Last week my dad purchased a used Nikon D70 from his boss. The D70 is one model older than the one I own. Both are over 10 years old. My dad has done film photography all his life (that’s partly how I ended up with so many great film lenses!) and so this was his very first digital SLR. We had a FaceTime session earlier today and we went through every setting to make sure he knew exactly how to work it.
The best part about showing my dad the ins and outs of a DSLR camera was watching his face light up when the image immediately popped up on the camera screen after he took his shot.
Can we stop and chat about this for a moment?
Digital photography in a digital world
I’ve taken a fair share of film photos in my day, but I’ve primarily lived in the digital realm all these years. I was raised on digital imagery. I don’t know anything other than that feeling of instant gratification you get the moment you see the image pop up on the image review screen. It’s an addictive feeling and I honestly don’t know if I’d keep coming back to photography without it.
Well, the sound of the shutter opening and closing is also quite nice 😛
It was such a subtle but obvious reminder of why I love taking photos so much. I want to channel all my energy into that feeling and recognize it as a driving force that keeps me picking up my camera each day. I don’t want to get used to it, or let it fade.
Happy birthday Jack the cat!
On a lighter note, it was my cat’s birthday the other day! Sweet Baby Jacky (okay, his name is Jack) is now four years old. That’s twenty-four in cat years! Phew.
Jack is our child. I give him tough love at times, and Nick babies the heck out of him. We all balance each other quite nicely.
I’ve grown up around family pets all my life, and I’ve had some of my own (hamsters, fish, etc.) but nothing quite like this cat. He sure took us by surprise.
This furry beast who screams across our tiny apartment at record speed in the wee hours of the night. This feline who licks our faces and purrs so aggressively close to us in the mornings when the sun starts to come up. He’s on our phones; in pictures and videos and wallpapers and backgrounds. His toys are everywhere. His FUR is everywhere. Jack’s hair, is eve–ry–wherrrrrrree (a la Dashboard Confessional circa 2002. Anyone? Anyone?!).
(LOOOOOOOOOOOL)
I can’t remember what life was like before he was in ours. And I don’t need or want to. Because he’s here. That’s what matters.
Starting today, I’m officially making a place for Jack on this blog. He deserves it, if only for putting up with us for so long. Happy birthday sweet baby boy!
And now, prepare yourselves, for some gratuitous pictures of our sweet baby boy. The sweetest boy with the sharpest claws. SBJ:
And if you’ve made it this far down the page, you’re probably interested in the story of how we found Jack and how he stole our hearts (…or you can scroll past this and look at some super old pictures of him when he was a kitten!).
The story of One-Eyed Jack
It was September 2013, and Nick and I had decided we were going to adopt a cat. We wanted a girl cat, we wanted to call her Olive. On the weekend we set out to adopt, it just so happened to be the SFSPCA’s 75-year anniversary (or something of that nature) and they were having a big old celebration. Cat adoptions were free. It was hectic and crazy and stressful, and not at all like I’d pictured the day would go.
We happened upon a room with two kittens named after pirates (Jack Sparrow and Black Beard). We didn’t realize until we went in the room to see them that they were both missing one eye each. Jack, who was originally named Black Beard, immediately started crawling up my leg and into my lap, purring loudly. He was a pitiful-looking thing; a scraggly wobbly black and white fur-ball and with a plastic cone around his neck. I turned to Nick and said “Can we take him home?”
I hadn’t planned for any boy cat names and it took us a while to figure out what we’d call him. Moose was in the running, and considering how giant he is now, it might have been more apt of a name. Instead, we opted for One-Eyed Jack as an homage to Twin Peaks, one of our favorite television shows and one of our inspirations for moving to the Pacific Northwest.
The rest is history. We had some good laughs looking back at these photos when selecting them for this post. I can’t believe how small and silly and awkward he was back then. It’s crazy, it feels like it was just yesterday we were bringing him home with us. How time flies.
Nick made this video for Jack’s 1st birthday! 😛
