Despite the rain, and a reoccurring mood around here, the Fourth of July turned out to be…a really fun day. One that I feel almost a little guilty over, for having so much fun. We caught the end of the parade, Amanda shook hands, and got her picture taken with our senator (which isn’t a really big deal, but made us giddy).
Since we were on the end of the parade, there wasn’t much candy left…not that we would have gotten any, the candy throwers seem to pass us up these days. Something about “Little kids” I don’t know what that’s all about.
After the parade, a small group of people from our church went for a BBQ. My sister and I used to baby-sit these kids (kids, Im really getting old now) and they somehow grew up, and the age gap sort of closed. Nik, met and made friends with one of the other cameras, while we talked and exchanged those horror stories that only a camera owner (camera owned?) can understand. Nik and her camera were both gifts for Christmas, two years ago. They both lost the little thing around the view finder, this Spring, while vacationing. They both have a habit of loosing their lens covers, and both…get attitudes, which they proudly showed off while we attempted to take pictures.
The ironic thing is, Nik is a Nikon, and hers is a Cannon (who is still unnamed, Can just didn’t seem to fit.)
We talked about aperture – a word that until recently, neither of us knew what meant. Discussed the F/number and impressed people with what we knew…until we told continued talking, and they quickly realized that we had NO IDEA what we were talking about.
It was fun tho, real fun.
We took pictures, laughed, battled the attitudes of the cameras, and laughed some more.
And then she taught me this really cool trick – which Im sure most people already know about, but I thought was limited to Photoshop skills. Which I have neither of. Skills, or Photoshop.
Pretty cool, huh?
She said she liked to use it on food – makes it look “Hungry.”
The one trick that I am still trying to figure out, is how to “Focus” on the subject while making the other stuff, blurred/buggy.
Kind of looks like the tree is running…
Want to know how to do it? I know I did!
What I did, was set it to manual – that seems to be the only way *I* could get it to focus on what I wanted. Once you focus on what you want, get ready.
As soon as you push the shutter button – turn your lens real fast. As if your zooming in/out. Only turn it one way though, I found it worked best if I zoomed all the way in, focused, and then turned it out real fast. But that was just me.
Then we turned the camera on each other, and tried it out…
This is what happens when you zoom IN and OUT instead of going just one direction – you get extra body parts!
Pretty cool, I thought.
Also what was equally cool, was the fact that I could talk to someone, about something I love, who has some of the same issues I do.
Tangled Thoughts 
THat is prety cool, makes me want to go give it a try!
Wow..that makes the pictures look like they are moving. Really cool.