Look with your eyes, not with your hands.


Such a minute fraction of this life do we live: so much is sleep, tooth-brushing, waiting for mail, for metamorphosis, for those sudden moments of incandescence: unexpected, but once one knows them, one can live life in the light of their past and the hope of their future.



A grad student muses on her life, film, friends, politics, reality televizzle, and music.

 
Say Cheese!

I finally went on my electronics shopping spree and came home with armfuls of goodies. The most exciting new toy I bought was a fancy camera. Up until this point, I would have called myself a devoted amateur photographer. I have a good sense of composition and "what makes a good picture" from all my years of art in the dark and in general, I just like to take pictures. I have both a point and shoot and an old school Canon SLR my father bought in London almost thirty years ago. Well, I opened up my new Canon Rebel 2000 and let's just say, if I can figure out the point-and-shoot function I deserve a National Geographic photographic assignment. This is one advanced machine. I have a Bible of a manual and the only real way to figure it out is to load it up and start shooting. I am excited about it though and I'd appreciate any trouble-shooting tips - even though I know what an F-Stop is and what different settings mean (generally speaking) this little gizmo with it's auto-focus grid and other artificial intelligence features is really a whole new take on photography as I previously knew it.

I guess in this rapidly advancing digital age, and me the ever supporter of new medias, the real question is why I went with the old-school film camera over a shiny new digital variety. I guess it's just one of those questions that comes down to personal preference. The fact is, dollar for dollar, you still get a lot more out of a film camera than you do a low-resolution digital camera. I also wasn't interested in the point and shoot variety, I wanted a real lens (I can't afford a digital with a real lens), and I am still a picture person that likes a crisp tangible print over a gritty (yet) hefty electronic file. Also, ever since I discovered the print CD as a developer add-on, I think I've stumbled upon the best of all worlds.

Anyway, I also treated myself to a VCR (how can a film student be without this?) and a desperately needed Ethernet cord. For sometime now, I've managed to get by connecting to the internet using a cord without the stay-in place tabs. Let's just say, this cord (considering my employee discount) is the best $2 I've spent in a very long time.

My day off didn't really turn out to be quite as productive as I dreamed it to be. I got sucked into the black hole of visiting my grandmother - all in all an enjoyable time, but not something I had intended to take a full three hours. Every time I talk to her I learn something new about her life and there are few people I can say that about. Granted, she tells me some things every time I see her, but today I learned that my mother's older brother was a fraternal twin and his sister died in childbirth. Sometimes I come home from these visits and tell my mother things she never knew. I guess this is the amazing thing of being 90 years old and by extension having 90 years of life under your belt.

After that long visit, my mother sent me on an ultimately pointless errand (even though I did get a new cookbook out of the deal). It was a very tiring day, when all was said and done, and I've spent most of the evening horizontal, watching Surf Girls and gearing up for the awaited conclusion of Citizen Kane, the gem I started last night. What a night, huh, MTV takes a stab at making the dreams come true for plenty of bikini bottle blondes and then a taste of what is commonly considered to be a pillar of cinematic genius, if not the best movie of all time. God bless America. Tomorrow or the day after I'll also bring up this very insightful and original documentary I saw on AMC tonight about the influences of Hollywood (and American values) in the Muslim World.
posted by lmjasinski at 11:46 PM