The New Camera

I guess the whole world knows (most times it feels that way) that I love taking pictures . My pics’ site is a work in progress, but everyone that knows me knows that I take hundreds of pictures on any of my trips … Sometimes, they are composition pictures, sometimes they are just impromptu shots of a brief moment in time … Sometimes they make absolutely no sense to anyone but me, like a plate full of empty shrimp shells at Awful Arthur’s in the Outer Banks.

I am also not typically a pack rat, unless it’s about pictures and the written word. I am a fierce guardian of those two… Somehow, I value memories, I guess, and I hope this will, at some point in time, pay off – not only for me (which it already has), but those left behind after I will be long gone.

For such a semi-passionate photographer as I like to think of myself, I have never bought a camera. Myself. Until this week. All my cameras have always been given to me. My dad’s camera was the first one I had, a semi-professional one, with film, of course, and which had 5 minutes of settings before you could snap a picture. Nothing even remotely close to a “point and shoot”. Every camera after that was given to me as a present on some occasion or another …

And every time I have felt like I “had to like” it, as a gift horse is not checked for all his teeth, you know …Some of my “gift cameras” I liked, but most of them I didn’t… Most of them – I would have picked differently…

In the past, whether I liked the cameras or not, I had to be pleased with them. They were gifts. I had to show gratefulness and appreciation for the gesture. At least once of those times the camera was bad. Bad-bad. The battery would die after 3 pictures, and the zoom would take at least a whole minute to come out. It was painful! Gosh, anything from that was an improvement!!

I have been looking to upgrade my camera lately from a 3.2 MP one (yep… that’s right!!) to at least a 10 MP one … My 3.2 MP one has been awesome, though: has religiously documented my life for the past 5 years (almost) anywhere from Christmas parties to Vienna, Romania and Canada. It has done its job and I will still keep it and use it. It’s been my veteran camera, for sure. And we have a bond. So, she’s not retired! Just … moved to part time! This week, a new full time camera has been put in place.

This time around, I feel I am on no guilt trip! If it’s broken, or otherwise I don’t like it, I can return it in 30 days … But this time, I love my camera too!! I picked it out, after a long search. And trust me: I was choosy!!! I shopped and shopped, I went to stores and played with real life cameras, and I knew what I wanted … When I got the right size, and weight, I shopped online and added to the features … I am happy.

As of yet, I have not had much time to play with it, but I did shoot some “around the house” scenes just to test it out … and I am tickled… Of course, I had never had this much resolution and this much zoom – I am so easy to please there…

I feel like I have accomplished something, but I don’t feel just as good as I did when I got my first typewriter (also a gift)… Then, I was in so much shock, I just smelled it and touched it for days, before I put paper in it … I guess I’ll always be a talker before I am a watcher … so writing IS my main vice!

It is similar to the elation I have felt when I picked out my first car … I wanted to sleep in it, just to smell it – for weeks … It’s like that: I cannot believe it’s mine, it’s real, and it’s here!

I have bought homes before that didn’t feel this good… The place I bought after my divorce did feel like this: just a new start, new beginning. It’s good when you have a say in it. It’s different. No matter how well people know you, they always miss at least one thing.

This time around I don’t have to like it , though. When you factor freedom into anything, it suddenly becomes sweeter – that’s for darn sure!