For a while I’ve been wanting an older manual focus SLR, a Minolta more specifically. So a couple Saturdays ago my mom and I went downtown to an antique store, I wanted to look for a camera and she had just never been to an antique store before (weird I know).
They actually did have a Minolta SLR, but it wasn’t the model I wanted the most and they were asking way too much for it. They also had a Canon SLR, an AE-1, but they wanted $174 for it! Later my mom says, “You know your dad has an old camera like that, a Canon, I think it’s in my bedroom.” Um, okay.
She gets it out and yeah, it’s an AE-1. I actually remember playing with it when I was little, come to think of it. I’ve been interested in photography for as long as I can remember, I even read books on photography in elementary school (I still am quite strange, thank you).
The best thing though it that the camera still had an old roll of film in it, which I’m going to pick up now.
And helped the environment, by not posting on Earth Day.
What did you do for Earth Day?
(Disclaimer: I, in fact, fully intended to post on Earth Day and even already knew what I was going to post, but I was very busy [Jury duty, lit paper, government presentation] and ended up not posting)
I’ve been thinking about what I’m going to do this summer. I know I need to find a summer job so I can save some money that will be much needed once I’m off at a university in the fall. I’ve also thought about taking a couple summer classes, creative writing or something possibly. When I really think about what I want to do though I know I would love to just travel throughout the summer.
I would absolutely love to go somewhere overseas, Italy or Paris, or anywhere else I haven’t been, but those are my top 2. Unfortunately I don’t know anyone else who would go and I don’t want to go alone to a country I’ve never been in.
It would be nice to see some places in the states I’ve never been to before, so I could settle for that. Right now I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.
Anyone care to share their summer plans or dreams? I know you’re out there, I can hear you breathing.
Sure, you can read many how-to books, online tutorials, and even pay for photography classes, but right here, right now, I’m going to give to you the all-inclusive, ultimate guide to becoming a better photographer. To top that off, it can be done in just 1, yes ONE, easy step. The how-tos, tutorials, and classes can help, but without implementing this crucial 1 step process they are useless.
Step 1: Take more pictures!
The End
Fact: Magazines are expensive. Solution: Don’t pay for them.
No, I’m not encouraging thievery of magazines, or to give them up. Actually, we should all be reading more of them. The answer is the public library. Not nearly enough people take advantage of the magazine rack at the library—not nearly enough people take advantage of the library at all for that matter.
A while back I read a post on Russell Davies’ blog on “How to be Interesting,” one of the tips was to read a new magazine every week. At first this sounded a bit ridiculous to me, I mean magazines are expensive. The Life magazine I posted about, for example, $11.99, that’s a bit above average, but still magazines are not cheap. Being a full-time student with just a part-time job, I can’t refuse to spend $7 each week on a magazine, not matter how interesting it will make me. But then I got to thinking, every time I have some extra time between classes why not go to the library and read a magazine.
So I started doing just that. Last week I read an issue of Time which had a great article about the Dali Lama, and whether it made me more interesting or not, I definitely have knowledge now that I lacked before, and I found interest in something I would have passed over normally. Another good thing about reading magazines in the library is that they also have back issues so you can even catch-up on events or topics that you’ve missed.
While it’s good to read a variety of different magazines (sure, I may be female but I can still expand my personal bank of information and be entertained by Esquire), news magazines are about the best for this. They have current events, culture, politics, editorials, and entertainment all in one magazine. Sure the stories may be brief and not give a full picture of the topic, but there’s 20 more magazines right there to give you the other side, and maybe even a specialty magazine with an in-depth look.
Knowing a lot about a few things is always good, but also knowing at least a little about everything else is even better. I think that is how this should work, it makes you interesting by increasing your knowledge and widening the scope of topics you know about. Perhaps the best part of reading more magazines is that it increases your ability to have something to talk about with just about anyone, which means a lot less of those awkward, silent moments when you can’t find any topic you and the other party (or parties) are interested in talking about.
