Coffee Shop Reflections

I'm madly in love with my camera. No, really -- I still get all fluttery inside and have to fan myself a bit when I think about it.

I hit this point with my photography where my learning curve just skyrocketed. It's happened over the last three or four months, really, within the time I've had my new camera. I think it's because it's a dSLR. It's easy to set all the controls to manual and experiment to see what happens. I know my way around my camera without even looking, and I get instant feedback without having to wait until my film gets developed.

And as with any love affair, I've been noticing lately how different the world looks to me. I dig black and white photography a lot. I'm fairly good at it, I guess, and it's a different way of thinking, a bit like speaking a different language from the one I'm used to. It's just so hard for me to translate my photographic visions from color to black and white.

I've been rediscovering lately, especially on days of nice weather when the sky is rich blue, rather than the blazing white of summertime, how much I like the juxtaposition of rust-red Spanish tiles against a clear blue sky. And though they're frustratingly difficult to find around here, trees with color-changing foliage are stunning -- just beautiful. My best pictures, the ones I count among my favorites, almost all involve color in such a way that I think they'd lose something very important if I were to convert them to black and white.

I took this photo today at lunch, at Little City on the Drag. It's a bit embarrassing when there are photos that need to be taken -- need to be taken -- and I'm someplace with coworkers or friends. I always feel awkward about it, like I'm putting them out while I take pictures. But the light was beautiful from where we sat, so in the middle of the conversation, I got all distracted and antsy and started snapping shots.

I like this one. I dig the backlighting and the colors of the chairs and the placement of the bulbs at the top. And the guy is way hot. Check out that jawline. The lighting in the coffeeshop was beautiful, but not photographically ideal, yet I managed to make the photo look exactly as I remember the scene.

That's harder than it sounds.