Seasons Greetings

Seasons Greetings, originally uploaded by http://andrewskelton.net.

I had a good sort through my camera gear yesterday (well, I actually needed to have a tidy up, so it was more a case of transferring all my camera gear from the various rooms i’ve managed to distribute it to, back into the cupboard where it actually should reside), and had the bright idea that one of my old digital cameras, currently festering in my box of redundant equipment (but not made it to the Elephant Camera Grave Yard yet – it’s in the room, but no-one want’s to talk about it), could be a good starter camera for my son. I bought the Olympus E20-P just prior to my world trip in 2002 as I had outgrown it’s stablemate, the C3000z. Both cameras seem rather pitiful in their specifications these days especially at the price I paid for them, the E20-P cost me an eye watering £1200 but it was the cheapest dSLR camera available at the time. Now, let’s clarify something – this camera is an dSLR but it doesn’t have interchangeable lenses – which most people think makes an SLR an SLR. SLR stands for single lens reflex, a term that was coined in the early days of photography when there were twin lens reflex cameras as well as range finders. The E20-P has a single, non-detachable lens – though rather than the traditional mirror the E20-P utilises some clever prisms that allows the image to be transferred to the traditional view finder as well as to the sensor (the reflex part does refer to mirror, so you could take issue with this categorisation). Sure, the camera is slower than the Awesome-ator, it has a relatively low resolution (5Mpixels) and as for ISO, well it produces more grain than Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois and Ohio put together.. but it’s still a great little camera and one I hope he will enjoy using as much as I did at the time.

Christmas has snook up rather quickly but thank fully I’m all set when it comes to presents (and don’t need the fear instilled (or distilled even) by leaving present shopping until the 24th December for gift idea inspiration) but I’m sadly lacking when it comes to photos and photo opportunities. I had a long discussion with a professional photographer yesterday, from which I decided that I really need to carry my camera around with me at all times. It’s no good paying witness to some once-in-a-life-time event if I don’t have a camera to hand (though of course I could always write about the event) so it’s now going where ever I go.. apart from in the shower… oh, and swimming, there’s no point taking it swimming… the toilet, of course that’s excluded, that goes without saying… probably don’t need it when I’m cutting the grass. Well, you know what I mean don’t you.

Twelve days, after today, that’s all I have left to complete my 2011 New Year’s Resolution, a Blog-A-Day and I can’t quite believe I’ve seen it through this far such was the enormity of the task back in the early days of January. The early days, whilst taking the same amount of time to write, averaged around a pitiful 250 words – today that’s the length of the opening paragraph! I’m now up to an average of 750 words per day and writing has become much easier.. .well, when I’ve not got the TV on to derail my train of thought. To say I’m proud of my achievement (I am counting, photographing, and probably managing another 750 word essay on my chickens whilst they are still in egg form) is a bit of an understatement – and whilst I suspect producing a 365 paged version of it in printed form I will be doubly as proud of it in book form. I don’t think, even if I could, that I’ll be giving up blogging totally in 2012, but you will forgive me, Dear Reader, if I take a couple of days off – it has been relentless at times and at times I’ve needed relentless to get me through another blog.

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