Making Things More Difficult - Not Necessary

I come from a long line of people that make things more difficult than they have to be. I also have produced a line that seems to do the same thing. Case in point: my oldest daughter had trouble with math in school because she didn't think it could be THAT easy so she looked for the deeper meaning. My youngest tends to 2nd guess herself (according to someone who can view these things more objectively than me)...again she makes things more difficult and also doesn't think her judgement of what's what is sufficient. Which brings me to my new camera....

Huh? You say 'how can that bring you to anything'? Well because it's MY blog and I can progress it anyway I like. So there.

I wrote a post awhile back entitled My Next Camera about the Olympus SP-550 UZ because I really like Olympus and truly thought that would be my next camera. It wasn't. For Christmas I bought myself a Nikon D300. The reviews on the new camera are outstanding. It was far more camera than I'll ever need and I'm almost embarrassed to write this review of my own, but I must. Add to that the fact that the camera and the lens I bought costs more than the first new car my husband and me owned and the embarrassment only intensifies!

You see the D300 is overkill for me. I'm a point-and-shoot gal. I like Olympus scenes. I need a LOT of hand holding when it comes to exposure settings so I just cop out and use the "P" mode more often than not. Sure, I get some lousy shots when conditions aren't "right", but THAT'S what I need to learn to do.....just compensate for the extreme and let the ordinary alone.

I'm really trying to learn about aperture and shutter speeds and exposure and all the rest of that stuff. I read a lot at dpreview.com and that makes for problems for me too. You see those guys know this shit! And I've bought books and those people know this shit too. So I was making it all harder than it needed to be without even realizing it. I'm never going to be a pro photographer, but I just thought if I was going to have such a swell instrument I should learn how to use it in the manual mode.

Today it dawned on me that it's my frigging camera and I can shoot anyway I like. I'm my most demanding critic when it comes to something I made and I'm the only one I have to please. The D300's program mode is fan-tab-u-lous! It is by far the best camera I've ever owned. I have NO excuse for not taking and making great photos!

If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then so is photography. If I think something is good then so be it. The key, for me, is to make LOTS of photos under all sorts of lighting conditions and see what turns out. I got so bogged down in the "doing it right" or "like the pros" that I made myself very discouraged. Not good. I've put tons of photos up on my Picasa Web Albums including the new D300 shots. Some of them are just awful, but I'm deeply into the learning part so keep your raspberries to yourself, please.

It's a wonderful camera. I'm really glad I bought it for me. I just wish my kids would let me take more photos of them to help me learn. Sigh.