In November 1987 Lovely Wife, Number One Daughter, Myself, Sis In Law, Mother and Father In Law went to Honolulu for a few days. My Father in Law was burning his frequent flyer miles, and I worked for Delta Airlines at the time and we basically flew for free.
The five or so days we were there, I took 7 rolls of 36 exposure slide film. Tally: roughly 250 photos covering the whole time we were there.
This new Nikon I bought cost more than any camera I've ever bought, by a long shot.
In years past, I was fairly stingy with my film. I never had enough money to just burn through rolls of film like the photographers at National Geographic do. Actually, they don't buy their film so they can just burn that stuff up. Not that I was poor, but with kids, you ALWAYS have something more important to spend money on. Film and developing are luxuries so I was always careful to try to make every shot count.
But with this digital camera, the cost is mostly up front. I have a 2GB memory card in it and taking jpegs at the largest, finest setting, I can get about 580 photos on that one memory card.
I was up early in the morning, so I grabbed the camera and set off. Would just park the car and wander. From about 8:30 to 11:30.
I got home and downloaded them onto the computer and saw that I had taken 267 photos yesterday morning. I was stunned. But boy, I had some fun too. I was in the zone and just flowed along. I think I got some keepers too. The care with each shot is there like with film, but now I have the ability to freely press the button. Try bracketing the exposures. Same shot, different focus point. All kinds of stuff I wouldn't try in the past.
The biggest advantage of the way I used to do things is that I'm really good at getting the right exposure FOR ME. I do document things like birthdays and such, but when I'm just doing it for me, I don't try to please anyone else. I go for the colors, exposure, composition, etc., that please just me. If someone else likes them, great, but this is just personal fun for me. Like playing guitar. I don't try to please others with it, but if that happens anyway, bonus.
What do I look for when wandering with no specific subject? Beautiful scene. Interesting shapes. Unique creatures. Surprises. Colors. Faces, though I didn't encounter many people on my excursions. Textures. Symmetry. Humor. Strange juxtapositions. Sad/creepy. And of course, light, light, light.
Pic #1: This one falls under the category of unique creatures. A great blue heron. Stretching. I've seen people, cats, and dogs stretch, but this is the first time I've ever seen a bird stretch.
Pic #2: I would file this under interesting shapes. At first glance you go, "What IS that?", but then you see it's table umbrellas and a channel marker for the waterway.
Pic #3: I would file this under symmetry. Maybe also good color. This is under US1 in Melbourne, right next to a big marina.
Pic #4: I'm thinkin' interesting juxtaposition. What say you?
Pic #5: Color, definitely color.
Pic #6: Like most men, I'm easily distracted by shiny objects.
Toodles.
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