Feeding My Passion

Rainy day here, hoping to do something weather-related but by the time I got to downtown Merced, the rain was already drying up.So I just walked down Main St. and looked for whatever. Talked with a cigar and tobacco store owner who had a great shop, but no customers for a while, and then too many. So I walked on.

There are a couple of old barber shops on main, with the rotating barber pole out front, big painted cast iron chairs and funny-colored liquids in faceted glass jars, black combs marinating inside. Unlike the first one, Luis and Bob’s Barber Shop was packed, and so in I went.

Elijah Contreraas is rather unhappily getting his hair cut by Luis Velasquez while being held by his mother Abigail. From right, Elijah’s dad Umberto, sister Mariah, Manny Madrid are there for comic relief, if not moral support.

I like the wider shot because of the kid in the foreground (Adam Abarca) and the kid with the lollipop (oops, didn’t get his name), but this photo highlights one of my biggest issues right now. The quality of my CoolPix 5400′s images is very good, better than I had expected for a 6-year-old prosumer digital camera, even at ISO 400, but I don’t have real depth-of-field control, so unless I’m tight enough to truly block the background with my subject, then I get the background, whatever it is. And wow is this one cluttered! Where to look? EVERYWHERE! YAY!

My brother-in-law is going to let me use his Nikon D200 and 17-50mm/2.8. My dad has a very nice 85mm/1.8, and I’ll get it all by Saturday, so I’m very excited. Honestly I’m very grateful to have access to any digital camera since having to shoot film (remember that stuff?) would make this class expensive. And an assignment like our 30-day thing kind of a pain in the butt.