Financial crisis made dad a photographer

Taking photoes doesn't make you a photographer. Knowing how to use Photoshop doesn't make you a photographer. But Financial crisis can. Let me tell you why.

Sears photo studio used to be our place for some serious photos, like three month, six month, one year old etc. Never got fooled by taking one or couple shots, then we are done idea. Every time, we ended up with a bundle. They all looked so nice, but they are not cheap. However, we can only get paper copy so that dad had to scan them to share the photoes. What a hassle!

Engineers always think they can do things themselves, if they believe it is worth doing. Dow-Jones evaporated dad's 401K quite a bit. Consumer confidence went down. Everyone is thinking about cutting expense. Dad's company mailing list had a bunch of debates if they should turn off light when they step out of their office. It is a balance of saving bulb or saving electricity. Inspired by these kinds of debate, dad started thinking about how to cut expense at home.

We can not negotiate my tuition and fee in school. Dad is already driving a 35mile/gallon car. We can cut some LUXURY stuff. Going less to restaurants? Tough call as mom and dad do need some help some time. To go food really helps. Cell phone. A good call. Pay as you go is a better choice for mom and dad. They use landline phonte 99%. OK, what else? SEARS PHOTO STUDIO.

Dad equiped himself with a bulky Canon dslr. As his budget doesn't go beyond $2000. Actually it doesn't go beyond $1000. He could only go with EF-S sensor EOS series. Thus, it makes little difference between going with lest expensive XS and most expensive model in this class. At least it is the conclusion after his extensive research as an optoelectronic expert. He can talk to you whole day about this. Believe it or not, he even found the equation of calculating depth of field. Anyway, he is really serious.

OK, now look at what happened. He is obsessed with how to make nice photoes. High performance lens is a must. Kit IS lens is not bad but not great.You need this for that and that for this. Now he figured Canon and Nikon still could make money even if they gave you camera body for free. Lens prices are prohibitive but you need good lens. That is against his original intension of expense cutting. Thanks godness dad's job doesn't need air travel. Otherwise we are going to bankrupt if he wants to make an airplane.

Dad still got time to prove his decision was right or not with his photo product. Microeconomically, he still might save the expense without trading off quality of life. Macroeconomically, U.S. local market lost another piece of share to Japanese manufacturers.

One thing shocked dad is Canon dslr body and lens prices are going up lately rather than going down, which dad took for granted that consumer electronics price should always go down, down, down. Is dollar getting weaker? Man, let's think harder about expense cutting.

















(This picture was taken in a hotel room with Tony, dad shot without using flash. You cannot do it with a point-shot camera. Dad would proudly say)