New Obsession

Oh my gosh, I have always LOVED photography but now I’m obsessed. My friends preceded me in their obsession with the whole Scrapbooking Craze and as much as I wanted to join them, I didn’t. This made me terribly sad because I’m a creative person and this would be right up my alley BUT as many pictures as I took w/my 35mm, the cost of developing the one set for the photo album and the one set for distribution basically was all I could afford. Then when you add the cost of all the scrappin’ stuff (and yes I would want it all) well I didn’t have the space or the time and honestly I think my husband would have HATED it. He’d be right to because I would be doing it morning, noon and night. So I digress, I didn’t join the scrappers but I did make a vow to do more with my pictures (now I FINALLY have).

When my 35mm was stolen (along with my Mom’s) it was VERY upsetting, that camera was great and the Captain had bought it special for me when I was 17- ten years later and it was still a wonderful camera. When it was so tragedy taken from me (along with my diaper bag out of my truck while it was in my driveway) I was forced into a life of disposable cameras and never got use to not having a zoom, timestamp or even decent pictures for that fact. I’m that person that always forgot to do the flash and I would try to take pictures from too far away… I look back on those pictures and feel ILL. That or I’d lose the camera all together.

So I bit the bullet and bought a digital camera. I did all the research, decided what factors were most important, shopped around, got Best Buy to come down on their price, bought a decent memory card and all the accessories- it was more money than we had but it was money well spent. I save SOOOO much not having to develop every picture I take. I also almost ALWAYS get the picture I want because I keep shooting till I see in the viewer the image I want. I delete often the pictures that don’t make the cut, I post the ones I like a lot, and I print (or will print) even fewer still for the album. I download my pictures to a CD once I’ve accumulated a certain amount and I keep them organized so I know their status and because I have to be able to find them easily. I still have a little cleanup to do on my directory format- I made a bunch of folders initially to group pictures but have found that cumbersome. I think I’ll stick with dates and occasional short descriptions instead for the filenames and avoid folders all together.

When I talk about these things I get into a state of euphoria. I almost can’t contain my excitement concerning capturing moments with loved ones. Some people like video but I want a glimpse of the moment not a exact replica- I like to look back at pictures and remember those times/people the way I remember them (even if I am wearing rose colored glasses).

So here I am exploring the software on my computer months and months later. Our computer was given to us by a co-worker of the Captain's and it already had some software installed so I’ve got plenty of options between those programs and the ones my camera came with but I’d never spent much time looking into it all. I’ve gotten about 2/3s of the way through my actual hardware camera manual a couple of times but I still struggle with it so I was intimidated by the software side all together. But I was a fool. The software side is sooo awesome. I have been merging pictures, cropping like crazy, and just overall having a blast with borders and special effect. This is totally addicting. I was up until 2am messing around and I could have gone on all night. I’ll try to post some pictures but the file sizes are really big and I'm more likely to post pictures to the family blog anyway so... I will print some out for sure so I can show and tell.

Some of the merged pictures will be in an attachment to our Family Christmas Letter. I’m sure a few people might think it is strange but hopefully not, if so “those” people don’t belong on my Christmas list anyways.