Camera Shy

During this upcoming week I will be deciding what will and will not be important enough in my life that I'm willing to drag it down to Georgia. At the top of list (right after my dear little laptop) is my camera.

Being the cheap college student that I am, I have not been able to purchase a proper scanner, thus the digital camera is the way to go.

I've owned many a camera in my life, but I still don't think I can take good photos. I'm getting there though, as my most recent purchase is a Kodak EasyShare c875. It's not quite scanner quality, but at 8 megapixels, it's getting there.

You never realize how much you need a camera until you're without one, as I've learned. Like all my technology (so it seems) my lovely HP camera died on me not but 5 months ago. Right when I needed to take a lot of pictures for various finals that were coming up. Lovely.

Luckily, my amazing boyfriend's camera still worked and used the same type of memory so I was able to hop and borrow his for the remainder of the school term.

I'm very happy to own this camera, and I look forward to photographing many a project with it in the future. I know that my dream would be to own a really great SLR, like a Nikon D300, but at the moment, that would kind of be overkill for my needs.

Being an art student who is pretty camera shy, I don't really use my digital love for serious photography. I'm not a photographer, I can take a beautiful picture but I'm more on the working with the digital image after side. Like Photoshopping the hell out of a nice photo. So for now it seems like I mostly use my camera to do the following:

1. Photograph my cat looking funny. This doesn't help my "cool" factor at all, but my cat's getting up there in years and I want something to remember him by.

2. Taking shots of my work. It's the best scanner replacement and a digital camera is essential when photographing larger pieces.

3. Reference photos of anything. I'm not supposed to draw from photographs. This apparently is very bad and you don't "catch the true nature of the subject". However, I've been drawing for years from photos and life and so far not one professor has been able to tell the difference. That either means I rule, or I really really suck. I hope it's the former.

That's really it I suppose. I can never take serious photos of myself, I feel too dorky and myspacey. And I always feel awkward taking the camera out during parties or similar events.

My digital camera uses are a little strange, but they work. And I could not live my life the same way without this baby.