Camera Dreams


New toy.


As a little girl, I always loved going to my great-grandparent's house. Along with the inevitible cored and cut Granny Smith apple there was always a large stack of National Geographic's to hold my interest.

My great-grandfather was a long time subscriber, often willing to sit with me in my younger years before I was able to read and just look through the pictures. Even as I got older I would run for the magazine stash after rounds of hello's, hugs and kisses. It got to the point where my cousin's would run out to the back yard to play SPUD or some other game but I would stay behind. Loving the stories of far off places like the Australian Outback, hidden little towns in the Swiss Alps or even some new dig going on in the English Highlands.

The colors were mesmerizing. The writing gripping. The pages transforming.

At one point in either middle school or high school I contemplated becoming a photo journalist. Jetting off to the wilds of Africa or watching the sun set in Dehli, India were my idea of a good time. Transferring what I was seeing by both picture and word to the rest of the world. Then I had good sense talked into me. What kind of a living would you make doing that? well meaning relatives asked. Maybe you should stick with what you know. How about becoming a history teacher?

So I did. Or at least I started out with the intention of teaching. That part of my major along with my desire to photograph and travel the world fell away somewhere in my Sophomore year. Oh I love to take pictures but when you don't have anything decent to use of your own, there's only so much you can do.

The camera bug has hit me again. I know I can write, hell, didn't I used to do it at the former job before someone beat the will and love of writing out of me? Didn't I just take some great pictures with Room mate #1's camera while we were on vacay in Williamsburg?

After the first of the year I'm treating myself to a new digital camera. Maybe something simple like the one above or more complex, I'm not sure. What I do know is that I want to start showing the world my view of it. The good, the bad and the ugly.

Besides, since apparently, I need to get myself out there a little more, it just might put me in the right place at the right time to meet, well, Mr. Right. Or Mr. You'll Do. I'll take either one.