Snapshots of a Modest Life

A Dream Differed

For a long time I wanted to be a photographer. I pictured myself jetting around the world doing exciting things in dangerous places. Taking pictures of people that the whole world would see. I would flip through the pages of National Geographic, looking at the images of animals, a tribe in the Sahara Desert, a funeral in Bosnia. I wanted to take those pictures someday. I would look at a subject and see an amazing photograph waiting to be taken. When I finally got a camera into my hands, the amazing picture that was in my head somehow got lost in the lens of my Dad's old Canon A-1. No matter how much I wanted those images to make it to the film, it never quite got there. I would be zoomed in too much, or not enough, or it would be only just out of focus.

I realized fairly quickly that photography was not for me. I didn't understand enough about the sunlight, f-stops and apertures. It never looked quite right.

I've been thinking about getting a camera. A point and shoot digital, something I can drop in my pocket and take along for the ride. Then again I want to have control. I want that flower to be out of focus, dang it. I can't do that with a point and shoot. But if I ever got a camera where I had to do more than that, the pictures in my head would never make it to the film, or pixels, however those things work. It's not like I have the money to throw away on a camera anyway.

It would be nice though, to be able to get that image on to film or pixel. If only I had the patience to learn.