Pinky's Redemption

When last we met, I told you the story of acquiring my current camera, "Pinky", and how I let someone else affect my photographic-self-esteem.  But there's small a "rest of the story" that warrants telling.

While it took me months to pull Pinky out of its bag again (I still haven't determined if my camera is a male or female entity), I did ultimately do so.  A lot, particularly during my Lenten exercise.  I feel like we have a better relationship now.  I'm a lot less embarassed about the color of my camera body, partly because I know I can capture quality images that *I* like. 

It's so easy to forget or care what your equipment looks like while you're standing next to the goal capturing beautiful images of your beautiful daughter doing something she loves.

It's so easy to forget or care what your equipment looks like when you've found amazing light in a magical setting and are able to capture your beautiful daughter in a moment of laughter.

It's so easy to forget or care what your equipment looks like when you're scrolling through your days' work for the first time and discover something that makes you say, "Wow!"

Someday, maybe I'll be practiced enough to plan these shots so they aren't a delightful surprise, but instead, an expectation.  In the meantime, I intend to keep shooting, and to keep Pinky.

The Materialistic Canon Guy at the Medieval Faire forgot one of the most important rules of photography.  And I can let him go, so long as I keep shooting.

"Skill in photography is acquired by practice and not by purchase." ~ Percy W. Harris.

A Daunting Experience

I recently rediscovered a big psychological hole in my photography practice. The Medieval Faire. I go every year, and with all the participants and visitors in costume, it's a great opportunity for pictures. And I forgot my camera. Correction: I forgot to bring a memory card for my camera, making it a worthless weight that I left in the trunk. And sadly, I think this oversight is Freudian, but let me backup to tell you the first part of the story.

Did I tell you about my camera? It's a pink Pentax. Yes, I said pink. I ordered it from a one-day one-sale kind of place, and it was a bit of an impulse buy. Sort of. I'd been watching cameras and camera prices for a while. I knew Pentax was a solid brand as they've been around for years. In fact, my very first SLR camera, back before the digital age, was daddy's Pentax he gave me for graduation. I checked reviews and found favorable information there. The price was good. And I could get something a little unusual but not ridiculous: a camera with a purple body. Only when it arrived at my office it wasn't purple (which would have been different without drawing a lot of attention), it was pink. Bright Barbie Pepto Bismal pink. I'm not really a pink kind of girl, and I was fairly disappointed. But I was determined to make the best of the situation, showing it off to family and friends with joy and laughter. How fun is this?! Inside though, I worried. Would anyone take me seriously with this? It's a pink camera for crying out loud! It could only be worse if it was pink GLITTER! Anyway, I put my fears aside and started dragging my camera with me for the occasional shooting expedition.

And then came the 2011 Medieval Faire. I dutifully strapped on my still-new very-pink Pentax, and headed to Norman, OK with My Amazing Boyfriend, his two kids, and my youngest daughter. And I shot this and that and was having a lovely time.

We stopped at one of the blacksmithing booths for the kids to get nails that had been hammered into tiny swords. Sadly that year, there was a burn ban in effect, and the smiths were not allowed to run their forges, but they still had their gear and costumes, just something less of a show than we were used to. At one booth, a strapping young fellow had a Canon strap across his neck and a pretty hefty camera in hand. A visitor/photographer approached, and asked him a bit about his camera. And proceeded to tell him about the girl he had seen earlier with the pink Pentax. The newcomer shook his head and said, “It doesn’t compare.” I just—stood there. Didn’t do or say a thing. Thankfully, our photographer/smith didn’t really respond. I thought about it a lot the rest of that day, and for many days after. Weeks even. It occasionally still haunts me. When I got home, I put the Pentax away and barely touched it for most of the next YEAR.

Part of me wants to be The Girl with the Pink Pentax. Part of me wants to embrace this fun, unusual, attention-drawing camera. That part of me knows it’s less about the camera and more about the photographer. That part of me dreams of portrait shoots with darling little girls and enchanting them with my bright pink “girlie” camera, setting them at instant ease with my less intimidating equipment. Another part of me can barely take myself seriously, much less expect others to. And I think that is precisely why I managed to forget a memory card at this year’s Medieval Faire.

Lenten Recap

Lent is over.  I've had my first coke.  And my second.  And even a third!  Though I didn't finish the third one.  Thankfully, it was in a 12 oz. bottle with a lid and it may be salvageable with some time in the refrigerator.

