With apologies to my wife for such a poor title. I get asked this question quite often: Wow, that's a big camera... are you a pro? Although I have spent much of my lifetime trying to take better pictures, I am indeed not a pro. But, I do like cameras. Today's camera makes taking pictures much easier than in past years. Truth be told, I spend far too much money on the cameras I choose to purchase. It is my guilty habit. As men, we all have them. I discussed in a past entry about the X-Chromosome; well, for some reason, having a Y-Chromosome means many things, like enjoying beer, grilling and a dependency on purchasing expensive electronic devices.
As habits go, mine is very bad, but (as I justify to myself) I don't watch much TV, I don't drink much, my best cooking is still at home and I don't feel the need to go and purchase a fast car. (Well not yet.. upon reaching 40 last year that desire for a convertible is gaining strength. I mean, we only go once don't we?)
I do like cameras though, and all of the toys that go along with them. A camera though, unlike many items, has a life... it takes things for memories sake. A picture is worth a thousand words they say and for me that's a small amount.
Above is a picture of my son. I almost always call him Buddy. Here we are at the Botanic Gardens. When some people see this, they may think something like "That is a nice picture." But what I remember is how he patiently stood there and did his best at posing. You see, standing still has not been his strong suit, but he has gotten so much better. His sister, Punkin... (yes with an "n" and not an "mp". Unlike where the link will take you I would never chuck her!) She wouldn't allow me to take the picture with her in it. She was upset about something or another that she wanted to do, but Buddy just stood there, smiled at the voice activated light stand (Kate) and couldn't have been more happy.
Now some may think that I could have taken this with just any camera, but truth is that I couldn't, it is taken at ISO 12,800! Try that with your point and shoot. The camera and the technology does the heavy lifting here, it's a D3. I couldn't have gotten this shot or this memory with any other camera.
I now share with you a nice Lego structure courtesy of Punkin. What I remember about this series is how carefully she put all of these together and presented it to me in it's finished form carefully displaying it on my desk. She said, "Daddy can we take a picture?" I of course was in the middle of work, trying to multi-task and be superdad as well as a world class employee, on these days it always seems as if my children get the short end of the stick. I wish I made different choices, and sometimes I do, but today I didn't. I put her off, I asked her to wait. Later in the day and true to my promise I went to take pictures of the wonderful looking and daintily built structure. I could have just popped a picture with any camera, but wanted something worthy of the art that my daughter crafted and this, of course, again meant using that same D3. I mean she made it herself didn't she?
As I started carefully moving the structure one of the walls collapsed and was now detached from the rest of the building. Then as I went to repair that, well the other side fell over and then next thing I knew the whole top had caved in onto itself and I was left looking at no longer a world class abstract art piece worthy of some placement in front of a City Center, Bank or Museum, but 4 clumps that I had no clue how to put back together. Well what is a father to do in this moment when he has made a promise and now can't fulfill it? Pile it up on his desk and announce that it was time to eat lunch and hope she will forget! So as we are plowing through our bologna sandwiches, drinking our milk and eating a wonderful tasting and somewhat healthy Sun Chip, she leans over and announces to me and Buddy. "Heh Daddy let's go and take some picture of my building!" Now in a moment of weakness and not wanting to disappoint my daughter - who I love dearly - I thought, "Well I can blame it on Buddy, since he can't talk very well he can't quite deny convincingly enough that he didn't do it!" Then I got ahold of myself and realized that I had to set an example. I carefully looked at my daughter and with all of the guilt that I truly felt told her that, "We had a problem." In my head I kept hearing Tom Hanks utter the infamous "Houston" before it. For me it was along the same degree of problem as NASA had. We left the kitchen table to show her the rubble that I had created and as we started walking up the stairs I started to explain to her what had happened. I went into detail to show her how upset I was that I couldn't put it all together so we could get a picture. As I arrived in my office I sat in my chair and picked up the many pieces of the "building" I was waiting for the blow back as I had let my daughter down. Punkin picked up the pieces, jumped into my lap and gave me a big hug, she told me, "That's OK Daddy, I can put it back together." She also let me know that despite my wanton disregard for her art that, " I still love you." She kept hugging me for quite some time. She told me after a bit that she had the same thing happen when she tried to build it and that I had to be careful because it was very delicate. She also reassured me that she could get it back together so we could get a picture.
As you see from the pictures she got it back together and I attended to capturing this piece of art for posterity. Captured at ISO 6400 with available light which only the D3 could do. So while some might only see the cost, I grab onto the memories of that "shot that almost wasn't" and the daughter who made it so easy to tell that "superdad" IS only human.
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