Playing with a Real Camera

After over a week of snowy landscape, it's fun to look back on these photos from the day before we received over a foot of snow to blanket everything thing in my yard.  Oh no, there's a fox in the barn yard!  Puck looks like he's up to no good, doesn't he? 

The weather was so nice, that I found myself outside raking up the compost overflow, and picking up little bits of trash that have magically appeared in the corners of my yard.  Some of this trash is food wrappers from foods we've never eaten, toys I've never seen before, and random bits of plastic that I can't identify.  I blame the wind and my messy neighbors, but I know that if I didn't have so much vegetation these bits of garbage wouldn't be able to hide so well in my garden.  It's not until this time of year, when everything has decomposed to a point where I can see the ground again, that the hidden debris is revealed. Can you find Puck snoozing in a weak sun beam in the photo above?  Can you see June inside a tomato cage in the garden bed?   

I took these pictures using a real camera, not my cell phone.  Brandon has a good camera that he uses for photographing art work.  He also has an older "good" camera that I've claimed as my own, even though Brandon was pretty sure my phone camera could take as good a picture.  I wanted to make sure, so I spent some time with the camera taking photos so we could compare.  

I must say, it was fun to play photographer with a camera strapped around my neck, and I enjoyed the ability to zoom in and out with a large lens.  All of sudden my yard sculpture and standing vegetation was very photogenic!

But, the downside is that carrying the camera around the yard was quite cumbersome when it came to doing little spontaneous chores.  Raking was nearly impossible without bumping the camera while I worked, and I missed the ease of sticking my phone in my pocket when I wanted it out of my way.

I like the way this camera could capture some of the atmosphere of the bright but chilly day as sun beams shimmered on the lens.

And because I could zone in without loosing clarity, I was able to catch the chickens taking dust baths without disturbing them.  In the photo above, Pork Fat is giving herself a good shake after rolling around in the dirt.

Also, something about the clear day, or maybe the long focus of the camera, made me more interested in the landscape surrounding my yard.  I normally focus in on my garden or my animals, and crop the surrounding neighborhood from my sight and photos, but with this camera, I was more interested in the long view from many vantage points, like the photo above, from the back porch.  Our neighborhood is old, and most of the houses, mobile homes, and utility lines seem to have been arranged organically, as there was space to place them.  Because our house sits slightly higher than others, when the trees are leafless, our view broadens to include roof tops and distant forests near the river.  From my kitchen window I can see a large pasture with five horses, and hear them snort and whinny.

Overall, I think the real camera was fun to use, but not as practical as my cell phone.  The photos were harder to link to the blog, and the large files size makes them take longer to load.  I may use it anyway sometimes, just so I get a little more respect from my chickens during photo shoots!