Who knew that starting a blog would lead to another new interest?  I enjoy illustrating my blog posts with pictures, but my little point and shoot camera has limited capabilities.  So when the marketing gods wooed my husband into upgrading his fancy camera to the next new model, I gladly inherited his old one.  It seemed a prudent way to test the reality of my yearnings.  Would I really invest the time to learn how to use it properly?  Would it be worth lugging around instead of the small lump that so easily fits in my pocket?  Only time will tell.

I have a million pictures of Christmas Day, when it seemed justified to keep shooting photos with my new toy.  I took it to Bentleyville, the huge Christmas light display, and was quite pleased with the way I was able to capture the lights in the dark.

I ventured out at sunset the other night to capture the beautiful colors and enjoyed discovering the long shadows the sun cast across the snow.

And today I headed down to Canal Park where the lighthouses provided a stark white contrast to the deep blue of Lake Superior.  I deemed one picture good enough to grace the top of my blog pages, providing a new wintery theme.  I even tried getting a bit artsy with my shots.  Perhaps I still need a bit of practice on that front.

So far so good.  And I haven’t even ventured off “Auto” mode yet.