Killing Time

Well, the year is quickly drawing to a close. Fall color is quickly flying past, and it’s time to take look back at the “New Year’s resolution post” and check progress.

- Get Organized. Nope. Not an inch of progress. I did manage to give the site a face lift this summer, though.

- Show Off. Currently working on selecting some pictures to make LARGE living room sized prints from. Contests? I’ve entered a few online that weren’t outright “rights grabs” where you have to give up all your rights to your photo whether you win the contest or not. Last night, though, I actually did win a place in my very first photo contest with this shot:

I guess the winning photos will be in the newspaper sometime in the near future, so I guess I get another 15 minutes of fame. Sharing online? Some sort of consistency would probably help. Still struggling there.

- Try something new. Well, just about the time the weather was getting nice enough for me to start getting out the Bender, we had to go and move. Now that the year is nearly over, I’m finally pretty much done with all that, so I hope to start playing with that again. I’ve been looking at large format printers since the summer. My husband may have just made it possible for me to actually acquire one of these, and I believe there is still a rebate going on for the one I want which will make the price much more appealing, so it’s possible that by the end of the year I’ll be delving into the other end of the photographic process – making prints worth putting up on the walls.

- New perspectives. While the technical skills continue to improve making it easier for me to reproduce in two dimensions what I see in three, I’m still fleshing out how I uniquely see the world.

- Do some good. It’s a pleasure to use my photography skills and equipment in service to Christ. It’s probably an odd thing to do, but I told a pastor here, “You know how some people dedicate their babies? I dedicate my cameras.” And I do. It’s God who has given both the equipment I have and the skill to use it, and when I get a new camera or lens, I take it to church with me and lay it on the altar and dedicate it to the Lord’s service first. Do I get a lot of pleasure from it that’s not at all related to serving the Lord? Absolutely! But if that ever begins to take first place in my heart, I have a tangible reminder of where my blessings come from and who really owns “my” stuff, and that’s a blessing too. I’d still like to explore this area in more depth, though. As far as teaching, since my daughter is the one who inherited my Rebel, I get the pleasure of throwing her a tip or new technique to try now and then, as well as watching her progress.

- Challenge myself. The photowalks have sort of come to an end during the moving process. Not to say that it will stay that way forever, but . . . . Taking pictures of people I don’t know. Is it only photographers who react badly to having their picture taken? Maybe just some photographers.

- Start a project. The only “project” currently in the works is trying to decorate the new place with some of my photographs. Mostly, it’s my own indecision holding that one up. I finally made some small prints of potential candidates while mom and dad were here, but that’s as far as I’ve gotten.

- Take my camera everywhere. Definitely. Good move.

Here’s another picture entered in last night’s contest that didn’t win. Enjoy.