wEEKLY cOGNITIVE rANDOMNESS
Been a while since I've had a corded phone. All I ever got on it were telemarketers and people calling trying to collect money from some loser who had my phone number before I did. But even in 2009 the corded phone does have one use, you can call your cell phone with it when you can't find your cell phone. Which makes me think that the world could use a little magnetic thing for the refrigerator that has a button on it to press, that would make your cell phone ring. Or alternatively a website where you could log on to your phone account and make your cell phone ring. For all I know these things might exist already.
The camera I drowned in a stream a year ago could not be fixed, unfortunately, if I hadn't mentioned that. I am sorely tempted to pick up a new one at circuit city, but I've been trying to hold out for the professional model I've been wanting and saving for for so long.
My old girlfriend J. down in philadelphia has been trying to do some photography for the last several months, but she has often had a frustrating time of it because the clerk at ritz sold her a crappy camera that was made to photograph kids at birthday parties. Its little brain can't compute what's going on when she tries to take pics of interesting textures of tree bark and it misses the focus a lot and exposes rather badly. When we visited Longwood Gardens last year and I was getting some nice pics of the flowers there she asked me how come I always get nice clear pictures, and my answer was just that I had a good camera with manual exposure settings and a high quality macro lens and I was cheating, using a tripod when I had been informed by the staff that they weren't allowed, so I could use long exposures and get pictures that weren't available to people trying to handhold, but nowadays I think a better answer would just have been that when I went to a ritz back in may of 1988 the clerk there sold me a minolta x-700 and I learned what apertures and shutter speeds do. And that really is the only answer that matters from the standpoint of where J is in her development as a photographer. But she has explicitly said that she does not want to learn about photography, she just wants a camera that will take a clear picture without her having to understand anything. So when I've stopped in circuit city recently, I've been sorely tempted to buy a camera for J, I would happily do so if she would just let me teach her about photography and how to use it, but she wouldn't want me to buy her such an expensive present and it is not my place to push her into taking steps that she hasn't herself made the decision to take.
It's kind of hard for an experienced photographer to recommend a camera to a non-photographer, You could say that people who understand cameras do not understand cameras that are made for people who do not understand cameras. Or maybe it's just that it's hard to answer a question when the person asking it does not understand the language in which the answer exists.
I'm pretty close to psyching myself up to blow the wad of cash to get the professional camera I've been saving for. I worry about how much my financial parachute will be weakened, should I lose my job. But that camera will be sellable in an emergency. In five years it will be as obsolete as film, I would imagine, but it is the best available tool that I can budget for at this time.
Playing it safe is a gamble which tends to have its disastrous effects more in the long term, when it proves to be a losing gamble, in that you never accomplish anything. You could argue that your comfort zone is a very dangerous place to be, in that you can die there, a day at a time, without realizing what is going on.
Barring unforseen calamities I think this summer I might continue with the methods I developed being out over the road in 2007, when I was exploring new places on my bicycle, which I had aboard the truck with me. I'm within reach of boston and hartford and new haven, and many other places within a couple hours by car. I shall be putting my bike in the trunk and heading off to places I've been too wrapped up in anxiety to think to go and explore. Bicycles are ideal for exploring cities, you can cover ground but the vehicle is small and light enough not to interfere with seeing a place intimately.
tchuss
Been a while since I've had a corded phone. All I ever got on it were telemarketers and people calling trying to collect money from some loser who had my phone number before I did. But even in 2009 the corded phone does have one use, you can call your cell phone with it when you can't find your cell phone. Which makes me think that the world could use a little magnetic thing for the refrigerator that has a button on it to press, that would make your cell phone ring. Or alternatively a website where you could log on to your phone account and make your cell phone ring. For all I know these things might exist already.
The camera I drowned in a stream a year ago could not be fixed, unfortunately, if I hadn't mentioned that. I am sorely tempted to pick up a new one at circuit city, but I've been trying to hold out for the professional model I've been wanting and saving for for so long.
My old girlfriend J. down in philadelphia has been trying to do some photography for the last several months, but she has often had a frustrating time of it because the clerk at ritz sold her a crappy camera that was made to photograph kids at birthday parties. Its little brain can't compute what's going on when she tries to take pics of interesting textures of tree bark and it misses the focus a lot and exposes rather badly. When we visited Longwood Gardens last year and I was getting some nice pics of the flowers there she asked me how come I always get nice clear pictures, and my answer was just that I had a good camera with manual exposure settings and a high quality macro lens and I was cheating, using a tripod when I had been informed by the staff that they weren't allowed, so I could use long exposures and get pictures that weren't available to people trying to handhold, but nowadays I think a better answer would just have been that when I went to a ritz back in may of 1988 the clerk there sold me a minolta x-700 and I learned what apertures and shutter speeds do. And that really is the only answer that matters from the standpoint of where J is in her development as a photographer. But she has explicitly said that she does not want to learn about photography, she just wants a camera that will take a clear picture without her having to understand anything. So when I've stopped in circuit city recently, I've been sorely tempted to buy a camera for J, I would happily do so if she would just let me teach her about photography and how to use it, but she wouldn't want me to buy her such an expensive present and it is not my place to push her into taking steps that she hasn't herself made the decision to take.
It's kind of hard for an experienced photographer to recommend a camera to a non-photographer, You could say that people who understand cameras do not understand cameras that are made for people who do not understand cameras. Or maybe it's just that it's hard to answer a question when the person asking it does not understand the language in which the answer exists.
I'm pretty close to psyching myself up to blow the wad of cash to get the professional camera I've been saving for. I worry about how much my financial parachute will be weakened, should I lose my job. But that camera will be sellable in an emergency. In five years it will be as obsolete as film, I would imagine, but it is the best available tool that I can budget for at this time.
Playing it safe is a gamble which tends to have its disastrous effects more in the long term, when it proves to be a losing gamble, in that you never accomplish anything. You could argue that your comfort zone is a very dangerous place to be, in that you can die there, a day at a time, without realizing what is going on.
Barring unforseen calamities I think this summer I might continue with the methods I developed being out over the road in 2007, when I was exploring new places on my bicycle, which I had aboard the truck with me. I'm within reach of boston and hartford and new haven, and many other places within a couple hours by car. I shall be putting my bike in the trunk and heading off to places I've been too wrapped up in anxiety to think to go and explore. Bicycles are ideal for exploring cities, you can cover ground but the vehicle is small and light enough not to interfere with seeing a place intimately.
tchuss
ack camera horror stories- i am in the market for a new one- and being pretty cautious to the point that its been a year and I still havent chosen yet. :S
Maybe wait 'til it's a bit warmer and I'll actually use it.
Kind of expensive though. I think.