I don't pick up my camera as much as I'd like to nowadays. When I do, I'm generally in no mood to take artistic risks; I want my pictures clear and crisp and my shutter speed fast. I keep the settings firmly on auto and rely a little too heavily on my beloved hot flash. So, this weekend, when I pulled the camera back out of hiding and brushed off the dust, I looked at the wealth of light provided by the overcast sky and decided to leave the flash behind. I maxed out the ISO and set the shutter speed as low as I dared for all the activity I was determined to capture.
I'm not sure how I feel about the results. Especially in contrast to the few indoor pictures that I took, flash, auto, and all, most of the shots look grainy and dark to me. At the same time, they seem a bit more "real," somehow, for their flaws. The realness is a boon, easily as it draws me back to those same moments that each photograph captured, rare highlights in a week chock-full of anxiety, mess, and chaos.
The chaos goes on. The once-flooded basement remains unusable, and progress to make it functional once again has been slow. Days spent primarily enclosed in the small upstairs bedroom feel stifling and unendurable. Upcoming major changes to our family weigh heavily on my mind, related worries darkening my thoughts.
But then there are the pictures. Oh, to live in those pictures. All else is forgotten for a time.
