Jay can’t seem to get that Paul Simon song out of his head. Although it seems appropriate when the next line of the song is “please, don’t take my Kodachrome away” because his skill with a single lens reflex camera goes back to those pre-digital days with his trusty Canon Eos Rebel.

This Christmas Jay got a new Nikon D5200 SLR to replace (or substitute) for his little Canon point and shoot. He had finally had enough ribbing from his professional photographer buddy, Dave, who once asked me “when are you going to get a real camera?” Tanya also encouraged him and suggested that it would be fun to get some higher quality photos of our travels. So Jay bit the bullet and got this groovy new camera and he’s all set. He quickly realized that he had forgotten almost all he’d learned from his photojournalism class 30 years ago. What is an f-stop again? How do you adjust the aperture with the film speed? Oh yeah, we don’t use film anymore. Darn, just when he thought he could revive my darkroom techniques. What’s the rule of thirds? Or was it nines? Anyway, Jay went to the library and got several books on digital photography and even one specifically on his new camera. So, now he’s on a quest to absorb all this new information and become friends with his new tool. He was going to say “new toy” but Dave would surely tell him the “toy” was his point and shoot. We’ll see how this all goes now that Jay has a “real camera”.