Sal Enjoys Bedford's Christmas Lights (despite the disaster that ends the evening)

On Saturday my sister and I spent the afternoon baking cookies to send to our brother, and then decided to take Sal to Bedford to see the Christmas lights.  If you read my post from last week you know that I was trying to figure out how to get the best possible pictures of Sal with festive holiday illuminations.  I was not satisfied with the photos I took, so before leaving for Bedford, I spent a few minutes with a book about my camera.  I've had the book for years, but never really read it, because I never needed to.  The camera takes great pictures without help from me, so learning about all of its awesome features wasn't necessary.  Saturday's perusal of the book informed me that my camera has an automatic bracketing feature.  Turn automatic bracketing on and when you press the shutter, the camera will take one picture at the exposure it thinks is ideal, and then one less exposed and one more exposed -- the idea being that one of these shots will be good.  This sounded like a great idea, so I decided to try it -- inside the warm house.  Here is a sequence of three pictures from one press of the shutter button.  (Yes, I have a lighted Hello Kitty in my dining room for the holidays.  And yes, she's hanging around with two gnomes.  I never claimed to be a great interior decorator...)

The camera's preferred exposure.

Less exposed.

More exposed.

I thought the results were pretty cool, so I decided to use automatic bracketing for the Bedford photo shoot.  We made the drive and found a beautiful display on the square.  Bedford has all these wonderful lights because it shares its name with the city in It's a Wonderful Life  --  perhaps the most beloved holiday movie of all time.  (The city in the movie is actually Bedford Falls, but that's close enough to give Bedford a reason to go all out for the holidays.)  The scene was truly enchanting, so despite the bitter cold, we began to figure out some shots and snap away.

Sal isn't in this picture, but I had to take some establishing shots to show how pretty the square looked.  This was taken from across the street.

Another establishing shot.

After taking test pictures at the gazebo last week, I thought it would be a good idea to get a flashlight to shine on Sal, but then I forgot.  I remembered when I was trying to figure out how to take a picture of Sal with this monument.  I tried many pictures of this scene in a vain attempt to get the whole very tall monument -- with statue on top -- into the shot.  It didn't work out, and later I noticed that if the pole Sal is leaning on is straight, the monument looks crooked.  Argh.  Even though this isn't a great picture, I had to include it after all the effort I put into it.

Anne says that this Santa looks a little creepy, and I agree.  The lighting gives a sinister cast to his face, don't you think?

Thanks to a suggestion from Anne, I got this picture of Sal with one of the choir members in the gazebo on the square.  The guy is a bit of a stiff, but that's okay.

When I saw the creche pictured below, I immediately had the naughty idea of putting Sal into the manger.  I mentioned it to Anne, who confessed that she had thought the same thing.  Great minds!  We walked over and saw that the Baby Jesus was molded into the manger, and there was no room for Sal.  (Cue slightly ironic laugh.)  I suggested putting Sal next to Mary instead.  In previous years I have read about pranksters who steal the Baby Jesus from outdoor displays such as this one, so we figured we probably were being photographed by a security camera.  Since we were not doing any harm, however, we had nothing to fear.  Religious folk may believe that what we did was in poor taste, but who could resist such temptation!?  (Ba dum bum.)

I think ukulele music would have been very soothing to a poor baby lying in a manger surrounded by smelly livestock.  What better gift could anyone have brought?  We were merely adding a suitable baby gift to the scene.  (What would make a baby happier -- some gold, frankincense, and myrrh -- or a relaxing lullaby strummed on a ukulele?)

 I think this is a lovely peaceful scene -- and Sal makes it complete!  Too bad there is a light fixture sticking up in the middle of the photo -- but the light it gives is necessary.  Perhaps in the future the fixture could be hidden inside a hollowed out sheep or something.

We took a bunch of other photos after this -- none of which were good enough to use -- and then the disaster portion of the evening began.  The screen on my camera went black.  I turned the camera off and on, but the screen stayed black.  We were afraid that the extreme cold (the high temperature for the day was in the 20s) was affecting the camera, so we went inside a nearby church that was unlocked due to a holiday party.  We were standing inside the door, hoping the camera would recover, when a young man entered.  We ended up having a conversation about ukuleles, and he told us that he knows an 85-year-old man who plays the ukulele at the Rusty Nail in Ravenna.  (I plan to call and see when the man is playing and hope to go see his show.  This might be a fun outing for Sal!)  We found out that this young man was coming to the party to play Santa.  He said that he was "the skinniest guy in the place,"  and was going to have to use lots of pillows to play his part.  (He did look awfully young, thin, and clean-shaven to be Santa, but I'm sure that with the addition of a red suit, white wig, and beard he did a fine job.)  Anne and I went back outside to resume our photo session, but the camera wouldn't work and we were cold anyway, so we got in our cars and went home.

DISASTER UPDATE:  I tried the camera again after I got home and over the next couple of days, and it is truly broken.  I am very sad because I really love this camera!  Since it's several years old it's probably not economical (or perhaps even possible) to get it repaired.  I would have to pay to have it evaluated and then who knows?  If I end up buying a new camera, I wouldn't buy the updated version of my beloved G11, because the G15  doesn't have the swiveling screen that was one of the G11's coolest features.  And unfortunately the camera I would want to buy instead (the Sony NEX6) costs much more than I should spend.  Sigh...

TWO DAYS LATER... HAPPY NEWS!  My techie son suggested that I restore my camera to its original settings to see if that would make the screen come back on.  I tried it and it worked!  Hip Hip Hooray for Christopher!!!