Chronicles of a reluctant photographer 1

Yesterday I had a great time enjoying photography and being outdoors with other photographers. I don’t consider myself a photographer. I resist this idea a lot. But I took two or three amazing photos over the last two days, and now I think I’m going to open my camera manual and try to sort out a few more things.

The shots that amazed me and a few loyal friends were night and twilight shots. I learned a couple things about how to do those.

Okay, what thrilled me about the above photo was the smoky effect on the water. That was a lot of fun to take the photo and then see it on my camera’s display screen.

I was also startled to discover that I could do this:

(I’m working on my watermark, sorry it’s so intense.) Turns out that my camera can do quite a lot. I think I need to upgrade the memory card, though, because it takes a really long time for the camera to process the long-exposure photos. I can see it getting kind of old to have to wait a couple minutes for each of these night photos to write to the card. There are a couple of minor things I need to purchase to help me with my next baby steps into photography.

Moving along to the sea lions, which is what this post was really supposed to be about.

I thought he was so sweet. Tourists can peer at these sea lions sleeping on the rafters through square viewing portals built into the Santa Cruz pier. And the best part is getting to write pier and peer in the same sentence.

Not really, the best part was getting to enjoy  seeing wild animals being themselves and enjoying life.

I really enjoyed watching this one lolling in the beautiful green sea and sunshine.

May you enjoy your weekend like a sea lion, hanging with your loved ones, sleeping, and absorbing some sunshine.