I went out and shot a couple of rolls of film yesterday for my first assignment. I went to Brookside Gardens, which is a combination botanical garden/park/wildlife (mostly deer) refuge near my house. There are tons of incredible flowers and trees, in every season, and I knew there would be opportunities for good shots. I screwed up the film the first time, which isn't surprising, since I don't think I've ever shot from a manual camera. I had several automatic 35mms as a child and young adult, and have already killed a low-end Gateway digital, but this is my first time getting really acquainted with a manual 35mm SLR.

I wonder if the fact that I'm actually reading and referring to the instruction manual multiple times means that I'm maturing.

It's amazing how people think you know what you're doing when you have a camera like this. They even get out of my way sometimes, which is fine, because how often does that happen? I've never walked around purposefully with a camera, except for pathetic attempts at taking photos at food shows when I had to be my own photographer as well as reporter. This is very different. I have a concept of control over light and shadow (just a concept, mind you. It's too soon for me to have stored any of these settings, when I'm still confused over what number matches "over" and "under" exposed, and what that actually means in terms of what a photo looks like.) And using a good lens is like heaven. It's not surprising that photographers rapidly turn into lens and equipment freaks. I mean, since when do I care about accessorizing anything? I so don't, usually.

I stalked a bee who was ravaging the petunias, a big huge BUMBLEBEE, the likes of which I haven't seen in years. He was completely serious about his activities, and I was quickly obsessed with capturing him as he was. It's hard. Stalking moving creatures is actually the perfect activity for me - pursuer of the impossible dream, believer in that which appears completely unstable. The place was packed with bees and butterflies going completely berserk at afternoon tea time, and it was fun in a way that only the most obsessive compulsive side of my brain can appreciate to try to capture them in motion just for a minute.

I was doing this exercise where you have to find the perfect light exposure with your camera's built-in light meter, take a shot, and then take two more essentially "wrong" shots, with the aperture changed up on one side and down on the other. So you have to take three shots of the same scene, with the hope that whatever you're shooting will remain fairly stable for the minute or so it takes to do this. Of course focus changes with every tiny shift, so you have to adjust it each time, in which time your average pissed off bumblebee will need to shift petunias, therefore wrecking the whole perfect shot. I think next time I'm going to stick with broken down buildings or road signs - things that don't move, at least for now.

After the bumblebee situation, I ended up in this section called "the fairy garden", which includes several antique-looking books on stands in the ground (it's hard to explain) each with the page open to a poem about a flower fairy. And of course the flowers they mention are planted in the area where the particular book is. I tried several times to get a most excellent shot of the Lavender Fairy in the lavender patch (partially because of how it looked, but partially because I am a music geek and Marillion's "Lavender" is one of my favorite old songs, and the rhyme it's based on was printed in the book.). It almost worked - not especially well - because just at that time the afternoon sun was dipping down, in the way it's been doing as September rolls on...more hazy all of a sudden than bright. When I photographed the Grand Canyon, it was with an automatic digital, and the photos came out so well. I can only imagine what a light meter could help you do out there. Amazing. I saw people out there on the points along the rim trail, set up with tripods, just sitting, focusing, waiting, at different times of day...It occurs to me now that they were waiting for the light to change.

As I was trying to take the lavender fairy photos, two little boys ran up and down through the fairy garden, screaming out "konichiwa". It was very weird - and very cool. It struck me in many ways as the most perfect afternoon in quite a while.