It’s not me!

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How many times did you say that when you were a kid? Especially right after you did something you shouldn’t have.

It was the first phrase I learned. Right after Mommy and Daddy.

It never worked for me. I tried it in grade school but teachers were immune. Back then teachers had the power. If I dared to tell Mom, I’d be in bigger trouble. Those were tough times to grow up. No one sued anyone.

As an adult I still use the phrase but only when it’s true. Like when a stack of cans falls over in a grocery aisle. It definitely wasn’t me. Or the lady’s room stinks. Nope, not me either.

My husband uses it. That’s when it’s helpful to have pets. They take the blame when no one else did it. Things like someone forget to turn out lights. (For heaven’s sake, those cats should turn the lights out when they leave a room!) Or leave a door unlocked.

There is one area that I was starting to think it was me. (Yes, I know so hard to believe.) My pictures stink. You’ve seen them. They are slightly blurry or out of focus or washed out. I routinely use Photoshop just to jack up the mid-tones and adjust the lighting.

I blamed the cats. One was black. Everyone knows that photographing a black cat is like snapping a big hole. Sometimes the only way you know which end you got was to see how many shiny spots there are. Two spots means the front end and one spot means the back-end.

Morgan, the youngest was too quick. She blurred everything.

All this came to a halt after the beloved husband got a new camera. His old one took great pictures but it’s one of those fancy Nikon’s that weighs 80 lbs. I rarely use it. He bought a “pocket camera” with automatic features. It’s similar to mine but takes much better pictures.

After I used it, I knew that it wasn’t me or my cats that were the problem. My eight-year old camera was washing out my shots. Technically the auto feature was snapping them at a slow speed (or so I was told). Neither I nor my cats are steady any longer than a New York nanosecond.

A trip to our camera shop yielded no significant improvement. They made a few tweaks. The speed was faster. The shots are less blurry but still washed out.

A new camera was the answer until I priced them Holy smolies! Using the beloved husband’s turned out to be the more economical solution. (I like cheap solutions especially when it means confiscating someone else’s stuff.)

Here is a photo from the new camera.

Morgan peeking through the stair banisters.

Morgan peeking through the stair banisters.

Maybe I can try this on people!

55 thoughts on “It’s not me!”

  1. I’ve always loved your critter photos. The shot of Morgan is priceless.

    I know I have to work on my camera skills. When we went to Vegas in July, we visited the Valley of Fire. Most of my shots had a bluish tint. Turns out I had the camera on the incandescent setting. Argghhh!

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  2. Love that pirate’s eye of Morgan’s…cameras…have a small one my ex had bought me that’s probably outdated, but still takes great photos. I had a Haselblad way back when. Like toting around a trunk, but back then that’s all there was. All the greats…Avedon, Beaten, Penn…all used those Sherman tanks of cameras. Now, you can hide one in your bra…if you wear one that is 🙂

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  4. Cameras and photography are tricky. Some people just really have an eye for taking spectacular photos and can work miracles with an phone camera. I have a good camera and every now and then I’m tempted to get another lens. But I look at the price and it’s then that I really have to recognize that another lens won’t really give me more skill! Practice might! I think your photo of Morgan is very good. I would definitely encourage you to work up to people shots. 🙂

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    • Truth be told I don’t find people near as interesting as critters. A squirrel was sitting in my crabapple tree having breakfast this morning. I ran in to get my camera. It would have been a good picture. Overcast with a fuzzy squirrel in a beautifully branched tree with a lot of red crabapples. By the time I fiddled with the camera that squirrel was long gone.

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  10. I love Morgan’s picture. Gorgeous shot with personality.
    Cats are difficult subjects. First RC actually looks like a pile of dead leaves and while she will pose and be expressive as husband takes pictures, to me she goes “Your assigned role is food server – not photographer. Kitchen. Now.” And she bunches up into an annoyed furry blob.

