yellow

I am in love.
With my new camera.

Which isn't exactly brand new; I've had it since January, but am only now really getting back into photography. I think it is the digital amazement. Now I've figured out how to get the pictures from the camera onto my computer all by myself. Now I'm thinking maybe I shouldn't have deleted so many of my previous pictures. Yep, it is definitely that digital amazement.

Way back in my previous life, I studied photography in college. Had a darkroom and everything. Well, not exactly a darkroom; I had a windowless loo in the basement which served as a darkroom so long as you were really careful not to trip over any pans of developer or fixer on the floor. The stop bath was in the sink and the enlarger sat on a board on the toilet seat. It was not the best of set ups, but it was the darkest bit of the house with water access and I was determined. Then I lost interest. Or time. Or something. Possibly the cost was a huge factor. Developing black & white became quite expensive as did the developing from Black's. And being a bit impatient, my prints didn't always turn out as expected.

A few years ago, on one of my trips to Scotland I didn't even bother taking a camera with me. I was visiting family and I already had all the touristy pictures I needed and far too many that didn't do the real experience any justice. Besides, anything else, one of my cousins could send me as they always got double prints of everything. I found it to be surprisingly freeing. I enjoyed being in the moment and I think I saw more around me when I wasn't constantly searching for the perfect photo op. And because I was a bit slow, it usually took me awhile to get the perfect composition, the perfect angle, the perfect light... and people wandered off on me. Once, they all got in the car and slo-o-w-ly started to drive away.

But that was then, long before the digital age. Now, I don't have to worry about how many pictures I take - I don't have to spend a fortune to get back a bunch of blurry or too far away prints that never get looked at again. And I found out there was a photographic and digital imaging show on at the International Centre this weekend, so I hopped on over to see what was up and what I could learn from their many free seminars. Much of it involved buying new equipment and programs or was way beyond anything I needed. And a lot reinforced what I already knew but needed dragging out from behind the fuzzy parts of my brain. But, hot damn, if it wasn't exciting. I'm getting out of this luddite stage of my life.

The other day when I went out for my coffee I decided to walk to the old church yard to see if there was anything there blogpostworthy. The light was all wrong and the sky was darkening with clouds so I wandered to the lake to catch the change and stopped when it started to rain. I was surprised to see, when I uploaded my trip's takings onto the computer, that I had 36 pictures. That would have been a whole roll of film. I was just snapping away at so many useless looking things that struck my fancy. It was only about 15 minutes. I laughed when I read Yellerbelly's comment about getting a photographers eye! I think my 'eye' is coming back into focus. I was thinking about the things I would return to photograph another day, noticing things I'd not paid attention to before. Kinda the opposite of what I just wrote.

One of the the things I noticed was that there is an awful lot of yellow around and not just the leaves. And I was deciding as I walked home (getting drenched) that my first theme week would be on the colour yellow. So, each day I will head out for a walk, not far, maybe 6 blocks or about 1 km, and on SightLines I'll post something yellow that I find. Today, I'll start with the obvious.