Imagine There's An Image

My camera, a Canon Digital Rebel just turned a year old. Now you have to be a serious nerd to even think about something like that, but there it is. What made me think about it is that I bought the camera the day before Thanksgiving last year. Now that means I bought it on November 26th, and yesterday, this year's day before Thanksgiving, was only the 24th. So how can it be a year old yet?

That takes me to my late great-aunt Ester, my favorite of my Grandma's sisters. Tante Ester became a widow at age 70 and remarried at 75. Her wedding was on Thanksgiving day, November 27th, 1986.

So every year, of course, we would send Tante Ester and "Uncle" Meier an anniversary card, and I'd try to make sure it would get to Brooklyn by the 27th. In 1991, I sent her card out on Friday the 22nd, figuring that was plenty of time to make sure it would be in her hands by the following Wednesday.

So I called her on the 27th to wish her a happy anniversary, and she said, "Nu, you're a week late!" Tante Ester always thought of her anniversary not as "November 27th," but as "Thanksgiving," and that year, it was on the 21st. I had to admit, in a Jewish-calendar sort of way, it made sense, so likewise, my camera had its first "birthday" yesterday.

Thanksgiving morning last year, I took my brand new camera out for a test run early in the morning at City Dock in Annapolis. Today's featured photo, above, was supposed to be just one of the morning's test shots, but it turned out pretty good, and I've even sold a print or two. I was looking to see how well my new camera and it's cheap-looking kit zoom lens would resolve the fine detail in the rope - quite well indeed as it turned out.

Meanwhile, the composition ain't bad and it even succeeds at being somewhat of an iconically Annapolitan image. The triangle formed by the bowsprit, the jib line, and the right edge of the frame suggest a sailboat - how Annapolis is that! The large lens opening used throws the background out-of-focus, so that the viewer's eye is drawn to to foreground detail.

But even though it's out-of-focus, there is recognizable detail in the background for the Annapoliphile to pick up on, conciously or subconciously. Behind the bowsprit, on the far side of City Dock, we perceive one of several yachts lined up along "Ego Alley", City Dock's local nickname. And finally, Annapolis insiders will recognize the cyan-colored edifice just left of top center to be Ego Alley Tropical Grill.

So today is photographically speaking, an anniversary for me - my first full year using a "serious" digital SLR. I'm grateful for the fact that by late summer, I had earned enough from photo sales to pay for the camera as well as a decent Sigma 70-300mm zoom.

And Now For a Real Thanksgiving Sentiment

It's a great holiday, the best one on the American calendar, I think.

As we were all leaving work yesterday, my co-workers and I, all Americans but born in Korea, India, Germany (that's me) and New Jersey, wished each other a happy Thanksgiving, and we all truly meant it.

I wish you all a blessed Thanksgiving.