A Fresh Start

I recently closed my Facebook account. Yes, I know it's hard to believe, but I did. And despite not knowing what all my "friends" are doing at every minute of the day, I'm surprisingly doing OK.  I realized my thoughts were in the form of status updates and every thought I had I wondered if I should post it or not. That's sad. Then my account was hacked and that to me, was a sign. I deleted the account and I do believe I won't be going back. Yes, I'm sure there are things I will miss such as I  have a coworker whose daughter was in labor the day I deleted my account and so I missed that, but hey, I do go to work every weekday, so I'm sure I will get the scoop once I arrive! I also have emails of those that I truly want to keep in contact with. And of course, this blog to share with you what I believe is important for you to know!

One thing I said I wanted to focus more on, besides actually cleaning my house, was my photography. I have a good camera for which I recently purchased a good lens, external flash, and hopefully arriving today or tomorrow, a flash diffuser. I also just signed up to this forum, Digital Photography School. It is a free forum for which they post tips, tutorials, and weekly assignments. I'm very excited to give this a try. I'm hoping with my new equipment, and new knowledge, and now more time thanks to no Facebook, I will start taking better pictures. I think my pictures are OK, some good, some not so good. I would like to improve on them.  I know the fundamentals, but putting them all together overwhelms me. As they say, and who they are, I'm not sure, but practice makes perfect. I don't necessarily want perfection, just a greater more confidant knowledge base to get me the best photos I can. We will be doing some wonderful traveling this summer. I want my photos to bring our trips to you.

I was going to upload some photos I took with my new lens and flash, but for some reason I'm having trouble uploading my photos, but I will have more soon, I promise! I think I may do the weekly lessons from the above forum and post them here. I'm very excited to do this. I do wish the weather would cooperate more though. I was looking forward to going to the local nature preserve and photographing the snow covered trees and trails, but all we are getting is this horrible cold rain that just makes everything muddy and melancholy. It's great that the snow is holding off for the upcoming Super Bowl, but since it's cold, I'd rather have snow. The rain right now does us no good. Even my dogs are tired of it!