By now it should be apparent that I don't update this journal very often. Sometimes I can't think of anything worth saying here that I don't say on my other journals, so I don't.

In the past two weeks I've had a change in my photographic career. Sadly I'm not going professional or anything, but I've been forced to upgrade my camera due to a sad accident.

When I was in Guatemala on a missions trip with my church, I used my Canon S2 just about every day. I documented our flight there and all of the steps of our construction of a 10' x 14' house for a local family. I took pictures of the Vacation Bible School we ran there and of our adventures around the town. The last day I took pictures of our trip to Antigua, a larger town near where we were working. About 5:00, the zoom barrel on my S2 started getting stuck in the extended position. After turning the camera on and off a few times, it would often fix itself, and I would continue taking pictures. Around 5:30, however, it was permanently stuck. Try as I might, I couldn't get it to retract, and thus I could no longer take pictures with it.

When I returned to the States, I had it looked at at a camera shop, and they said it could be fixed for about half of the price of a new camera. This made me sad, as I'd had my S2 for about 2 years and taken over 10,000 pictures with it.

I went for a week without a camera before finally breaking down and buying a new one. I really liked the controls and pictures I could take with the S2, but I also really wanted to upgrade to a full DSLR rather than a point and shoot. I looked at all the options available (Nikons, Canons, and Sonys), but none of them just felt right in my hands. As I posted my pictures from Guatemala, I realized that though I could get better pictures from a DSLR, the ones I was getting from my S2 were sufficient.

I ended up buying the Canon S5 IS, the successor to the successor to the S2. It's not that different from the S2, other than it can shoot 8 MP pictures instead of 5 MP, and it has a hot seat on the top for an external flash. I tried using an external flash with it, and the flash was both bigger and heavier than the camera itself. I probably won't use it very much.

I guess that's it for now. I'm still in the market for a DSLR to use for artistic shots and potentially senior pictures/portraits. I'm not exactly sure which one I'll get, but the Nikon D80 and D200 are pretty high up on the list. I'll keep looking and hopefully get one at the end of the year.

Since I don't write here very often, I thought I'd just give a brief update on what's been going on.

Since my last post, I've moved to another city that seems like it should have a lot to take pictures of. The sad thing is that I no longer have as much time to take pictures. I've shot a few series around town, but nothing turned out spectacularly. The few shots I've posted have come from my weekend outings, either with my community group or with the guys from work.

An update on my camera, I've been looking at upgrading to a Nikon D80 or Canon XTi, but they're both out of my price range for the time being. For now I've just been trying to get as much out of my Canon S2 IS as I can. I went to Collier's Drug (of all places) and bought a DigiLine tripod on sale for $20, which has helped me take a few more night shots. Even though it was cheap, it seems fairly sturdy, and its compact size helps me get into some strange places for shots. I'll probably get a better tripod when I get a new camera, since this one is pretty small and probably only suitable for lighter cameras.

I guess that's about it. Perhaps I'll actually post again before winter.

Well here I go disappearing for a month at a time (I look at all my watches every day, I swear!) and then coming back with a huge amount of pics. I can't believe it took 30 minutes to post all of them. Anyway, since I've been gone, I went to the Fayetteville AirFest, shot a few flowers around the house, and captured a bunch of fireworks shots at the local festival on the 4th. I decided to make them a fireworks series since I had so many turn out wonderfully.

My favorites are definitely the Tesla subseries. I'm not sure how I got the timing right on my camera to shoot a firework just as it explodes and then capture it streaming out. I mostly just set my S2 IS on fireworks mode (I knew it was there for a reason) and let it manage the exposures and color. I think most of my shots were on 2 second exposures.

Well I guess that's it. I'll try not to go so long in between postings, but I plan on moving into an apartment shortly, so I may be gone for another while. The apartment's in a great location, though, so I should be able to get some good shots there.

Well now my site has over 1000 views! Thanks everyone! It's only taken me just over a year, too. Thanks for your support.

Well it's been a while since I've posted...again. Since this is senior year, I've been working on finding a job and finishing the end-of-year projects. It's too bad none of them are extremely photoworthy.

Since Spring is here, I'll try to keep taking shots of new things on campus. I think I'm gonna miss the diversity here...