Better photography ahead

53. Digital camera course

We bought a Nikon D40 camera in November, 2008. Bedford gives you a coupon book that includes a free digital camera course when you make your purchase there. I've been meaning to get around to that for all these years! Today, I finally did it. I took a 2-hr. "Digital Crash Course" this morning. The nice little teacher guy had as much trouble setting up his Powerpoint presentation as Tri-District women do... but we finally got started after a 20-min. delay. (Seems like if the class started at 9:30, maybe you could check your AV equipment by at least 9:15- hmmm. But he was very nice.) I did learn several new things about all digital cameras, and played around with some of my camera's settings. I definitely know a little more about what all the little icons mean, and I got some good inspirations for setting up interesting shots. Primarily, I am inspired to get the instruction book out and do a little reading :) And maybe check into taking Royce West's photography class at church.

25a. I consider this sort of an update to first #25 (Famous Actor Sighting). Thursday night, Tommie & I went to Lakewood Methodist Church to see Dino (Karsonakis) in concert. He is a very flashy pianist that has played Christian music for decades (he will turn 70 this summer). Though my mother doesn't believe this, I have never been able to play his music :) I was curious to see what he did in concert. This particular concert was apparently scheduled just one week in advance, and promoted at the host church & by way of mouth. I didn't see or hear anything about it, but Brian got an email notice from one of his baseball teammates, whose son is the music director at that church. Just a few degrees of separation there :) Dino is still very dramatic, but he was surprisingly nice and engaged the audience constantly. He played several classical songs, and then broke into "Sunday School" songs and had us sing along. We sang "Do Lord" and "This Little Light of Mine" and "Deep and Wide," complete with hand motions. We also sang some good old hymns, in nice harmony. I enjoyed this concert much more than I expected to!