First, I have a vacation coming up here quickly, so it’s been on my mind.
Second, and probably more important, not many amusing things have happened to me in the recent past, which severely limits potential new material. (Seriously, why can’t I get elbowed in the face again and get a huge black-eye? Something like that practically writes itself!)
Anyway, for my next vacation I’ll be using a new camera. My old camera, after many years of loyal service taking grainy pictures anytime the lighting wasn’t absolutely ideal, finally conked out. It was a steady companion that always gave its all, but now it’s time for it to go to the camera retirement home, where it’ll lounge around in a stress-free environment, always seemingly low on battery, its zoom failing, its memory card malfunctioning, constantly bragging to the other retired cameras about all of its wacky adventures, each of which grows in scope and duration every time it's told.
You’d think that getting a new camera would be a happy event for me. However, I find it more annoying than anything else, mainly because I now have to figure out how it works. I mean, you’d think I’d purchased a fully functional nuclear reactor or a time machine, based solely on the number of buttons, levers, dials, and screens I now have to deal with. I fully believe that the designers purposely made everything way more complicated than it had to be. Heck, after I’d finally figured out just how to attach the strap to it, I had to lie down for a while to recuperate, as it had been a totally emotionally exhausting experience.
As you might expect, the camera came with a manual about three inches thick. It includes many complicated diagrams and utterly ridiculous paragraphs that were obviously placed there just for fun, in order to see if anybody actually reads it. Here is an example: “Divide the slave units into groups A and B, and change the flash ratio to obtain the desired lighting effect. Refer to your Speedlite’s instruction manual to set one slave unit’s slave ID to A (Group A) and the other slave unit’s ID to B (Group B) and position them as shown in the illustration.”
Ha ha! Right! That makes perfect sense!
To top it off, honest to goodness, the illustration referred to in the above paragraph includes, of all things, a cartoon penguin.
I guess I just don’t get photography.
Now, you may think that I’d be smart about this and take the time to test the camera extensively before I go on vacation. This would include taking a wide variety of pictures in all of the different modes until I figured out what worked and what didn’t.
You’d be wrong.
I don’t test well. I prefer to move right on the real thing and just wing it. Now, I fully realize that means I may mess everything up and come back from vacation with a memory card full of pictures that makes it seem that I spent the whole time inside of a running washing machine, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take.
For you software developers out there, this pretty much sums up my attitude on the matter:
Basically, I’m resigned to the fact that I’m going to be the guy who’s constantly fumbling with his camera, obviously with no idea as to what he’s doing, but much too proud to admit it for fear of feeling like less of a man. I could be holding the camera upside-down and backwards when I accidently hit the self-destruct button, which I’m sure it has since it has a feature for seeming everything, and after it explodes, leaving behind a smoking crater in the ground and consuming my eyebrows, I’ll look around and confidently say, “Yup, just what I thought!”
But none of that really concerns me. If I look foolish, then that’s just the way it’s going to be. People should just mind their own business, anyway. Plus, maybe I like washing machine pictures. And not having eyebrows.
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