Pictures: I Love Them!

“Get my camera!” That is something my husband is used to hearing from me.  Or, “take pictures, hurry!”  The poor guy knows that photography is a big thing with me.  No, I am no pro or near pro or even amateur pro.  I just like love taking pictures.  I always have ever since I had my first pink Le Clic camera.  Yep, I had one of those and I thought I was one cool teenybopper with my pink Le Clic that used disk film.  Oooooh yeah I was clic chic because my camera required the expensive film.  Oh how I wish I still had it.  Just to have it ya know.

Source unknown

Well fast forward a decade or so and I am a late teens/early twenties girl working in the photo lab of my local grocery store.  That is when I really took a liking to photography.  I learned so much working in the photo lab and I was even one of the best at developing all of that 35mm film in an hour. 

{Brag note: I even had regular customers specifically request that I develop their film.  Double fist pump in the air!}

Yeah, you remember those 1-Hour photo labs.  That is where I wore my white-look-at-me-technician-coat and developed all sorts of pictures for a few years.  The variety of pictures that we came across was from A-Z.  Wowza.  Thankfully, we only had to call the authorities once and thankfully, the pictures we reported did not involve children.  And that’s all I’m gonna say on that topic.

Anywho, each picture is different because of its setting.  I learned how to process each negative accordingly.  Density was added if a picture was taken indoors or at night, i.e. we increased the “exposure” to prevent having those bright, white faces on people.  Cyan, yellow or magenta were either added or taken from the photo if the picture was taken in a hospital or at the beach.  Hospitals and offices have fluorescent lighting so pictures taken in that setting always had adjustments.  Always.  Hospital pictures were near and dear to my heart because most of the time the y were of newborns.  Hells yeah I was gonna make that new momma happy with her baby’s first pictures.  Now do you remember back in the day when you turned in a roll of film and the pictures came back with a tint of pink, yellow or blue or the flash made everyone pale faced?  And the technician said they couldn’t fix them because of the lighting, the film or maybe even your camera?  Lie!  I’m sorry to tell you that the photo lab technician was just being one lazy son of a gun.  With a little tweaking, the great majority of those 35mm pictures can be fixed. 

So, yes, over the years, I have taken tons of pictures and my poor hubby says I take too many.  No way.  You can’t have too many pictures of the memories you're making.  Never.  But I admit that my camera (sometimes cameras) is always in my purse.  It’s like having my wallet in my purse.  Gotta  have the camera too.  And yes my poor kids are like “enough already you crazy lady!”  Yeah, I’m one of those moms. A mamarazzi like how I’ve heard a few people say.  Chuckle, chuckle.  It makes me giddy.  J

Now are you ready for the shocker?  I do not have a fancy smanchy camera- yet.  Nope, I don’t have one and I’ve been eyeing them for a few years now.  After everything I just shared with you, you’d think I owned a top-notch camera. Once I am able to get the camera, I am going to buy this baby:

A Nikon D3100.

I can’t wait to get my hands on it and call it my own.  In my opinion, Nikon is alpha to Canon although they do make great cameras.  Heck, if someone gave me a Canon I would shamelessly and gratefully accept it.  I just think Nikon is a wee bit better.  Just sayin’.

So until I can get my dream camera I rely on these three cameras.

My Fuji Finepix  Z33 WP pink camera.

I’ll be honest.  I would never buy a Fuji camera.  This camera was a birthday gift from my husband and kids a couple of years ago.  I didn’t have the heart to tell my hubby it wasn’t on my wish list.  Well actually I kinda did tell him but I didn't have the heart to return it.  He was proud of himself because he really took his time trying to decide what camera to buy me and asked the salesperson lots of questions.  He didn’t know that I no longer wanted a point-n-shoot camera.  Obviously, I kept it and I’ve worked with it.  It’s a lot better than I thought.  Still not my ideal camera BUT it is waterproof and that is a huge bonus.  I am digging that especially since I can snap away while the kids play in the pool or splash around at fountain parks.  I mean here are a couple of shots of my boy underwater. 
Pretty cool, huh?

Then there is my almost nine-year-old Nikon Coolpix 3100.  It’s a great point-n-shoot camera but it’s been dropped a couple of times so sometimes the battery will hang out a bit and turn the camera off and on.  wonk wonk. 

Notice how the bottom doesn't close all the way? :(



And then there is the good ‘ol iPhone camera.  Yes, my phone screen is crack-a-lackin’ but no worries because that just happened yesterday (I don’t want to talk about it) and I will soon be upgrading to the iPhone4. (come on iPhone5 release so the price on the iPhone4 can drop!)

Ya know, for a camera phone it is not bad at all.  It’s come in handy many times.  I even took this picture of my boy with my iPhone.  It was such a great pic that it was featured during the weather forecast of my local news.  hoo-wah!

Running through Butler Fountain in ATX.



**And here's proof that I'm definitely not a pro but I do enjoy the snap, shoot, click of it all.**


My hubby's Nana & Popo looking at one another.  Love.



My baby girl's first steps on the beach.



I was in awe of Lady Liberty.



My boy at West Point for his uncle's graduation.


  

My boy's first airplaine ride at age 4.



I was sitting in my car waiting for my
hubby when I noticed the sunset.



Her first time in a swimming pool.
Look at her studying the water so carefully.





Do any of you like photography like me but don't know what you're doing?  :)