How did we do with our Lenten disciplines?  I was completely successful with giving up Coke.  I didn't have a single one.  I did substitute with the occasional rootbeer, Sprite, 7-Up, or Sierra Mist.  Also lemonade, but even among these five different drinks, I had less than one a day, so a definite improvement from a caloric and general health aspect.

What about the positive discipline?  The goal was to write or shoot every day.  I didn't quite make it.  I made 16 entries here, and none elsewhere, unless you consider the essay I wrote for my history class.  So with 46 days during Lent (including Sundays), I had about a 35% hit rate on writing.  But I could also shoot, so how did I do there?  According to the information I have on hand (there's more in other locations) I took pictures on 16 different days.  Seven of those days overlap with journaling days, so we're up to 25 days on which I either wrote here or took pictures.  54% hit rate.  Eh, not great.  I'm certain I took pictures on more days that I just don't have records for here, so I may update at a later time, but probably not. 

While I didn't meet my discipline goal, this was a successful exercise in other ways.  I'm more confident about taking pictures than I was when I started.  I probably took at LEAST a thousand pictures, of which, I kept more than 800.  Probably 30 or so meet my "Oooh, I like that picture," criteria.  Heh, that's about 4%, obviously leaving LOTS of room for improvement.  But overall, I'm content.

I think I'll keep the blog.  I'll post picture samples here.  We can watch my improvement together.  Or not, depending on how my work progresses!  While I wasn't totally successful, it still served a very useful purpose and got me a little bit away from my hangups.

(More to come on those hangups in another post).

Oh yeah, happy Easter!!

Techno-Envy vs. Satisfaction

For many months, if not years, I have suffered from a mild case of Technology Envy.  As my children and a few friends got newer and better cutting edge "stuff", and as I watched them use it constantly, I started to turn green.  Most of the time, my symptoms were mild, but occasionally I'd have a big jealous flare up, and would consider possible remedies.  Those remedies usually involve spending a big chunk of change up front and increased monthly costs for the remainder of history.  As a pretty serious saver, spending is sometimes frequently anathema.

A few months ago, I had a little cancer scare.  I had to get a breast biopsy, which turned out clean and clear, but between learning that I had to have this procedure, getting it scheduled, having it, and getting results, I made some plans.  The first plan was to quit smoking.  I'd invited cancer into my life long enough, and it was time to close the door.  The second plan was to reward myself if A) I did not have cancer, and B) I succeeded in stopping smoking.  The reward would be an iPhone.

I do not have cancer.  I have stopped smoking (100 days, coming up!).  I have met my goals and have not yet rewarded myself.  I'm a little annoyed that I haven't treated my case of Techno-Envy, and haven't come through on taking care of myself with this reward.  However, for Valentine's Day, my Amazing Boyfriend gifted me with my very own iPad2.  I get probably daily use out of it, and am very happy with my toy.  This may in part be why I haven't yet rewarded myself--he kind of already did it for me.  When I looked to see when I had bought my current phone, it had been less than a year.  As such, my internal saver (who takes up a good portion of my internal personalities) is not ready to let go of another $100-400 (upfront cost only) to meet a need that's mostly already been met.  Why pay to fix something that's not really broken any more?

I think at present, I will wait until it has been a year since the purchase of my last phone.  Conveniently, that is my birthday month, so I will have even more valid reasons to treat myself than I do now.  In the meantime, I need to find some small way to reward my recent accomplishments.  Otherwise, I'll be less likely to accomplish future goals if I fear I'm going to welch on the deal.  The big question is HOW to reward myself?  I've already had a beach vacation.... I already have a pretty decent digital SLR camera and some nifty tech-gizmo accessories to go with it... I'm already planning a cruise with my daughters... I'm already taking classes with more planned... Experiences are pretty well covered, as is stuff, and self-improvement--what's left in the reward department?  It doesn't even HAVE to include spending money, but one really awesome thing is that there's money available to be spent (pretty much for the first time in my adult life).

Could it be I've reached a point of satisfaction in my life that I don't really NEED a reward?

As Promised

Ten of my favorite pictures from Saturday's soccer tournament.

Easily my favorite shot from the first game.

During warm ups for the second game.  They're on the same team.

