Jef got me two amazing accessories for our camera for Christmas. He’s been really supportive this past year (forever really, but this year especially) as I’ve taken photography classes and obsessively studied and asked questions about lighting and composition and exposure. He’s a good teacher and very patient.

The first accessory that I opened was a lens labeled “Semi-Fisheye+Macro”. Huh? How can it be both? I took it out of the package and it’s basically two lenses that you screw ONTO another, existing lens. The interesting part is that you can use them together to create a fisheye effect, or use just the macro part for an extreme closeup. The whole thing is kind of crazy - the effect of the photos, as well as how it looks on the camera (you end up w/ a really long lens w/ both pieces screwed on). Jef admitted it wasn’t a high quality lens, but figured it was something I could play with. Indeed! Photos to come.

Then he handed me another box. Completely unassuming I opened it and saw “Canon, 10mm…”. My eyes teared up. A *real* wide angle lens is something I’ve wanted for a long time, but could never justify because they can be expensive. It’s been saved to my Amazon favorites for over a year and he was very clever in telling me all the reasons why I didn’t need it yet. Cheeky monkey, that one.

It means a lot to me that he believes in what I’m doing enough to buy me something like this. Here are the very first pictures taken w/ the lovely, lovely lens. There is nothing particularly wonderful about these other than they are the first and therefore incredibly special to me.