I've got a few passions in life. Reading is one of them. Photography is another. You might be able to imagine how devastated I was when my Canon DSLR fell off the tripod when I was trying to play around with night photography. My Canon is nearly 10 years old and I've had new camera lust for a long time. In fact, I'd been camera shopping for awhile, knowing that there was no way I was going to spend money on a camera when I had a fully functioning camera. Then my camera fell. And I swear, it was not deliberate. Not even subliminally deliberate. I really liked my camera.

But... I'd been (online) camera (window) shopping for awhile so it only took me about two weeks to decide that I was going to buy a Sony mirrorless ILCE. (That stands for interchangeable lens something something.) Sight unseen, I placed my order online and waited.

The camera arrived, I had it out of the box with lens attached, battery charged, within a short span of time. After just that first bit of use, I realized that this is a camera much more powerful than any I've ever used before. It could do a lot if only I knew how to do all these things!

It then took me another two weeks to decide that yes, I was going to buy a book to teach me the features of my new camera.

I don't plan to review the how-to book after I'm done reading, but just wanted to put it out there that I'm reading it. With post-its and a pen nearby.

Here's a photo that I took during my first real outing with my new camera.

I might add more photos as I go along. Or might even post about what it's like to try to learn something from a book - not my preferred learning style. I'd much rather someone tell me, show me and have me try all within a span of about 2 minutes.

I do anticipate that much of my daytime reading time will be devoted to this how-to book over the next few weeks. And I wanted you to know.