I've watched #17 grow into a beautiful young lady.

Subbing.

I love capturing the extension and grace.

A wee bit overexposed, but I still like all the action and intensity here.

Coach and trainer come to see about an injury, as three team mates stand by for emotional support.

#15 is SO much fun to watch.  Isn't that just beautiful?  I have a dozen or more of these shots.

#20 shows intensity in everything she does.

Reducing an Album

I went to Miss Boo's soccer tournament last weekend.  I took my camera and my 70-300 lens.  There was a point during the second game where I remembered how much I used to LOVE taking pictures of the girls sporting events (I haven't done it for several years).  Unfortunately, this is Miss Boo's last season of high school sports, and she's not intending to participate in collegiate sports, though I hope she'll at least get involved in intramurals, to stay active and social. 

I took over 600 pictures during three games and it has been an almost overwhelming task to pare them down to a reasonable quantity of high quality pictures.  I almost didn't know where to start.  Once I did figure out some sort of process, I decided I wanted to record that process, and where better than here?  Once I get them pared down where I want them, I'll share a few here, but following is the basic structure of the process.

At some point during the first game, I realized I was shooting in both .jpg and RAW.  This means I would have two files for each picture.  One file (.jpg) is more compact and computer ready to view.  The other file is bigger in terms of the memory it takes up, and since I knew I would be taking three games worth of photos, I switched to shooting .jpg only.  One of the advantages of shooting RAW is the file captures ALL the information about the photo: every possible color in every possible pixel.  This allows for greater possibilities when it comes to post-editing  .Jpg files pare down what the camera computer thinks is necessary to render the photo.  This makes for faster recording, smaller space, and less flexibility in terms of editing.  But since I don't really LIKE to edit my photos (for two or three reasons, some of which can be fixed), I knew the .jpg files would be what I needed.  So that cut out about 46 files.  Only 570-some to go!

Next I viewed each picture, and deleted any that were just absolute crap.  This really didn't remove very many which is good news when considering my skills, but bad news when considering how many more I had to cull!

On a second pass, I decided to take out almost every picture in which we couldn't see at least one face from our team.  This was kind of tough, because there were still good pictures where you couldn't see faces, but I really had to have some criteria to determine what to keep and what to lose.

On a third pass, I took out pictures that were not in good focus.  On a fourth pass, I took out most pictures that didn't convey action (these are soccer games after all).

On a fifth pass, I took out pictures that didn't tell a story.  This is a little hard to explain, in part because everybody is going to see different things from a photo, so what tells a story for you might not tell a story for me.  And some stories were told across multiple photos depending on what was happening in the game at the time.  But again, I wanted to get this under 100 GOOD photos, and why show a photo that doesn't tell a story?  I'm the author, so I can tell the story my way (which means there aren't very many photos where the other team is controlling the ball)!

I'm currently down to 253 photos.  Hopefully, one more pass will do it.  This (hopefully) final pass will probably be making sure I have at least one photo of each girl on the team, and no more than... say ten of any one single girl.  Though I have so many of Miss Boo that it will be difficult to cut those.  She was, after all, my primary focus.

Samples to follow, hopefully later today!

Neither

Neither writing nor photography, the following is a status update:

Good job, me!  Keep up the great work, and remember to reward myself!  (If I can stomach the recurring monthly expense, the reward may be an iPhone.)

Spring Break is Over

We were on vacation last week.  We went to a beach, we did a lot of nothing.  Really.  We didn't even do the touristy things except the beach and a couple restaurants.  Our last vacation was busy enough, that it was good to slow down for this one.  While I didn't do any writing, I did take lots of pictures.  Here are some of my favorites:

Early morning light on the water.

The boardwalk down from the dunes to the beach.

What a great model I found!!

I couldn't have asked for better light or a better background.

Or even a better model.

Pelicans flying in formation.  I wasted a lot of 1s and 0s trying to capture this shot.

There is something about transition points... again, I took a lot of pictures here, trying to get just the right perspective.

This little red boardwalk seems to have been an important place for me.

I called them "surf deer" but I'm sure they have a real name.

So much!

