An Enlightening Experience

A few weeks ago I purchased and then received a light tent. This has completely changed the way I take photos. And I've learned one major thing about myself - I am (or was) scared of light.


Now, I've never been scared of the darkness. Even as a child when I was scared of alligators under my bed (I had a deep blue carpet.... thoughts of sharks appeared later), but this had nothing to do with the dark. When it was time to go to bed, I was able to convince myself that they too were sleeping.


But during the day getting to my room would involve running down the hallway at full speed, making a sharp 90 degree turn at the end of that hallway, and the flinging myself through the air until I landed safely on my bed which was in the middle of my room.


However I digress.....


The first round of photographs I took were a great improvement over those that I took before I had the light tent. However, many members of the European Street Team I know and love were telling me that they were not light enough.


This involved a second round of photography. When this was done, I touched up my photos using my favorite (free) tool: Picasa3. I lightened them so much that I thought they looked unreal. However, my team members cheered me with great energy, saying I had finally got it right.

Had I really? I thought my pictures looked like they were almost touched by the hands of God, light cascading from above.

But apparently there are many who are not agreed with me. The traffic in my stores has soared to almost 3 times what it was before.

And I'm getting hearted. By others than my team members. That too has not happened for quite some time.

So once again I've learned that I do not see the world quite as my fellow man does. Why this surprises me is another good question as I had resigned myself to the fact that I live in a slightly altered universe than many - and feel quite at home here.

Still, I'm starting to get use to the changes, to stretching the walls of my security box. Starting to think: Yeah - that is a really cool picture.