Social Photography, 2

I'm in about week 4 of my Social Photography course. (If you want some background on the course, click HERE for my previous post on it.) We are learning all about our cameras and how they work and, theoretically, how to take different kinds of photos. There's been a lot of talk with very little practice so far, which drives a practical sort of gal like me nuts. 

Great! I think during the lessons, it's all very clear! But when I try to take a photo, all the info we have heard about in class gets all mushed together in my brain and I have no clue as to how best to capture the moment. In fact, the moment passes while I'm fidgeting around pushing buttons, trying to calculate exposure, white balance, aperture . . .

We have had one photo assignment so far: to record a process. Our instructor assured us that the emphasis was to be on capturing a process and not on the beauty or technical perfection of the shots.

Here is my sequence of photos which capture a trip with my younger son to the mall to pick up the new Pokemon Black and White game for his Nintendo. This was rather a big deal because he had sold a bunch of old games to pay for this new one, and there was apparently a countdown on various media to the worldwide release of this game. All very exciting for the hardcore Pokemon fan, you can imagine.

Leaving the house

Setting the house alarm

Walking over to the car

Mommy driving - G took this shot, I haven't yet perfected the technique of photographing myself from behind!

Oops, detour! My car ran out of gas on the on-ramp to the highway and we had to walk off the highway and back into town because, of course, I had forgotten my cell phone at home. All this in high heels!

Our hero came to rescue us!

What a patient boy.

Arrival at the mall. Don't ask me WHY this photo is psychadelic, things happen . . .

Pokemon White, finally! Do not ask me WHY this photo is pink . . .

Safe at home enjoying his hard-earned game.

To tell you the truth, these photos are absolutely nothing special. The process was definitely captured, but I shot them all on automatic. Cheating? I don't know. I think I will need a lot of time to practice just shooting and shooting pictures while playing with my camera's multitude of settings to see what happens.

In the meantime, if I want to take quick pictures I'll stick to automatic or even my old compact camera.

Practical Applications of Math Concepts in the Real World

As my kids get older they are less and less attached to me. Not emotionally-speaking, I hope that will never change, but I'm talking actually physically attached. When they were little they were like two barnacles clinging to the Saretta ship as she navigated her way through the day. I used to have to pry them off of me by force, lock the bathroom door for a moment's privacy. 

Now that my first-born is 13 (and three-quarters!) I'm lucky if I get the occasional peck on the cheek, after begging for it. That kid who used to crawl into bed with us every blessed morning at around 5:30, max 6:00 a.m., and glom on for dear life has been mysteriously transformed into this alien creature who grunts a barely audible "ugh" as he passes by.

That's why I don't mind that my 11-year-old still wants me to lie down with him to cuddle and chat before he falls asleep. It's great that he still wants me around...I'll take it as long as it lasts. The problem now, though, is that he is almost the same size as me and we don't really have enough room in his single bed to both lie down comfortably.

The Thinker at Rest

Last night, after insisting that I stay IN the bed, not NEAR the bed, but IN the bed, and lots of wiggling around trying to get comfortable he suddenly said with a loud and exasperated tone,

"What I don't get is how someone like you, who is NOT FAT, no, I'd even say NORMAL, can take up 15/16ths of the bed!"

Can you tell they're studying fractions at school?