New Camera!

Today my new camera came :-)

As you can't take a picture of a camera without another camera (which I'm still lacking) I pinched this one from the net:

It's the Olympus E500, my first Digital SLR. Luckily it arrived at my work while Nathalie and Michelle were both there - they are photo pros and were able to explain to me all the tricky stuff (like how to put the lens on ;-))

The course is going to be fantastic - I'm working through the first week's assignments including the Flickr task. Below are a few of the shots I found to comment on.

We had to pick photos that we found particularly striking - they could be anything. As I mentioned before, I am discovering definite things I like to see in photos. I like B&W, very minimalistic photos (think the opposite of those Impossibles puzzles), close ups of flowers and foliage and shoes. Well I never denied that I like shoes.

I think the thing I like most about these two photos is the fact that the legs are disembodied. They came from different photographers in a random browsing session but both focus on a body part which is often passed over in favour of faces and torsos. They are both taken at quite odd angles - standing on the desk and lying prone. Not quite where you'd expect to see legs.

This is the kind of minimalistic picture I am growing to love. In fact, thinking back, it's quite similar to an oil painting I bought once in Thailand and never got around to framing. I like the way there's the merest hint of buildings peeping through the mist at the back.

The obligatory flower close-up. I'm not sure I like the two black fields on the left - one would probably be better, less symmetry.

Once it stops raining I'll take the camera out and get to work on the main assignment.