Say Cheese!

Did you know that the famous photography quip "Say cheese", when you want people to make a facial expression for the camera does not work when translated? In Spanish "Decir quesos", French "Dire fromages", Italian "Dire formaggio",Swahili "Wanasema jibini", or even Hungarian "mondjuk sajt", it doesn't cut the mustard. The reason is that the words SAY CHEESE in English makes the lips move close to a smile formation.

What prompted this interesting tidbit? We had our 9th and next to last photography class last night. No, we did not learn about cheese,but we did have an excursion down to the river to take night photos. What I have learned most through the course of the course is that it is an expensive hobby. Last week, we used different lamps for lighting. Our instructor has four different types depending on what you are shooting. He also had these huge rolls of black and white paper that comes down the wall on a pulley system as huge sheets to cover the floor and behind a model as background. Not only do you need the money for such toys, but the space to store it. He is forfeiting one large room of his flat just for the equipment. 

What would have been handy for last night was a tripod. I have a full sized one in storage in NJ. All the good it will do me here. Since we did not have one, we had to use his. Thankfully, one of the other students bought her own. For the first half hour, it was only Ron and I sharing. Then my batteries finally gave out. I had another set already charged, but as we ran out the door, they did not shout out "take us along" from the wall charger, so they were left behind.

The three others in the class are teachers from the American School. They never show up on time! Thirty minutes into our class, they appear. Within the first ten minutes of their arrival, one of them drops her brand new $500 camera. That was the end of her participation. The camera refused to cooperate after that. The two of them decided to go drown their sorrows at a bar.

Ron decided he did not want to play nice with the rest of us, so went off trying to take night shots by holding the camera on the railing. All the while, I was not certain I really cared for my classmates. 

That brings me to the Advanced class this teacher is offering. Another 40,000 Huf is mucho dinero or sok pénz. I need more practice learning where all of the controls are on my Pentax K-x camera. Buying it here, I could not get an instruction manual in English, so I had to download it from the Internet. At 357 pages, I want to learn the basics and then print out the pages I will need to refer to most often.

I did get a couple of nice night shots, making me a happy camper. I have never been able to get a good one before. Hmm...tripod = good night shots. Okay, got it.

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