Pluk de Nacht open air festival in Amsterdam

It's a good thing I put the 'probably' after my 'updated weekly' bit, there, eh? But there's a reason I hadn't posted! The reason is that I hadn't managed to take my camera anywhere interesting. Fortunately, someone dragged me outside today to go see an interview and presentation by Ze Frank at Pluk de Nacht, a free open air film festival. I didn't quite know what to expect, seeing as I knew nothing about the festival. And I had liked Ze Frank's earlier stuff but hadn't actually kept up with anything recent. Turns out he's still pretty damn awesome, and so was his presentation.

I had planned a lot of photos. And I mean, a lot. Unfortunately, I had not taken into account that we'd be leaving at six in the evening and so there wouldn't be a whole lot of time left before the sun went down. And even more unfortunately-- I seemed to have zero skill snapping pictures in the almost-dark. And don't even get me started on how nervous I was about taking pictures of human beings. Of course, it's much easier when you're focusing on someone on-stage; they know to expect it.

The only pictures I ended up being even remotely happy with are the ones on the right. I do have some of Ze Frank himself, but none worth posting. Oh well, better luck next time, I suppose.

Cats, the victims of amateur photographers.

Ever since I got my camera, I've been itching to visit a zoo. I've always found zoos to be full of potential photography material. Be it people, sights or the animals themselves, there's always something to be found and captured on ye olde camera. I'd visit a different zoo every other day if I could, if only for the pictures.

Unfortunately, with a tight budget, I can't afford to go to the zoo that often. So instead, my cat suffers. Dearly. I'm sure she's tired of the flashes in her face by now, but since she's my only pet right now I'm afraid her suffering will not end any time soon. Plus I think she's just too damn pretty not to be my test subject.



Also, my macro lens arrived! Again, thanks so much to my dad. The bad news is that I seem to be complete rubbish at using it. I've been trying to read up on how to do macro photography, but my lack of a steady hands seems to be ruining most of my efforts. Might be time to invest in a tripod after all. Most of my troubles stem from the fact that I'm so used to inching riiight up to my subject, while my new lens doesn't allow this without losing focus. Weening myself off of autofocus is proving to be hard as well. I've been so spoiled with my automatically crisp pictures.




Anyway, I'll learn eventually. If anyone's got any tips for me, I'm completely open to them. We've all got to start somewhere, and hopefully I'll manage to take my camera somewhere more interesting than my own living room soon.


(see? No spiders at all!)

My new best friend: The Canon EOS 450D

Today I took my new camera out for a spin, and I feel like I'm finally getting the hang of it. I previously worked with a Sony Cyber-shot, but while I was very grateful to have received it at the time, 'the time' was nearly four years ago. And unfortunately, in this day and age, four years is quite a bit for a piece of technology.

Not to mention, with the arrival of SLR cameras, I felt I couldn't keep up anymore. I still loved taking pictures, but the... pezazz was missing. I was beginning to grow tired of my own grainy, pezazzless photography. So when I was notified of a sale on Canons a half-hour trainride away, I threw caution to the wind and spent some of my slow-earned savings on my shiny new toy.

I think my father, who originally had given me the Sony Cyber-shot, was equally excited when I emailed him asking questions about my new camera. He's an excellent photographer himself and gave me some good advice. After which he promptly announced I would be getting some accessories for my birthday, including a macro lens! Sometimes I forget how awesome of a dad I have.

Anyway, rambling aside, I decided creating my first blog would be a good idea all of a sudden. Why, you ask? To encourage me to go out and practice taking pictures wherever, whenever. I would like to have a handful each week (probably the weekends), but we'll see how things work out. To start off with, I've got this lovely little spider on the right. Click the picture if you want to see it in all of its semi-crispy glory.

Oh and arachnophobes, I promise my nex few updates will be considerably less spider-filled.