my first digicam...

I’ve been dreaming of owning a digital camera for a while now, and I finally gave in. I used to be one of those people who scoffed at digital imaging... back in the days when it wasn't so great, and the best you could do with a digital camera was make a crappy 4x6 - I consider myself a "real" photographer - you know, trained in the use of an old school 4x5 camera, dark room developing and printing. i went to the Dawson Institute of Photography in 1999/2000, and worked in a professional photography store at the same time. I considered myself an expert, and still do – to a degree. It may not be my profession, but I know that I have an “eye” – I’ve been told by many – and when I dropped out of photo school, the entire class was blown away, I suppose they figured that if anyone would finish it would be the one who got 100% on all her assignments. It just wasn’t challenging – I felt like I already knew so much that I wasn’t learning anything at school, so why kill myself with a full time job and full time school? That was the end of that, which is one of the reasons finishing j-school was such a surprise, I just never thought I would. I guess that means kudos to my profs for keeping it interesting and challenging – thanks.

Anyway, back to the photography… I was always anti-digital, it just couldn’t do what film could… well, times have changed and some of the best photos I’ve ever taken have been with a digital camera (always borrowed). I can’t even remember the last time I shot a roll of film, and now I refuse to waste my money on it. There are people out there who will think I’m crazy for not wanting to use film anymore, and yes, I might on occasion while in Korea – for artsy stuff – but it’s so much easier to do it digitally… and now I can.

So it’s not what I really want – which is a Canon EOS 1Ds (since i have lenses for it... but I can just keep on drooling over that until I have the million dollars it’ll cost. For now, I’ll (and so will you) have to get by with the fuji finepix A400 that I bought today. It’ll get me by until I can afford something bigger and better – but it isn’t so bad… 4.1 megapixels and a zoom (not that I’m a huge fan of those either), not to mention that it was on sale!!! It’s a nifty little camera - check out the first photo that i took with it: