Thousands of historical pics are lost every day to hard drive crashes, lost and stolen cameras, and an assortment of other excuses! The simple truth is people either don't know how to get their pics out of their camera, or what to do once they do get the pic into their computer to view.

Often pics are sent via e-mail but no hard copy of the pic exists except what someone has stored on their computer... until the computer crashes!

I started a class tonight on digital camera photography. I got tired of taking 8 shots of the same thing with various lighting and speed because I have NO idea what I am doing!! Then I have to sort thru all those pics and find the best ones and delete the others. I want to take less and still get a good shot! I do a very hit and miss type shot... I want it to make sense and know when to add light or when to take it away, and how to deal with speed, setting up or posing a shot, and working with black and white...

I was amazed to hear one man say, he got his camera at Christmas (this is October...hummm) and he has taken 5...that's right...5 pics with it... I'm betting he is feeling a little over whelmed with all the bells and whistles!

Another lady said she could take the pics but didn't know how to take them out of the camera...

Funny, I was sitting about 3 rows back... the class has mainly people my age in it (not a bunch of showoffy kids) and the first row has big fat cams with mega lens on them... they just looked heavy and FULL of bells and whistles! They reeked of cost!!

Row two was slightly more modest, with smaller types, some still in their new boxes;..

My row had small $59-99 dollar type! LOL! I found it rather amusing! I have taken MANY pics already and am quite pleased with the auto focus mode... But I still want to set up my shot sometimes.

But now I need to move my pics to a CD so I don't lose them... I had a whole big case of them ... I'm thinking my son and his g/f snagged them when they moved out this summer. Dang them!

If you don't know how to use YOUR digital and it's just sitting on a shelf somewhere, ask a photographer to offer a class thru the YMCA (which is how our class is set up) ...One hour on Mondays for 4 weeks... $25... and you will learn a TON of stuff and get some good use out of your camera.