took these pictures and applied long shutter modes and some photo effects...man, I couldn't believe how I still sucked with the aid of technology! Even though the pictures weren't works of art, I realized that manipulating the settings of our lowly Canon PowerShot SD450 was so much fun and it felt like I was creating something. This supposed basic point and shoot camera can really do some amazing stuff and it's up to me to discover them. I started thinking what I could do if I had a dSLR, but that's a story for another time. I don't want to be one of those SLR toting Tom, Dick and Harry (more Juan's and Maria's) in the malls and other public places because there's just something wrong with that picture, pardon the pun. I don't have anything against them but if I could get a dime for every Juan who carries an SLR and knows how to use it, I won't even have a buck. Yeah, I know. I'm just green with envy that I don't have one! What I'll try to do though is just try my hand at photography using basic point and shoot cams.