New Camera: Meet Stephanie

Hooray, I have finally purchased my first DSLR camera, and what a great one it is. I've now got the Nikon D5000. I was planning on getting the D3000, which has less features than the D5000, and is also significantly cheaper, but after a little investment and advice from my economist father, I was able to gather enough funds to get the D5000.

A friend of mine, Justin, was also on the search for a new camera, and he had set his eyes on the Canon 1000D (after the Canon salesman at John Lewis had lobbied heavily in Canon's favour, pretty much saying Canon was the be all and end all of photography. Period!)

Justin called me up on a wet and overcast Wednesday afternoon, saying he lacked inspiration while writing his essay, and was prepared to buy the Canon that afternoon. Lacking inspiration myself, I considered it an inspired idea to go camera shopping. So I grabbed a jacket and put on my shoes and we went off to John Lewis to buy our respective cameras.

When we got there, we asked the saleswoman if we could handle the Nikon D5000 and the Canon 1000D respectively, she obliged, and I think she was expecting us to ask her a few questions about their functions, little did she know that we had engaged in endless research about the cameras. After about 20 seconds looking at the cameras, we looked at her and said 'We'll take em' She looked back at us, surprised. It was like we were a bunch of young millionaires, buying expensive gadgets on a whim.

She went to the backroom to get the cameras, but when she returned, she only had the Canon in tow. Alas, John Lewis was out of D5000s. She looked disappointed, I looked disappointed. She asked if I would be prepared to wait two weeks for the D5000 to arrive. "Two weeks!!" I thought, "Increíble!!" I needed it now!. So with sad faces we parted (well Justin had a smile on his face) and went right over to Jessops.

Walking right over to the till, I demanded to purchase the D5000, the cashier looked up at me and said, 'would you like to look at it first?' I replied, 'No, that won't be necessary, thank you' ...slightly bemused and amused she went off to get the camera.

There it was, the gold and black packaging gleaming. I was satisfied!

I have a habit of naming my cameras, and this Nikon D5000 has been named: 'Stephanie' (from the Greek: Stefanos, meaning 'Crown') a fitting name I think.

I haven't yet had the oppurtunity to take her out and take pictures of Newcastle (due to adverse weather conditions and academic commitments) but I shall show you a few pictures I took in my room, and a picture of the camera itself.

Lens cap, taken with the D5000

My mugs, taken with the D5000

My street at night, taken with the D5000

Stephanie (my Nikon D5000)

What Babies Have Taught Me

I've been waiting for something of some significance to happen in my life before I got back to blogging, but it seems my life has been going unremarkably well, and that is a good thing of course, no news as they say is good news.

I think we often have our senses primed for drama and grand gestures that we often miss the small 'insignificant' details in our lives. Personally these small details rejuvenate me to some degree, these details make me aware of my humanity, make me grateful and alive! It could be the smile and nod of a stranger on the street, or watching people scurry by with their shopping, listening to a song you haven't heard in a while or looking at really old pictures you had forgotten about.

One of the most humbling feelings I've had lately was holding a month old child in my arms and feeling a sense of serenity I hadn't felt in a long while. The pure innocence of babies is something to envy, they are blank slates that haven't been tainted by the harsh realities of life. In some way it reinforced my personal belief that we all have goodness inside of us, I look at babies as sort of the basic stage of humanity, and to realize that we were once all innocent and pure strengthens my resolve to restore balance and harmony amongst those around me. It would be naive to think that we can return to this 'time of innocence' but I think we can learn a lot about improving interpersonal relationships by observing young children.

We live in a very technological world, where electronic communication often supersedes face-to-face human interaction, and I don't mean to deride electronic communication (I am an avid facebook user afterall) but it has fundamentally changed our behaviour in ways that I'm still coming to terms with. Events that would have only being in our memories 20 years ago are now easily documentable, we have our facebook albums, our msn and skype chatlogs and our saved text messages to always remind us of this interlocking of technology and humanity. We don't need to ask anyone anything any more, because we are expected to Google it first. We lose that longing to pick up the phone and call someone we haven't spoken to in years because we can easily check their facebook pages to see what they've been up to. It is as though we are constantly broadcasting our lives. Life has now become an elaborate technological ritual.

That is why it is so beautiful to see experiences that have no technological substitute, to witness events that remind us of being biological creatures, to see life produce life, human bring forth human. Watching a child suckle, or cry or grab a finger placed in their little hands reminds us of those basic and intrinsic characteristics we have as humans, characteristics that we haven't learnt but are pre-programmed in all of us, these things babies do aren't social rituals, they are primitive signs of life, they are our biological customs if you will, customs that suspend every human social construction be it gender, class, race or nation. Reminding ourselves of our common humanity is the first step in building a better world.

Julian E. Obubo