Camera Obscura

Maddie is pretty much done with her camera project, and it's really cool.  She enjoying this class quite a bit, and of course learning quite a bit along the way.  We were talking with an old friend today - more on that later - whose wife did rather well as a wedding photographer.  That is a particular set of skills, the ability to recognize a good composition combined with the technical capability to pull off a photo adjusting for camera speed and lighting.  Looking at the photos afterwards takes a while too, as Maddie will spend a good bit of time on this very laptop each Sunday, editing, cropping, and getting things fixed up to her satisfaction.  This wedding photographer friend typically took a few weeks to edit her photos afterwards, this largely because of the other scheduled weddings.  But here comes AI again, artificial intelligence.  This new generation of photographers doesn't need to spend hours fixing photographs anymore, because they just grab the photos that were taken and let AI fix them up.  And just like that, it's done.  It's a challenging season for true photographers, because suddenly it's accessible to everyone with a cell phone.  Suddenly, we're all capable of taking gorgeous pictures with just our phones.  This is one reason why I'm so delighted that Maddie will be visiting the dark room and getting familiar with the smells and sensations of what photography used to be.  I remember the shift from developing film to using digital, and I remember the hassle of chemicals and light exposure risk and all the different steps we went through to get a roll of unprocessed film good to go for using to make pictures with.  Now, we just snap it on a phone and send it to a printer.  Or, in many cases, we don't ever print it, but rathe keep it on a computer or phone.  And of course the future is weird, because there once again is AI, which will create the perfect compositions, and it will get difficult to tell if this was taken somewhere or if it was just a product of a computer's vivid imagination.

Anyway, today we were in Braselton, Mom and I.  We were getting our dinosaur back from a friend who used it for their ministry.  He had it for a while, and to show his gratitude, he treated us to a meal at Cracker Barrel, which was great because it does have some bland selections I can eat.  Not that these are bad - it's just that what I had today wouldn't mess up my stomach too much.  It was a really great meal, in fact.  We sat and talked for a good bit, and then we were on our way home after that.

Maddie got her homework done, and her latest project has been making countless bead bracelets for herself and others.  She spends a great deal of time doing that lately, and thanks to her birthday, she's been gifted with plenty of supplies.  She enjoys making them.  Another thing we're enjoying is our time with "Marvel Superheroes 2," a nice return to the Marvel superheroes that is light and fun and different.  It's just an enjoyable time with our favorite characters.  We're loving this game!

Tonight's feature flick was "Hotel Transylvania 2," continuing our visit with Dracula and his friends.  These cartoons are so much fun.  We read tonight, and it appears as if the attacking brooms have been defeated for now, but there's a flood of water in the park and on top of that, the heroes have been separated.  We'll keep reading, of course.  But tonight, it was time for prayers, and then sleep.