A Glimpse

If you know what you are looking for you can see my grandparent’s farm from the train as you zoom through the countryside. It is easier to see as you are going to Paris since you are better able to time when you look and get the landmarks right. It is visible only for a moment and is a ways up the valley so unless you are innately familiar with the place you probably will miss it but to me it is my last moments of good-bye as I return to Paris. It is that glimpse which would be difficult to capture on camera but that is something that I always look for when arriving or leaving the farm. In some ways that glimpse of the farm is the way I think about taking pictures, I take the same tourist type pictures as everyone else but then I look for that glimpse of something else that gives the feeling of the place that is different from the tourist pictures and might only be visible for a moment in time.

As a photographer I know that all it takes is a moment to capture that perfect image. I would venture to say that most photographers will admit that there are many times when the moment is too fleeting to take the perfect picture but instead individually we have to remember what it looks like and what it meant to us in that time. Those are sometimes the moment that you didn’t have your camera, didn’t have time, or just didn’t feel like it was the right time to take the picture. I have “missed” plenty of amazing pictures in my life but most of them are etched in my memory.

As some of you know until just a few weeks ago I was still an avid “old school” photographer, my camera may have had some automatic settings but it still used film. For this trip to Kenya I decided that it was time for me to venture over to the world of digital photography. I still have my beautiful Cannon Single Lens Reflex, in case I end up deciding that digital is not my cup of tea. My time in France was the first real trial for my new camera, also a Cannon but only a point and shoot. I do love the fact that I can put it in a little bag and carry it everywhere with it weighing me down to much. I like the fact that I get instant feedback on my picture especially when taking pictures of people. I do realize that I am far less discerning in what I take pictures of and that there are still plenty of picture to delete at the end of the day. I haven’t figured out all the settings on my camera yet so that might help me feel like I am still a photographer but for know I just feel like a regular tourist snapping photo on photo of the world around. There is nothing wrong with that kind of photograph it is a wonderful way to remember a trip and share it with others.

I love the fact that with my digital camera I can take a bunch of pictures of my cousins and I out on the town on Friday night and put them on my computer and share them with my grandma on Saturday. The fact that I can post my pictures from Kenya on the internet or here on my blog and you can see it all around the world is a wonderful way for me to be able to share not only in words but also in images my travels. My continued concern with my move to the digital world is that it may require a different kind of photographic eye then with film and that because of that I might be disappointed by my pictures. So far, thankfully, I haven’t been disappointed by my pictures of France and as I start feeling more comfortable with the different features on my camera I imagine I might even find that I can still take pictures that meet my own high standards.

I have posted some of the picture of my trip so far on my Picasa website. There is a link to the pictures to the right or you can click here. Currently, you will find there photos of Loches, a beutiful town and castle ruins in the Loire Valley; photos of Dhumeray, my grandparents farm; and photos of Paris. The Picasa site is where I will be posting various pictures from my trips and other up coming adventures. I will try and add a few comments to the albums so you can identify what you are looking at and where the picture was taken. My favorites might even make it to this blog but a selection of the others will be posted on my Picasa web albums.