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    • Capturing the personality is the hard part. You get it once every 50 pictures. Thank God for digital cameras! Seeing you move out of a servant role into a professional photographer can be scary for RC. After all she can live happily without photos but not without food. Your penance will be an opened can of cat food……

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  11. I love the shiny lip, and the little chin hair whiskers on Morgan – that photo has personality, which are the most fun kind of photo to share. Sweet Morgan! She sort of looks like a little cat burglar (get it?) peeking through the stair rails! LOL

    I’ve never had the knack for learning about camera settings and such, although I did give it the old college try, more or less, one summer. But point and click works best for me. I tend to rely on my camera phone more and more. Just easier. Easy is good. 🙂

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  12. I was an only child so the “it’s not me” line NEVER worked. But I get the drift of what you’re saying. I’m waiting on my new camera which is supposed to be here in the next few days. Sadly I have no kitties to photograph, but I’ll make do with the squirrels out back!

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  13. Love that picture of Morgan, especially the shiny lip. I agree, black cats are the worst to photograph. We’ve had our black cat more than four years and I still don’t have a real good photo of her.

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  15. OMG! That picture of Morgan is gorgeous! I thought your old cat photos were good. Now they’ll be even better. Many, many years ago I developed a brief, shallow interest in photography. By now everything I learned about cameras has gone to the same mysterious place that swallowed most of what I learned about Mandarin. These days I just use my iPhone.

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    • I’m very clumsy with my phone. Need more practice. I took photography in college and had some of my prints in an exhibit. However, that skill is sitting next to your Mandarin skills these days and I don’t have much interest in reviving a lot of it other than better snapshots.

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  16. My all time favorite response for when you’e guilty for something is the always good, “Nothing!!!”

    Cameras mystify me. The more complicated they are, the more settings, the more I get frazzled. But at the same time, I think for reasons of “gadget purity” I also hate using my phone’s camera. It just doesn’t seem right. So I have my $80 lime green Kodak EasyShare, which gets snickers from people every time I take it out of my pocket. I don’t care. The Beloved’s seems to work just fine, so I’m glad you found a good solution.

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    • Good and cheap solution! Nothing was another favorite saying of mine which always followed, “What are you doing?” It doesn’t matter where you grew up, all kids have the same language. The “get out of trouble” language.

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  17. That is a great picture of Morgan. Have you tried shooting in the burst mode (assuming your camera has one)? It’s great for fast-moving things (kids and animals). I shoot with my Nikon when I have time and need a good lense. My iPhone is great for most day-to-day pics and Instagram shots. I have no idea where our point-and-shoot camera is; we have very little use for it now. I’m glad to hear that it wasn’t you.

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    • For that shot I took about 20. At least 5 were the same area, the rest were of the other two cats. One cat closes her eyes for every single shot and the other gave me her backside when the pictures were taken. Photographing cats is an exercise in patience.

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  19. I am notorious for my bad pics. Forget blurry, think more like bodies with half heads, that kind of thing. My trusty iPhone seems to help me take slightly better pics. As a side note, could Morgan be any cuter?? She is so stinkin’ cute!

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    • She is stinkin’ cute. Get’s her out of a lot of trouble. If she was a human she’d be a great drinking buddy. As for photographs, my brother takes good ones. He took pictures of my wedding to my ex. Don’t know what he did but all the pictures had either the groom or me in them. Each picture was half of a frame. There was a message there.

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  20. Well, unfortunately I know it is me! Not my camera. I fancy myself a world-class photographer. However, my pictures are usually not even worth looking at! And, when someone else snaps pictures with my camera they are lovely. But, just once in awhile I do get that great shot. I did not realize your pictures were “doctored” I just thought they were good!

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    • Photoshop is the best. It can cover a variety of lighting issues but it can’t fix a bad picture. They need to have an app for real people (not photos). You know…nice little blur features to mute the wrinkles and perk up your color!

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