A Home by the River

Last St. Patrick's Day was hot--shorts and tank top weather. Joan and I took in the parade at Grand Ledge, then wandered around downtown--both of us snapping away with our new Nikon 1s. This house is right in GL's heart, overlooking Island Park.

The first days with a new camera are about learning the controls. What do you have to do to change the exposure? What does this dial do? What should the standard setup be? How hard are the menus to navigate? What's the best way to hold the camera? On this day, those questions were more important to me than the photographs.

The electronic viewfinder, in particular, was proving troublesome. Its delays cost me most of my attempted parade shots. I'd see something worth shooting and move my camera to my face. 3 long seconds later the camera would show me the view--after everyone had moved two steps down the road. I'd eventually learn to turn off the V1's screen and use the EVF exclusively, which removes the wait. Eventually. Not on March 17.

I did get some fine pix, though, and learned enough to justify the effort. This photo especially pleases me.

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I started the day with a baker's dozen 366 Snaps shots. They were uniformly dull. While none were technically bad, they were more documentary than interesting. The Village Hall shot really was my best choice.

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This photograph is an outtake from my 2012 photo-a-day project, 366 Snaps. (Well, it would be more accurately described as a photo I took the same day, since it was taken hours after I posted the project shot to Flickr. I'll get back to real outtakes tomorrow.)

Number of project photos taken: 13
Title of "roll:" Home and Downtown
Other photos taken on 3/17/2012: 240 photographs, mostly in downtown Grand Ledge, using the brand-new Nikon 1. About half were of the St. Patrick's Day Parade.