practice makes ... better...

my vocal instructor in highschool always told me that the "practice makes perfect" idiom was incorrect. the truth is that there's no such thing as perfect in music - there is well-executed, there is good pitch, there is good rhythm, there is good emotion, but there's no perfect. so she always said "perfect makes perfect. practice makes better."

so, this is my mantra this week. the photography shoot went well on saturday - the lighting was great, my subjects were in fine form, but there are some "trouble spots" of my own technique that were my downfall. (don't worry, allie, we still got quite a few very nice photos... just not as many as i'd wanted, and none that are perfect to my all-too-critical eye...)

i've been majorly jonesing for a new camera - you know the one. last week, i had a little meltdown... kinda silly... really silly... but i just feel very restricted with my current camera - i can't function in low-light situations, which seriously bums me out, and if i ever want to go really pro, i need to have good equipment (but i can't afford good equipment until i am making money off of it). this is frustrating. very, very much so.

matt knows how important this is to me and was almost moping last night because he wants to buy me this camera, and yet neither of us are willing to do it on credit (i'll thank me for that later) and we don't have the cash (and if we did, we certainly wouldn't be able to justify blowing it on a new camera). so i guess i'm just mopey.

until then, practice makes better... i'm determined to master my camera, even if it is restrictive. once i have it mastered, maybe i'll be able to trade up. my first assignment is rocks - to capture the relationship of a rock in it's environment. sounds kinda dull, huh? eh.

matt said he wished he could do something to help me improve in the areas i want to improve. i told him he can let me practice on him. i told him he could buy me a bigger memory card (ok, that a was purely selfish request and had nothing to do with improvement.) i told him he could go hiking with me to a local stream so that i can take some pictures of some boring old rocks. but mostly, i told him, he should not forget how important this is to him right now - so that when we can afford it, i don't have to battle to get my camera. :D

boy i'm whiny today. sorry about that.