My New Camera

it’s a Canon Powershot G10 and it’s caused me to be all sorts of trigger happy lately. i must have taken over 1,000 photos already, mostly of the dogs, who offer a never-ending canvas of cute. the photo at left is my favorite of the bunch.

i didn’t have a particular reason for getting the new camera besides just wanting it really badly, which is usually a good enough reason for me. and when the holidays rolled around, i asked santa for the camera in a lengthy letter i sent to the north pole. of course, i also asked him to bring joy to the world and peace on earth in addition to the camera.

sadly, he didn’t bring any of those things, because he’s a fat, fictional, lazy bastard who wouldn’t come to a jew’s house anyway, so i picked up extra freelance work, made some cash and bought the camera for myself. hear me roar, santa!

overall, i loooove this camera and have spent many days with it strapped to my neck like a dumb tourist. i can’t lie, though. it intimidates the hell out of me with its fancy knobs, switches and settings, none of which i have any mastery over. but i’ve been reading photography sites galore in an attempt to figure out what an aperture does.

it also frustrates the hell out of me, as any shot i’ve taken and liked has been the result of blind luck. i’m not exaggerating when i say that all the good shots i’ve fallen ass backwards into, which only reinforces my belief that photography is really about being in the right place at the right time. sure, having a good camera with nifty settings that you actually know how to use helps, but i don’t really consider picture-taking a fine art, at least not in the same way that carving a figure out of a block of marble is.

still, i have seen many beautiful photos, both online and in some of Mo’s books, that have been very inspiring. but whenever i’ve tried to stage a shot i think might look nice or even conduct a photo shoot with the dogs, the light ends up sucking or the dogs end up moving, leaving me with a zillion images of an underexposed, blurry tail in the corner of the frame. i am, however, determined to improve my skills (though please shoot me if i begin to call photography my “hobby”).

the good news is that i can finally discard the awful FujiFilm hand-me-down from my parents i have been using for years, a camera so old and ugly that it has been discontinued. also good is that the photos i will post here should be of higher quality from now on, which means don’t expect to see many images of my old and ugly mug as the G10’s intense resolution renders the pores on my face big enough to swim in. instead, please accept photos of the cuties. here’s another one.