Mediocrity

I think I need to find local photography classes. I am having a hard time translating the pictures I see in my head into the camera. Part of this is because there is only so much control with a point-and-shoot; I love my camera because it is light years better than my last one, but I can't control f-stops, aperture, shutter speed, or manually focus. In college, I had a Pentax SLR (seen here in its eBay debut). I loved the "B" setting that let me keep the shutter open as long as I kept the button depressed.

Still, I know that it is not the equipment that takes the picture, but the photographer. When I look at my Flickr photostream I see a lot of okay-to-good pictures that seem to me like they could have been great-- maybe if they had been taken with a better camera or using lighting equipment besides my dining room light, but also if I knew more.

Another thing spurring me toward formal classes is the excellent pictures I see other people making. Rather than wishing I could be as good as [your name here], I want to just become as good as I can. I think I am better than I was at the beginning of the year, just because I now think about such things as composition and lighting. But I want to consistently take pictures that I don't look at and think, "That would have been so much better if...."