photography and face painting

I like to pretend I'm good at stuff. Cooking, drawing, fire chiefing, instructing, blogging, it doesn't matter. I do them partly for fun, partly because I'm a wanna-be, and some of them because I have to make a living somehow.

The other night at our annual dress up party I played paparazzi with a fancy borrowed Fujipix camera. If a photographer's worth is measured by the number of shots he takes, I aced it. . . but if quality rules, well . . . let's say I won't be chasing celebrities anytime soon.

When you come up short, the thing to do is figure out how to improve, right? My brother Paul (who is a real knife maker and real photographer, and a lot of other real things) can take awesome shots blindfolded at night, so I think to myself, "Self, why don't you ask Paul how you can improve your photographicology?"

Great idea. Except that the conversation went kind of like this:

me: "Why are my photos all grainy?"
Paul: "You need to [several Greek words in a row] the shutter and [a number of chinese phrases] the aperture and make sure the [a sprinkling of archaic Hebrew] is correct and . . . ."
me: "So what you're saying is that unless I take a seven year university course in photography, I'd better just stick with the automatic settings."
Paul: "No really, it's easy. You just push this [gizmo thingy] and hold that [microscopic button] while clicking the [setting that sounds like an Egyptian god's name] . . .
me: "Yeah, I'll just go with the automatic settings."

Here are some photos that I took of body painting that my very talented wife did on the kids:









Fortunately some folks out there are good at technology, like the guys or gals that invented a contraption being tried in the Sault Ste Marie area. It's a moose detector. That's right, it senses when an animal is near the road, and a flashing beacon alerts motorists to the danger. You can read about it here. Technology is great, but at $300,000 a pop, the moose will have to watch their step on our hundred kilometres of highway for a while to come.

I brag about a lot of things, but one thing I never brag about is being smart. Especially after taking this test.

Indian Summer is back again after a brief relapse into winter yesterday. If this weather keeps up, maybe my prediction about having a balmy winter may come true. Stay tuned.