Yee-ha! I've got a Cowboy Studio!

I have always liked photography, even when I couldn't seem to take a picture of a friend with an Instamatic camera without chopping off her head.  (Ooops.)

When I was in high school, my brother bought an SLR camera. Some Japanese model that started with an M but I can't remember what else. He started taking much better pictures of his friends and I decided that when I got my first job, I'd get a good camera, too.

I my first three SLR cameras were Minoltas, and I loved them. I had lots of lenses, but I've always preferred to take pictures in available light. I took a lot of black-and-white photos in the 90s because I had access to a darkroom and two professional photographers as mentors, although mostly they just taught me printing techniques (something I do today with Photoshop or Gimp2). But now I'm into digital photography.

I always wanted a Nikon, but when I went to buy one, the guy at the counter convinced me to get a Canon. I'm currently on my 2nd Canon EOS Rebel (T3i). Um... the previous one (only about 3 years old) I dropped on a ceramic tile floor, on the day we were fleeing New York City the day Hurricane Sandy hit. (Writers conference.) That was a bad day. : (

Nowadays, I mostly take pictures of my yard sale finds to entertain my Facebook Group Page members. I bought a tabletop Cowboy Studio a few years ago for just that purpose, but it got stuck in a closet and I forgot about it until last week. What a fun toy!  I comes with all kinds of wonderful things like 4 different

colored backdrops (white, black, red, blue), a tabletop camera stand, and dual lights. In it makes my shots look pretty professional, if I say so myself.

So far I've only used it once, for some wonderful Syracuse china teacups  (and a couple of other things) I got at a yard sale, and I was very happy with the results.  It's just that it takes up a lot of room on a table. But I have plans to clear a space in my basement workroom to set up the "studio" and leave it up.

I think my little Cowboy Studio and I are going to have lots of fun in the future.

P.S. Don't you just love the three variations of this china pattern? And I found out there' a fourth! I got a box lot of seven cups and eleven saucers for only $3. What a deal! They're heavy, restaurant china and the pattern is named after the former governor of NY called DeWitt Clinton, who was the father of the Erie Canal. Pretty nifty, huh?

What I did on my Spring Break

Rather than post a ton of pictures here on my blog, I've posted them on my Lorna Facebook pages.  You can find them here.

Just to tease you, here's a group shot of four of the Cozy Chicks (me, top, from left, Heather Webber, Jennifer (JB) Stanley, Leann Sweeney) and our good friend Terri Parsons.

OVERKILL

The other day I bought a new camera. Boy, it's cool! It's a Canon Rebel XS 1000D. So far I've taken nine shots with it. It's soooooo complicated to use, I wonder if I'll ever learn to utilize even a 10th of its capabilities.

Okay, I promised myself if I got a royalty check, I'd treat myself to a new camera. So off we went. I had my heart set on a Nikon, but the guy at the camera store (and a review in USA Today) convinced me that I could be happy with the Canon.
(Besides, Mr. L had a Canon for years, and he'd been very pleased.)

I used to have a Minolta 101 and 201 cameras. I loved them. But when film went the way of the dinosaur, it was time to go digital. For the past four years, I've had a Kodak Easy Share camera, but I wasn't entirely happy with it. It's great for point and shoot situations, but if you want to take close ups -- eh, not so good. So I'll keep using the Easy Share, but I want to take really good pictures, too. And that's where the Canon comes in.

I'm going to try to take the camera with me more often, and go back to taking a lot more shots. I may end up putting some of them up on this blog. (As soon as I learn to download them from the camera.)
So what kind of camera do you have, and how happy are you with it?