Like whoa! Eight plus hours of coverage for the annual event at Sheep Pasture. When I say coverage, I mean I was the 'official' photographer for the New England Bantam Club. Of which my grandfather is president. So really I was only there to photograph the poultry for the website, but I wasn't going to use two rolls on just that.

So glad I brought my camera, too. With the 28mm lens. I wasn't sure I'd need it, but took it at the last second. My main camera was my aunt's K1000 (with 50mm F/1.7), which isn't as bad as I thought it would be, but damn that thing is bare bones. The one thing it desperately needs is a DoF preview button. Of everything that could go wrong, I think that is the biggest possible factor. I took all the photos through an F/1.7 aperture, but it was more around F4 most of the time. I learned to make good use of the DoF scale on the lens, though. Which up until a few weeks ago I had no idea what it was for.

I never tested the camera before either. Here's to hoping it has no light leaks with those deteriorated seals! Mine has no seals and it doesn't leak at all, but I also have a leather case on mine. I don't know how much of a difference that makes.

Ah, the fun part. Well, not fun, but exciting. Nearing the end of the event, some hag came up to me asking if I took pictures of her kids while they were petting the horse. She goes on about how she can't allow me to use the images. "OK, well I don't really need permission." The conversation was a bit longer than that, but she left with saying, "You better be careful. There are laws about that."

Seriously? I'm the one with the camera. I think I should know more about those laws than her. If people would just be nice and ask not to use their image, who is going to be a snob about it and use them? On the other hand, if you're going to upturn your nose and be unnecessarily defensive, well then you've done away with courtesy from the beginning. The whole thing was pointless because I decided I didn't have an angle and didn't take any photos. Which I told her. I kind of laughed behind her back when she left, though.

All-in-all, it was a lot of fun, if not long and tiresome. The topper would be to have at least some of the images come out nice. I had one that looked real good in the viewfinder. Although as I said, I had F/4 or so. Come on, DoF. Work for me.

There were a lot of cool stalls selling things. Things, man! Yeah, two stalls with pens. Hand-made pens! They were so cool. I took pictures of some of them. Bullet pens (really big bullets), a deer antler pen, and a few fancy carved wood designs.

There were some pottery stalls and one woman spinning her own wool. She made scarves and things. I didn't look around too much, but got a shot of her spinning. Although this has nothing to do with the topic at hand, I don't feel like restructuring my paragraphs at this point. A ton of kids came by to hold and pet the chickens. It was kind of funny. They were propositioned to keep them, but I don't think anybody actually took one.

Also, free soup! My uncle's ex-girlfriend was there serving soup with her family. She sent some home with us, with popovers. She was surprised I talked to her, because last I saw her (years ago), I was a lot more shy and always hid when she came over. In closing, huzzah.