Have I mentioned my iPad 2?  It was a Valentine's gift from My Amazing Boyfriend.  A few weeks later, with the announcement of the upcoming iPad 3, the price dropped nearly $100, however MAB had already received a $40 Target giftcard for the purchase and he figures I've easily gotten $60 use out of the gizmo, so he's not disturbed by the price change.  Yes, I have gotten a TON of use from the thing.  It goes everywhere with me, and I more fully understand the obsession with iPhones.  I suspect that sometime in the future, MAB and I will be making the switch, but for now we're content with our less sophisticated devices.

One of the most fun apps I've gotten to play with is a game (of course).  Draw Something is a treat!  I get to practice my drawing and creativity, I get to see how other people see and present an item/concept, and I can connect with them on a new level, in some cases, making friends that weren't so close before (i.e., Anne, the keeper on Miss Boo's soccer team.  She's a great kid that I didn't know well before, but now we have our own connection, not just the one through Miss Boo). 

Another wonderful addition to my life is the Calendar in the iPad.  It connects to the Gmail calendar I was already using to some degree, but I couldn't take it with me.  Now it's with me all the time, and I can add to it from either the iPad or any internet accessible computer.  You can see a significant difference in the activity listed in February versus the activity now listed in March.  Either it's the accessibility of the calendar or life got REALLY busy ... or both.

With the addition of a free Kindle account and app, I can even get my class lecture notes, in the form of a PDF, onto my iPad.  The only drawback to that is that I can't highlight the electronic notes (yet), or add my own notes in the margins, though MAB says he can work around that.  I don't need it badly enough to jump through the hoops it will take, so I haven't pressed the issue.

So what have I done with photography lately?  Cool things!  I selected some of my favorite pictures from the Myriad Gardens shoot/walk MAB and I took a couple weeks ago, and had them printed out.  When I went back to the drug store to pick them up, the cashier was so cute!  I don't mean attractive cute, but nice cute.  When I gave him my name, he held his breath for a moment.  Then he reached for an envelope and asked me what kind of camera I use.  I told him the model and then told him it's obsolete (technically it's just a discontinued line... it's still a valid tool).  He said to me, and the two folks in line behind me, "These were not taken with an obsolete camera!"  And he pulled out two of my favorites to show the folks behind me!!  They were, of course, polite, but not interested.  Still, the cashier's enthusaism for my "work" was a real ego boost.  I did tell him these were some of my favorite pictures which was why they were being printed.   They have since been added to a collage frame and hang on the wall in my office.

Here's one of my favorites:

I also spent a bit of money to increase my photography/technology level.  I have a memory card that is it's own private MeFi network.  It will shoot images taken on my camera directly to my iPad... almost immediately!  Guess what's going to the beach with us for our next vacation?  Yes, I'll be very careful with my cameras around sand and water.  Scouts honor.  Not only does this technology look really spiffy, it has a functional capacity as well.  I don't have to drag my laptop along to upload and backup my photos.  They can be stored on the iPad and even uploaded to the "cloud" for safekeeping.  It's all so sophisticated and spiffy.

Okay, I'll stop trying to sell the iPad now.  It's just such a clever piece of technology.

Annuals

Once again, I didn't get here to write.  No apologies.  I could have found time, but I might have had to give up some of my precious down time.  I did get oodles done yesterday.  Work, some accounting homework, more work, real socialization, history class, electronic socialization, and some photography.  Okay, it's not nearly as impressive written down as it felt at the time.

Accounting homework SUCKS!  Actually, the homework itself is alright.  It's the interface that really sucks.  It's inefficient to move around in.  Really.  It's worse than if we had to use those lovely green columnar papers.  Yeah, the ones I am young enough to never have had to use.  The homework, practice test, and a few other exercises are all done through an online interface on the computer, and typically, you get a big chunk of information at the beginning and then you scroll down to enter numbers and accounts based on the information provided.  In some cases, you can "pop out" the information so you can see it while you're entering.  In others, you have to scroll back and forth.  At some times, the "popped out" information you can drag and drop to a slightly better location, allowing you to SEE where you're entering answers.  Other times, it's not mobile.  The inconsistency of the interface adds to my frustration with it.  Sadly, the teacher is kind of the same.  Sometimes she's really  helpful, but when we students were reporting problems with this interface (ex. a question repeated 2-3 times in an exercise), she merely offered to remove the exercise.  I think she was offended.  Also, her communication methods are about as inconsistent as our homework interface is.  Don't get me wrong, she's probably a great accountant, but I've been less than satisfied with my experience with her as a teacher.

