Last Wednesday, Aerosmith played in the Gelredome XS in Arnhem (Netherlands), and… I was there :-)

Professional cameras aren’t allowed into the venue, but regular point-and-shoots are. My friend had brought her Panasonic to shoot some video, and I borrowed it to take some photos. This is the best result I got, not so bad for a point and shoot I think! I’ve uploaded 5 more to my regular blog.

It does sort of make me want to buy a good point-and-shoot too, so I can pick up my old hobby of photographing bands on stage again. I used to do that very regularly with my old film SLR, sometimes negotiating my way into a regular concert, but mostly just practising in smaller clubs, where the bands are still happy anyone wants to take a picture of them.

Summer is coming :-)

One week since the last photo, but I haven’t even started an ‘official’ 52 project yet. I’ve just noticed a big difference between doing a 365, and well, not doing a 365. With a project that requires you to upload a photo every day, you just take a bunch of photos, pick the best one, and that’s all you have. But now that I’m not obligated to post a photo at all, I find that I’m much more picky. I took lots of photos this week, but somehow I don’t easily find one that I think is ‘worth’ it to be posted. I’m not forced to take a photo and make the best of it. Some of the photos I posted during my 365, were taken without any inspiration, but because I felt I *had* to, I kept going, and sometimes found a way to make something out of nothing.

Another thing, which already started the last months before the end of my 365, is that I’m increasingly thinking I need a new camera. Besides the strange red glow on indoors pictures I mentioned earlier, there are a couple more things that annoy me. One is very recent: the battery compartment door is broken (I shouldn’t have battled a kid while holding the camera and drop it on the floor of course! ;-)), so it needs lots of sticky tape around it to keep it closed, which means no change of batteries when I’m not also carrying a role of sticky tape. Another reason is that I find it very difficult sometimes to get it to focus on what I want. In the photo below, it worked: I was about 7 meters away from the kids, zoomed in, focused on the hands, and as you can see that worked. But more often than not, no matter what I try, the camera will focus on things that are behind my subject. This is especially the case when trying to focus on leaves in trees, when there are of course other branches and leaves behind it. The very small screen on the back of the camera means that I only know for sure if it worked well enough, after downloading the photos to my computer.

And then there’s of course the ‘normal’ limitations of this camera: no faster shutter speed than 1/1000, no longer exposure than 15 seconds, and the diafragm only ranges from 2.8 to 8.

So… I figure I need a new camera, but I can’t seem to choose which one would be good for me. I don’t have the money to get a Canon 5D mkII, (and I think it would be overkill for me), and reading Ken Rockwell’s website I think I might prefer a Nikon over a Canon. But that still doesn’t quite narrow things down enough. Too many options, too many differences between cameras, not to mention too many different prices. Oh, and I would like one that has a live-view screen that flips up, so I can take pics of flowers near the ground without having to lie down on my stomach, which is only fun in summer, and not so much in winter or even just after rainfall.

Anyway – before I bore everyone away, here’s a photo I took yesterday, when out cycling with the kids. I’m not sure why I like this photo – there is no real subject, there is no story in it, but I just liked the light and the composition somehow. The story that is not in the photo, is that the kids were collecting all these little velcro like balls and make them into big ones, all stuck together. For no reason at all. You know, like kids tend to do :-)

Walking in the city today, I saw these people lined up along a set of rails with a camera dolly on it. I have no idea what it was for, whether these people were actors or activists or whatever. They were all silent, looking straight ahead. Both the camera and the microphone would be in front of one person at a time, while the person just looked straight ahead and said nothing. After what seemed to be ages, the person would say something, and then keep quiet again. Dolly rolls on to the next person, and the same thing. Strange.