Shoot

My pal Kaki and I ventured up to an art fair at The Growing Place on Saturday in order to check out the art (loved it!) and learn how to capture the garden with a digital camera.

Walt Anderson, a photographer with the Morton Arboretum, was our instructor.

He is such a down-to-earth guy, he even talked about how to use an iPhone camera. I like a person who doesn't recommend a $42,000 Hasselblad H-4D60 right off the bat. Moreover, he does not eschew the point-and-shoot.

                                                                            Andrew Gould

After a sit-down on camera basics (If you can find a symbol that looks like +/- somewhere on your camera, you will be able to lighten or darken your exposure. I'd like that button in my life, actually), we strolled the property. That's Walt on the right. He was great. (And thank you, Andrew, for sending pictures of our afternoon in the garden. Naperville Now is most appreciative of audience contributions.)

My camera knows how to do way more than I know how to tell it to do, which means I need a lot more camera classwork. But it is hard to resist taking pictures of the gardens at The Growing Place.

A bug was taking a nap inside this rose.

Fox Glove -- enchanting name, no?

Spiky water plants. Couldn't quite manage to capture the shot. Or the exposure.

Artists were everywhere, en plein air painting. Love that.

Kaki and I learned that we need more practice. And, possibly, better memories, so when we are out shooting in the garden, we can remember which buttons help us make the best of it.

Sounds like another good life button, too.