February 17, 2003

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  JADED (not)

  
  

  As I’m getting to know my new complicated camera, I’m growing to love it.  I know that were I younger I would not have this difficulty learning all its buttons and menus.  It’s not the camera’s fault, not my fault; it’s just the way things are.

  
  

  

  
  

  Here’s an overview of some of the three pounds of jade bits currently taking up space on my worktable.  With the old camera I might have been barely able to focus at that distance, but certainly no closer, and it would not have shown the true colors of the stones.  At one setting, the old point-and-shoot Kodak digital would have rendered it bluish, and at another setting it would have had an orange cast.

  
  

  The new Fuji Finepix S602Zoom doesn’t require me to specify a different light setting for daylight, fluorescent or tungsten.  In that way, it is easier to set than the old one.  I’m looking for every advantage I can find in the new camera, psyching myself up to love it and use it more.  The more I use it, the more I see advantages to using it.

  
  

  

  
  

  This closeup of the little box holding my most recently discovered pairs of stones for earrings would have been a blurry, off-color mess if I had attempted it with the old camera.

  
  

  Above the open box is a stack of eleven more little boxes full of pairs.  I don’t count what I have until I get them into their findings, but each box averages ten or more pairs.  I don’t know how many more boxes of jade I’ll have before I get weary of working on jade and move on to the garnet or to the new stones, tiger’s eye and rhodonite, that are now waiting for me at the post office in Willow.

  
  

  (Aside, to Lisa:  if you’re waiting impatiently for the samples, try to relax.  I won’t be picking out your bits and labeling them until I’ve opened every last bag, so you’ll get the widest possible variety of rocks.)

  
  

  In this shot, you can see some of the other pairs of stones I’ve already selected:  rose quartz, aquamarine, celestite crystals, lapis lazuli, and amethyst.   There will be fewer pairs of them than of jade because the jade, being the quintessential Alaskan stone, is my best seller.  If you look closely, at the upper left corner above, you can also see the Spongebob Squarepants card my great granddaughter Miranda sent me for Christmas.  She’s a great kid, but that relationship is great-grandma to sweet kid:  she’s the daughter of my eldest grandchild.

  
  

  

  
  

  Okay.  If you’ve hung in here with me through all the shop talk and gramma stuff, you deserve a little eye candy for a treat.  This is one of the first images I captured on the new camera, last month.  I see these entwined birch trees out my front window, but today’s view lacks some of the snowy charm that was in the scene last month.

  
  

  Not until today, and with Doug’s help, did I get these pictures saved to my hard drive.  Xanga wasn’t kind when it came to uploading them.  I had to try about three or four times for each one, and more for some of them.  After my work, I feel like I deserve a treat.  And I got one.  My newfound affection for the Fuji, and my growing facility at using it, are ample reward for me.

  
  

  

  • 4:45 pm
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