Trying a new thing

Over the weekend I took a photography class.  Nothing major, just a 'how do I?' class for my point & shoot.  Since our vacation last summer I'd been wanting to learn a little more about photography, and I'd also had a sneaking suspicion that my camera kind of sucked.

After a short tutorial on how to use the various buttons and features on the camera our instructor walked us down to city hall, which is a fairly impressive space in the city.  There is a courtyard in the center of the building that is a fairly major thoroughfare to get from one part of the city to another, so there is a lot of foot traffic.

It was a really dreary day, completely overcast, but after a bit I started to enjoy the play of texture rather than looking for a lot of color.

As it turns out, I don't suck at photography.  Not that I'm amazing or anything, but I don't totally suck.

Translation:  I need a new camera.  Even once I understood more about the exposure, ISO and whatnot, they still look grainy if you make them big.

This one is my favorite:

I want to know where this dapper gentleman in his yellow hat is going on Saturday afternoon.  And I want to learn how to take a picture that makes the viewer want to know the same thing.  

So, the rest of the weekend I obsessed over camera reviews and finally settled on a introductory DSLR and now I am waiting for it to come.  My mother is coming to visit this weekend and we have some fun things planned, I am anxious to get to play with the camera and understand it a bit before we go out on the town together.  

I also finally learned out to take pictures of the dogs.  

Seriously.  Can you stand the cuteness?  I couldn't get Pixie to sit still long enough, I think I'll have to ply her with food.

Comments

[Jocelyn]

What a fun class! I wish we had something like that around here (which makes me wonder if we don't have something like that around here, and I've just missed it until now - must check). I have to say that the quality of my pictures increased dramatically when I (and by "I", I mean "Rick", except I bought it for him so I could use it) got a better camera :)