Goddess, I Am.

Every day, I’m shocked by how quickly The Nephew is growing up. It seems like it was only yesterday when we used to take him to the park ’round The Terraces in Ayala so he could learn to walk, back when he was about 10 months old. Today, nearly a year later, his mum and I took him back there, and heavens, I almost had a coronary watching him run around like he owned the place. I just kept thinking about him months ago, how little he was, how he was so unsteady on his feet, and how he fell so often. Now, he’s playing tag with 6-year-olds!

I wish I brought my camera. It was a spur of the moment thing, so I wasn’t able to. It would have been fun to photograph him now that he’s bigger. It would’ve been a treat for his Nana in Canada.

She misses him, she does, and he misses her, too. It just makes me sad thinking that she’s missing out on all the really quirky things he’s doing now. Sometimes I wish I had a camcorder to record every cute little giggle, every funny babble, every silly little thing that he does. He’s such an entertaining little boy! And there’s so much a video camera can do that my limited photography skills just can’t compensate for. Maybe I should start reading camcorder reviews. But then again, I hardly have time to pick up my trusty Nikon these days, let alone shoot videos.

This is me just thinking aloud. I’ve got all the gadgets I need and want right now, and I’ve absolutely no intention of getting another – even a video cam – for the rest of the year.

- Posted using BlogPress on Agrippa, the iPad

Recently, I splurged on yet another gadget, a Nikon D3000. This is because I somehow got it into my head that apart from being a writer, I wanted to be a photographer, too. It’s silly, I know, but after living a lifetime of not being able to afford so much as a stick of gum (okay, I’m exaggerating a bit), I figured I ought to go and seize the day now that I can.

I chose the D3000 because it’s the updated version of the classic (but now defunct) D40, which was the best entry-level camera that ever existed. The D3000 is meant to be fantastic for first-time DSLR users, and I completely agree.

For the record, I’ve never owned a camera before. Ever. I’ve only ever used point-and-shoot models that I’ve had to borrow from family and friends. So when I finally got Caesar (yes, that’s my camera’s name), I felt like a non-smoker who suddenly decided to spend the rest of my life smoking cigars out of the blue – meaning, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.

Of course, the camera came with a manual, but it might as well have been in Swahili for all the help it gave me. I knew nothing about apertures and shutter speeds and ISOs, and oh, what a headache it was!

I’ve had it for nearly a month now, and I’m still not taking the stellar photos that I imagined I would be taking. But I’m getting there. I’m actually STUDYING, believe it or not, and quite diligently, too, much to The Husband’s shock. I bought Scott Kelby’s Digital Photography books (I’m missing Volume 2 out of a series of 3), which I’ve been reading studiously for the past week or so, and I’m actually having fun! The man makes the whole thing sound so easy. I really am learning plenty.

My goal is to learn everything I could before next month’s Hongkong trip so I can take nightscapes so fantastic that people will weep! Okay, that’s a bit much, but you get the picture (no pun intended, honest!).

It’s ambitious, yes. But hey, this is me, so you should be used to that by now (tee hee).

Check out my images efforts in Flickr. Oh, and I now have a photoblog, too.