On Photography
I was explaining my specific issues with my current camera to my dad, who responded with, “That really doesn’t make sense. Did you look it up?”
Umm… well, no, I hadn’t. I’d played with the menus on the camera, I’d pressed all the buttons, I’d explored everything I thought I could explore, but I hadn’t actually asked my specific questions of the internet. Turns out that the Nikon CoolPix software has three lists of Menu options, not just two. In my defense, the second list offers only one option, Firmware, followed by a bunch of blank space — who would assume that there was another list beyond that one?
But discovering that I could turn off the sound and the auto-focus (which I think is what causes the delay that always loses the shot) made me resolve to experiment with my current camera and learn more about photography before considering buying a new one.
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I’m finding it a little bit of a frustrating process, though. The camera feels like a mysterious black box over which I have no control. I take ten shots and hope one of them will be interesting. The above flower existed on the camera as red blur, red blur, red blur, red blur, red blur, fuzzy flower, fuzzy flower, fuzzy flower and then — aha! Actual flower. Still not quite in focus, though, but at least an interesting picture. The oranges are blobs of color in six shots and then almost right.
And I want to find a web site that will teach me what I’m doing, but I don’t want to immerse myself in photography. I don’t want a blog that sends me 35 posts a week on the latest and greatest, I just want a steady drip of basic information. I’m definitely going to have to keep hunting for that, because I’m sure it’s out there somewhere.
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The basic strategy of “take lots of photos,” though, is probably a good one. I don’t know how many times I’ve tried to take a picture that captures the feel of Spanish moss on trees over the past two years — hundreds, maybe? They never come out right. But the above, which was actually intended as a picture of the moon, almost gets it. If only I knew how I did it. 