One of my gal friends at work asked me to take a picture of these pretty little flowers growing in a bed outside our building.  Last night I got the chance.  I know the yellow one is a pansy (or at least I think it is), but I don't know what the purple ones are called.  They smell good.  And I meant to get some for My Amazing Boyfriend for Valentines day, but I couldn't find any of the bulbs.  He ended up with what will hopefully be cala lilies.  While I was shooting these pictures, I got caught.  Another lady from upstairs suddenly calls out, "What are you doing?"   Because I was sitting on the ground with my bright pink Pentax camera pointing a giant lens at the flower bed.  (I thought it was kind of obvious.)  So we had a brief discussion about getting into photography.  She liked Pinky.  And here's one of the results from last night's little shoot!

Some observations about what might make this a better photo:  light for one thing.  There just wasn't much available at the time as the sun was going down and it was a bit overcast.  I had the aperture ALL the way open so I could get more light in there, which affected my depth of field significantly.  Two technical aspects would have helped this "session".  A tripod (even a monopod would have made some difference), and/or a speedlight with a diffuser.  I don't like to use the incamera flash as it is harsh and glaring.  Some times that's appropriate, but I didn't think this was one of them.  Yes, I have speedlight and diffuser on my wish list.  Maybe I should do something about that wish list!  I did just get my tax return and a portion of that money is supposed to go towards the wish list.  Amazon, here I come!!

Busy Day

I don't know if I'll really have time to write today, so I stopped in to say simply this:  Today's wind is typical of Oklahoma.

That is all.

(and if I can get back I'll say more stuff)

Sgt. Pepper and Snow Leopard

Our zoo is a great place for photo opportunities.  On a brief Saturday visit to the Oklahoma City Zoo, we were able to go behind the scenes in the hooved mammal area to visit my oldest daughter, Radley.  She volunteers her Saturdays to help take care of her passion:  giraffes.  My Amazing Boyfriend and I were allowed to come into the giraffe barn to hand feed Bogey, daddy to one of the zoo's newest additions, Sgt. Pepper.  Following are some pics from our visit.

Sgt. Pepper with his momma, Ellie.  She kept a close eye on the curious little fellow.

Bogey, aka Daddy

You really don't get how BIG these graceful guys are until you are up close and personal with them.  Bogey's head is probably a good three feet in length from lips to those nobby things up top.  Enormous jaws, useful for ripping small branches off of trees, I guess.  It was a real treat for us.

This is a snow leopard who was practically posing for us, and while I could have gotten a little closer in hopes of more effectively blurring out  the fence wires, I generally like this photo best of those I took in this visit.

Snow Leopard

But then again... on a second third look, I really like this one too, even though he blends in with his background, and everything's a little overexposed.  Again, there are fence wires intefering somewhat, but this one just strikes me better somehow.

Bright and dirty

I was leaving the office yesterday evening and as I often do, I admired the bright clusters of berries on a tree I pass.  And then I stopped.  Literally, just stopped there on the sidewalk.  For about a half a minute.  Thankfully, I was leaving later than most folks and I wasn't holding up traffic.  Some of the ladies in the building will trample anyone standing still between 4:58 and 5:02.  I thought to myself, why don't you take a picture?  So I did.  And the berries are very much dirtier than I'd have expected!

For now, I'm really enjoying photographing the flowers and berries... things that stand still.  I have some soccer pictures I took the other night, but it was my PnS camera (that's point and shoot) instead of Pinky (the digital SLR--with the pink body--why are you laughing?), and it was dark outside and I was at the top of the bleachers and the girls were always moving and they were fairly terrible pictures.  Next time, I'll try to take Pinky and see if I can do better.

But this, these moments where I stop and ask myself why I'm not taking a picture... this is one of the reasons for taking on this discipline for Lent.  One habit I need to break is not taking that moment to at least TRY to capture some of the things I enjoy seeing.

Summer Recap

We're a full week into Lent as of yesterday.  I've taken some photos, and I've done some writing.  I've been relatively consistent about this, but I've also missed a couple days.  I won't make excuses or apologize because this is more for me than anyone else, and I'm okay with it.  I have a lot of other disciplines going on in my life, and missing a couple spots here and there is acceptable.

