Well, Duh...
BBC NEWS | Middle East | Al-Qaeda "spurred on" by Iraq war:

Al-Qaeda remains a viable and effective "network of networks" and has been galvanised by the war in Iraq, according to the London-based think tank, the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

But they didn't listen to us, did they, when we marched, held vigils, and told them so a year and a half ago.

A lot of catching up to do. I haven't abandoned you, my friends, you have just become "new camera" widows. Got my Canon A80 yesterday and have been snapping everything in sight -- badly, I might add. Lots of banal closeups of flowers and beach scenes and pictures of my thumb and camera strap. Am pretty sure the camera itself is incapable of taking a really bad picture unless you try hard, and I've been trying very hard. Discovered what I'm sure everyone else has figured out already, that 1) Auto mode is quite good enough for just about everything, and 2) no mode is good enough to photograph artwork.

Since most of what I do (other than my little drawings) is in oil, I've been struggling with the indoor flash problem -- glare on the painting causing weird patches of whiteish overexposure that throws off everything. Some of it can be removed in Photoshop, but it's not the same. Pretty sure I can solve this with the manual controls and better lighting in my studio (which I should have anyway) -- and maybe thoroughly reading the manual -- but where's the fun in that?

And lawn buffs will be happy to know that you can now see my house from the street -- lawnmower returned to me yesterday at a 20 percent higher so-called yearly maintenance than it cost 2 years ago -- yikes -- at this rate is becoming feasible to buy a lawnmower a year and throw the old one away.

So, onward. Will upload some of the better efforts later. Is amazing how your whole perspective on photography changes when you don't have to pay to get film developed. Like going to a buffet where they have all-you-can eat shrimp. You find you can eat rather a lot.

- posted by Cynthia @ 9:09 AM | | | Link |