Playing with my new camera

A few months ago, the LCD display went blank on our camera. We could take pictures, but we could no longer see what we were capturing until the pics were downloaded to the computer. I shopped around and read reviews online, and finally decided to take the plunge and invest in a Canon Powershot SX 130 IS. It’s a bridge camera which can be used as a point and shoot, but which also has some nice options to play with manually if you want to get more creative with photography without sinking $1,000 in an SLR.

“At last,” I thought, “I can take good pictures now. After all, I have a good camera.” Whereupon I discovered that a camera does not a photographer make.

I’ve been having a good time with it just the same. There is so very little color in the world as yet where I live, and so very much overcast chill and rain, that the only subjects presenting themselves have been in my back yard.

This chubby fellow:

A pair of red-bellied woodpeckers (bafflingly named, considering their bellies are not red):

Chilly squirrels cloaked in their tails:

…and willing to go to any lengths to eat tender leaf buds:

Flowers:

Deer:

And, last but not least, any number of indoor wonders. This one is a newspaper on hooves. The plastic horse is about an inch and a half long, and the tiny creatures riding him are my daughter’s clay creations. The one on the head is sending radio signals; the one on the back is typing news articles.

It doesn’t really have anything to do with anything, but it makes me laugh!

Things the camera can do:

• capture glimpses
• remind me of sights I enjoy
• remind me of color amidst the drabness
• zoom in powerfully on far-away objects

Things the camera can’t do:

• clean the dirty window it peers through
• teach me how to compose a photo

I’m sure there are broader applications to be made of these camera lessons. Perception needs to be sharpened and improved in so many ways, with and without the camera in my hand. But there’s something about a camera in hand that makes one want to work on these things.