What other things are going on?  Work and school are probably the biggest deals.  40-some hours geared towards making a livable income certainly takes a chunk out of anyone's week.  Thankfully, I like my job, my employer (most days), my boss and the folks I work with.  School is a mixed bag time-wise.  I have one class on campus, and it's easy-peasy!  If I really want to solidify what we've discussed in class, I retype the lecture notes, but as I currently have 130% in this class, I'm not feeling highly motivated to push very hard.  The other class is an online class, and while I feel like the time/work ratio is pretty generous, I still find myself occasionally scrambling for time.

Add in family time, social time, household maintenance (that catbox doesn't clean itself!)--oh yes, and we can't forget personal time--I sometimes feel like I run out of time.  So we must accept that dropping a ball now and then is going to happen, and it's just not stress-worthy.  I don't have time for stress!

Speaking of stress, I had so much this last summer--and lived to tell about it--that it's almost worth a post by itself.  But I'll tell it now anyway. 

1. It was my first time to take an online class, and it was a math class to boot.  I've had "issues" with math since about the first grade.  Condense sixteen weeks of math class into eight weeks and remove the instructor from the picture for a sufferer of math anxiety.  Yeah, it wasn't the best choice and it wasn't very fun, but I passed the class and took home some valuable experience. 
2. My Amazing Boyfriend and I took our first ever vacation together right after class started, so I spent a lot of our vacation time at the computer trying not to pull my hair out.  We survived the vacation and learned a few things about each other.  (A subsequent vacation went MUCH more smoothly!)
3. I took on a new position at work.  Unfortunately, we didn't have a replacement for my old position for a few months, and while most days were fairly manageable, two or three really big projects thrown in the mix didn't help.  Once we found a replacement, there was lots of training to do along with my new job.
4. My youngest daughter, Miss Boo, was out of the country for five weeks, dealt with a bout of homesickness, and then nearly got stuck in Argentina due to volcanic ash grounding flights in Buenos Aires at the time she was supposed to leave.
5. A beloved uncle passed away while Miss Boo was still in South America.  I was sad she was unable to see him a final time or attend the funeral service.  Fortunately, a memorial service was held after she returned, so she (and I) were able to connect with lots of extended family.  His passing was very peaceful, and we (as a family) did a good job of support and closure for each other.  While it was a sad thing and I still miss him very much, it was also a really beautiful time.
6. I had to move from my home of two years.  This was another blessing/curse situation.  My landlady's daughter wanted to move back home, and as we had no contract in place, I was asked to resituate myself.  Househunting and moving really sucked, but I'm so glad Anj was able to come back home, and it's been a joy to see her.  I ended up moving in with my Amazing Boyfriend, and that has had it's own slightly stressful adjustment period, but overall it's been a Good Thing.

That was my summer.  Good things came out of every stress there was, and as I mentioned, I survived.  But a lot of it was gross and yucky at the time, and I'm glad summers like that don't come along very often.

Now that summer is over and Christmas is wrapped up, we're through Epiphany and got our ashes.  How are you doing so far with your chosen Lenten disclipline(s)?

Opera Bug

I love music theatre and have for years.  I’ve been making a recent attempt to see more of it with newly discovered frugal resources (hello, student discount).  Invariably, somewhere near the beginning of a musical, I get a rush of emotion simply because there’s an entire stage full of people, all singing something different that all comes together in a huge and perfectly amazing sound.  It’s impossible to catch ALL the different words and melodies soaring off the stage, but the message comes through and even though it might not be a critical moment in the story, I’m suddenly an emotional basketcase.  I love those moments.

My mother and aunt frequently have opportunities for free tickets to music theatre productions at one of our local universities.  They are happy to share with my brother and I, and we have taken advantage of these opportunities more than once.  The most recent chance was to see the French opera, The Hoffman Tales by Offenbach, and my mother and I went together.

This was not my first opera.  The first was The Wedding of Figaro with my friend Megan years ago (we won’t say how many) when we were either in our late teens or early twenties.  It was, coincidentally, in the same theatre.  Nor was this my second opera.  Again in the same theatre, mom, my brother and I saw The Elixir of Love in Italian just a few weeks ago.  But this one… this one bit me.

