Well, I got a pleasant surprise this evening while talking to my 11 year old daughter (featured in the W/NW forum on daughters here), who happened to be looking through some of the multiple photo albums I have filled through the years. After talking about the memories brought out by the pics for a few minutes, she turned to me and said "When can I get a camera and start taking pictures myself?" I then responded that "you are welcome to use one of my trusty Olympus cameras" that she has seen pointed in her direction all her life. She responded "Really? Can you show me how to use it?"
I then got my first OM-1 (which I got in 6th grade) with a 50mm 1.8 lens and spent about 30 minutes with her practicing her focusing, loading the camera, holding the camera and squeezing the shutter release, and discussing how to set the exposure, using shutter speeds and f-stops. She was pretty enthusiastic and listened carefully (she is enthusiastic, upbeat and listens well by nature).
At the end of our discussion, Lauren stated that using the OM-1 seemed alot more complicated than using Mom's camera (a Canon Rebel T3i digital camera) "which does pretty much everything automatically so that you just have to point the camera and press the button." She asked me what the point of using the OM-1 was, given this. I told her that having to set the camera manually makes one think and puts one in control of creative decisions (such as depth of field and whether to have a moving subject blurred or frozen), as opposed to having the camera make all the creative decisions for you. In a response that truly warmed my heart, Lauren thought about this for a moment, nodded her head and said "that makes sense and sounds alot better." She then asked "Can we go out and take pictures together this weekend?"
I am feeling really lucky to have such a great daughter!
