What's wrong with this picture?

We have come a long way since the Kodak Instamatic. When launched in 1963, it was revolutionary as it placed cameras that were easy to use, and most important, affordable into the hands of almost everyone who wanted to take pictures.

If you were around back then, you might also remember the flash units required to make the picture a true photograph when shooting indoors. The devices would fit on to the camera and was called the Sylvania Blue Dot Flash Cube. With each cube you could take a total of 4 pictures. The only problem with it occurred after the photos were taken---the cube was really hot to the touch.

Move ahead some 45+ years and photography has made dramatic progress; you now rarely use film, and even though the flash cube is still available on E-bay, the thought of only taking 4 pictures at a time seems impossible. I sometimes take 4 pictures in 1/2 second. But that's what was available back then, and for families around the U.S. and the globe, these photos are found in scrapbooks and picture frames as they did take pretty decent pictures. At least for its day.

Before I became interested in photography I really knew very little about it. I had never heard of the terms, Aperture, f-stop, or shutter speed. I just knew if you pointed the camera and it clicked, you had a photo. Even when I had an SLR (the ones where you can change lenses) I still had no idea what do with it besides put film in, make sure the speed was correct and start shooting. I had many lousy shots with this way of taking photos.

One form of photography I had never heard of until about 2 years ago was "infrared." Whereas I know what the outcome looks like, I still have no idea how it is done. It has something to do with removing a filter that normally blocks the infrared rays. That's all I know. The camera is retrofitted with a device and the outcomes are really cool. I do have an infrared camera but it is not used often. If you do like scenery and are willing to accept that normalcy is not going to occur with this form of photography, you will be very pleased. (The green trees become white, the blue skies are very rich, and the middle colors, well they just come together.)

The photo above was taken in downtown Chicago. I was trying out this camera for the first time down by Millenium Park---one of the problems with the camera, and this brought me back to film days, is you could not see the outcome on the screen. I actually had to wait until I got home and download the pictures! I would like to shoot more photos that are infrared; for me it provides a completely different look at common, everyday, scenes. But isn't that what photography is really all about---looking for the unexpected?

Thanks for stopping by.