“Excuse me?

Why, yes, my camera DOES take great pictures. Thank you for noticing that. You have a keen eye and a very good sense about these things-not everyone does. Well done!

But can I share something with you? I mean no disrespect to my camera but…it didn’t used to take great pictures. I mean, not at all.

I bought it because I’d heard how good these nicer cameras were, so I was expecting great things from mine, but when I got home and opened the box, it didn’t do anything. Nothing at all. For what I paid, I expected it to jump out of the box and work with people to get great expressions and select locations and create natural posing and compose images filled with warmth and beauty and light, but nope. Nada. Zip. Zilch. What a loser it was.

It simply refused to do anything. It just lay there, motionless, like me after my 5th margarita.

I thought it was broken. I even considered taking it back to the store to replace it with one of those nicer cameras that take the Great Pictures.

And then, a thought occurred to me: if the camera was going to take the Great Pictures, I was going to have to show it what to do.
Kind of like a puppy.

And so, I’ve worked with it over the years. We’ve trained together almost every day. It hasn’t been easy. There were times I let it try to do it on its own and sure enough, it blew out the sky or put the wrong part of the image in focus and we had to start over. It was frustrating, but after a lot of hard work and dedication, it’s finally taking those Great Pictures.

So, again, thank you for the compliment and for liking my Great Pictures. It’s taken years of training, but I think, finally, my camera gets it.“
xoxo

About The Author

Lynn Cartia (AKA Missy Mwac) is a photographer/eater of bacon/drinker of vodka and a guide through the murky waters of professional photography. You can follow her social media links here: Facebook, Tumblr. This article was originally published here and shared with permission. Lead image by glasseyes view.

[P.S. Editor note: of course this is not the only response….]