Shooting Sally A @ the Nob Hill Shop 'n' Stroll

NOB HILL--Sooner or later in every man's life comes that life changing event. It forces a guy to dig down deep and fundamentally change his "rules of living." It happened to me last night. I was at the Nob Hill Shop 'n' Stroll...doin' more strolling than shopping. As usual I had my little Nikon Coolpix 4800 hanging across my body like a dainty leatherette bandolier. I was not prepared for what happened next: BAD PICTURES!

I couldn't take a decent picture to save my soul! And this morning I did change my life. Before I even had a cup of coffee, I got out the Instruction Book! How's that for immense. And I have only had this camera for one year.

If there was one bad picture that sent me over the edge it had to be the eerie shot of the two ladies from the Salvation Army. Are those auras? Is my lens dirty? Do I need to read the book?

You see I love the Sally A. It goes back to the Mississippi River flood of 1965. I had been piling sandbags on a levee somewhere near Muscatine, Iowa. There were four of us. We were from Chicago...college students who had hitchhiked down to help for a few days before finals. It never quit raining. We were cold, hungry, tired, and slogging our way down the top of this levee out in the middle of nowhere.

And there it was ahead of us in the mud: a little trailer from the Salvation Army serving hot sandwiches and coffee. They were right in the middle of the action...right in the middle of that cold, muddy, wet, bone-chilling weekend...with a hot sandwich and coffee. God bless 'em. And to think that my camera couldn't get a decent shot of those two great women made me sick.

So here I am today, a changed man. I'm drinking coffee with the computer on, the camera next to it, and The Nikon Guide to Digital Photography with the Coolpix 4800 next to that. Check back soon. See if it did any good.

On another subject (but still recorded with the same bad photography) there was a guy and a boy riding around in a dog cart. Those dogs even looked happy! And they pulled the two passengers without any problem whatsoever. Now where is that dog o' mine?