February 22, 2020

There was a pretty sunset last night, and I went outside to take pictures.

Looking at the screen on the back of the camera,

I was once again frustrated that the beautiful colors were not showing up,

so I did something really brave....

(for me)

I played with the settings on my camera.

I've tried reading my owner's manual, several times - highlighter in hand, ready to tackle it.

I've never managed to get even halfway through it without feeling like crying,

because it's so complicated and I feel so hopeless in figuring it out.

I was born too early to feel comfortable figuring out how to operate an electronic device

by just playing with it.  :)

But I tried - I tried! - just this once to play, and it really paid off!

I got these two shots with beautiful color in them!

The problem was, I wasn't keeping track of how many pictures I was taking with each setting,

so I had no idea which setting produced these shots.

By the time I had realized this problem, it was too dark to try again last night.

So tonight I went out again at sunset,

a little earlier this time than last night, so there wasn't as much color yet,

but I was cooking and had to work around food on the stove and in the oven.

I took 2 pictures with each setting so I could match up each picture with the right setting.

When I was done, I looked through the pictures I took and when I came to this one,

it was one of the only two with any color in them.

I figured out which setting had produced it, switched the camera back to that setting,

and turned the camera sideways to take the same picture as last night.

And this is what I ended up with.

Argh!!!

I took four pictures sideways, and this is how they all turned out.

It did just occur to me that the angle in these pictures was lower,

as I was hoping to capture the reflection in the pond.

I can't imagine how that would cause such a huge difference, though.

Back to the drawing board.