Armand Bayou 02

Though it was staged a bit, at Armand there was ample opportunity for capturing the kinds of rustic scenes that I like. The only thing to battle that day was the midday sun, which was in and out. The clouds passed overhead just long enough to get this shot.

Another thing I had to take care of were two distracting signs above the doorways, which were emblazoned with white letters telling visitors what was inside. I could have cloned them out entirely, but realized it would have taken a bit of time. So I settled for simply darkening them and removing the letters...
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Well, I finally did it. Last night I pushed a button on a computer, and they tell me that about Tuesday a Nikon D300s will arrive at the house. Along with the body, I ordered a nice lens (above kit grade), a strap that doesn't have the camera model emblazoned along its length, a nice set of three Hoya filters (neutral density, ultraviolet haze, and polarized), a lens cleaning kit, and David Busch's guide specific to the model. The only thing yet to purchase is a set of 16-gig memory chips. It would have been easier to group those in with the order last night, but I didn't think of it in time and now will probably go out and buy them separately, risking admonishment on the home front.

I'd like to say that, since it is certifiably a great camera with certifiably great accessories, now I'll have all I need and won't need to spend much in the future. The lens is highly rated - one that supposedly you can slap on and leave it there as a workhorse for 95% of the pictures you'll ever take. We'll see. At any rate, now I'll have a tool that can coax photos that surpass the ones I've been taking since '02, at least in terms of technical quality. At the least I'm looking very much forward to the learning curve as I get used to using a real camera for the first time. At the most having such a tool will spur my creativity to new heights, entering the door to new worlds of opportunities.