Camera quality, a diary and Bath

14 June 2013

There's a saying in the photo-world that goes something like this; 'it's not the camera that creates a good photo, it's the photographer'.  But is this really so?  You see, for quite some time I had been using one of those Kodak Instamatic cameras.  The results were acceptable for us at that time.  We went to a car boot sale and I picked up an Olympus 10 SLR with a standard lens.  One of the first shots I did with it was a portrait of our son, Tom.  We took a 10X8 print of the shot to my mother and her first words were, "What camera did you take this one?  It's a lot better than the others you've given me."  She obviously saw a marked difference in the quality of the image.  As it was shot was a so-so shot taken on the spur of the moment but it was obvious that an instamatic hadn't been used.  Our all time favourite photo of Tom was taken on Kodak disc camera; do you remember those?  We got it enlarged to a maximum of 8X6 but the grain in it was all too clear to see.  How much better a shot would it have been if I'd had a SLR to do it?  Of course we will never know but it does beg the depth of truth in that old saying.

Our diary was all to cock this morning.  Jan had two appointments listed, plus one that wasn't listed.  The morning one at a dentist which she had to phone to confirm it, which she did and found she didn't have one.  The one she hadn't put in the diary was for blood test at the GP surgery, which she did go to.  The afternoon appointment was at the Hussy.  When she got there she found out that the letter she took was actually telling her it had been put off for a week.  It's no wonder we're always confused ;-)))

While we were away we had a few hours in Bath and enjoyed it a lot.  Being there for just four hours we couldn't do as much as we would have liked.  But we did get a river boat trip from the famous horse shoe weir ... 

to another weir about 30 minutes up stream ...  

We turned there and headed back.  On the left hand side of the river was saw this ...  

I'm wondering if it is just and illegal camp site or if it belongs to a house holder who spends his summers there.  Not all that safe though; the guy running the trip said that during the recent floods the water reached a level around 13' higher than it was the day we were there.

So, funny time ...

A Native American Chief walks into a trading post and asks for toilet paper.  The clerk says he has three types for sale; unbranded at 40 cents, Andrex at  $1 and Morning Cloud at $2.

Not having a lot of cash he goes for the unbranded roll.  A few hours later he returns to the store and throwing the roll back to the clerk he says the toilet paper was useless.  it's so useless I have named John Wayne.

The clerk was puzzled; "Why John Wayne?" he asks.

"Because it's rough, tough and it won't take no crap off an Indian."