In the movie Pretty Woman, with Julia Roberts and Richard Gere, Edward takes Vivian to San Francisco for one of his passions, the opera.  He says to her, “People's reactions to opera the first time they see it is very dramatic; they either love it or they hate it. If they love it, they will always love it. If they don't, they may learn to appreciate it, but it will never become part of their soul.” 

(Yes, the grammar is driving me batty, why do you ask?)

I don’t quite fit what Edward said.  It wasn’t until my third opera viewing that I found myself smitten in my very own Pretty Woman opera moment—sadly, without the jet to San Francisco, the ruby necklace, or the amazing red dress.

Stolen from this guy's blog

It was the third scene, and Hoffman’s second love is lured to her death by her mother’s music through the manipulations of the devil.  The simplicity, the emotion, the passion of the actor/singers was an enchantment I hadn’t experienced before and out of nowhere came tears.

So now, I can add opera to my list of “Oooh, I want to go” events.  I don’t think the title, the plot, or the location will matter.  I’ll go just for the possibility of catching that unexpected tidal wave of emotion.

(Note:  sorry for the goofy background formatting.  Copy and Paste and I don't always get along.)

Lesson Learned

I had a great little post written up about the opera my mother and I went to see yesterday, or more accurately, my reaction to it.  I had written it up in Word, with photos and links and all kinds of websical wonders.  Blogger.com spazzed out on me.  I know better than to CUT and paste.  I must copy and paste, make alterations if needed, Post and only after you’ve verified that the post was successful do you delete your original content.

I’ll try again tomorrow with the opera post.

Crystal Bridge - photo

This is a little better, from a visit to downtown Oklahoma City's Myriad Garden and Crystal Bridge.  I only wish I'd gotten the name of the tree like thing that produces this delicate little blossom.

Day 1 pictures

Today is day 2, but I took pictures yesterday.  Between school and taking some downtime for myself to play with my new gadgetry, I didn't pull the pictures from the camera until this morning.  Here's the setting.

I'd finished all my work, and a chunk of a school project when I set out from my office to my car.  The sun was setting behind me, and before me was a tree just FULL of birds.  Behind the tree was the loveliest blending of pinks and purples, and I just couldn't resist.

This was taken from the ground and the only editing I did was to crop out a little leaf from another tree that was intruding on the upper left corner.  From this spot, I traipsed up to the top of my parking garage to see what else I could see.  I had some fun metering at and below the sunset to play with different lighting.  I played with a couple different settings too.  No amazing results, but I have to get over that.  I'm going to shoot and I'm going to post, even if I'm not wowed by the final product.  Wow will come later.

Bonus!  Another of the photos from yesterday evening that about which someone else said "Wow!"  This is the same tree from a different angle.  Before, I was practically under the tree looking up and north-ish.  Now, I'm east of the tree looking west and two floors higher, so we get the more dramatic sunset colors.

These are the reasons new photographers are told to take their camera with them everywhere.  Now if I'd only had it with me at lunch today, I could have caught that cute little lady in the boots and frilly mini-skirt.  I'm pretty sure she's significantly older than me, but she sure was rockin' the teenage look!

Ash Wednesday

As is my habit, this year, 2012, I've taken on a couple of Lenten disciplines.  I always try to give up something and take on something.  This year, I'm giving up Coca Cola.  This will hopefully give me a boost to losing some weight, a perpetual task with which I have perpetual trouble.  For taking on a positive discipline, I have been divided between daily writing (journaling, blogging, etc.) and daily photos.  To begin with, creativity is not my strong suit, and typcially, by the end of Lent, I've run out of things to say in writing.  But I know that better writing only comes with practice, and daily writing is great practice.  I also want to push myself to more actively use my camera(s), so a daily photo project could be a good way to do that.  On another hand (there are almost always more than two options, so you'll rarely hear me say, "on the other hand"), I don't want photography to feel like work (yet), so a daily thing might become not only daunting but off-putting.  So I think I've settled on a combo approach.  I resolve to either write or shoot at least once a day.  And give up Cokes.  And you have been invited to watch.  Hopefully, with two outlets, I won't feel burned out on either one.

Welcome to the first issue of my 2012 Lenten discipline journey!  Are you giving anything up?  If so, what?  Have you started yet?  What do you think will be your biggest challenges to keeping your discipline?

I've started two things.  I've already passed up my first Coke, and I've written something, so I'm off to a fabulous start!  Here's to all of us staying focused and (hello cliché) disciplined!