…or the photographer…
I’ve had my Canon S3 IS for over a year and have been enjoying learning to use the manual options for different effect and to my eye, some better photos. I’ve also been using Bill’s Nikon Coolpix which has some special lenses, more zoom and more megapixel capability. We’ve looked at upgrading to a near professional Nikon and been on the verge of ordering several times. In my mind, I could take even better photos with a better camera and different lens, etc…
Adobe had a “can’t be refused” offer for Photoshop Elements users (ME!) to upgrade to the full Photoshop CS3 (Creative Suite 3) - a tool I’ve been lusting after since I bought the S3 over a year ago. I haven’t really tapped the abilities of Elements but several tutorials I’ve worked through had some fun stuff only available in Photoshop and I had been longing for the time I would have enough pennies saved to order it. Soooo, I did NOT pass up the upgrade offer which was a third of the full price! It has been in my hot little hands for over a week now and I’ve been playing with it to make myself feel better… well, you can’t “work” when you are sick!
I had been thinking about some photos I took some time ago - October 2002 actually. I was in a rental on Flathead Lake for the winter - between houses. The rental on the lake was cheap, cheap, cheap for the winter - they charge twice the rent I was paying per month for a week in the summer… I was thrilled to be on the lake for the short time and really, preferred winter on the lake as the noise and summer activity is not my thing. As it turned out, it was a beautiful and unusually warm Fall and I spent many late afternoons enjoying my little beach as well as lake views from the house.
The house was on the east shore of the lake so sunsets were often spectacular. I had my first digital camera, a Canon Digital Elph, circa early 2002. I set the camera on a tripod and took a number of sunset photos - full auto - I had not explored manual settings yet…
Back to Photoshop and my attempt to feel less miserable… I went searching through my photo files for the sunset photos to see if I could make them absolutely spectacular with my new software toy. Now - Photoshop is a complex and a professional photo tool so no way have I even scratched the surface of what it can do, but after a couple of hours of fussing I decided that I liked the originals just like they were - SOOC - “Straight out of the camera”…the camera being my now 7 year old Elph, no fancy lens, full Auto…WOW…
not the camera, not the photographer…nature in several stunning moments of time…
one night…
another night - red sunset at night, sailor’s delight - as well as the observer’s!
and another night.
I’m not going back to my Elph, although I occasionally carry it when the Canon seems a little more than I want along, but my lust for a better camera has cooled a bit - which is just as well considering that the budget will be stretched to the max to pay for diesel to get to Montana for the summer…
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