As some of my loyal readers may have noticed, I am not the world’s most proficient photographer. And while I have not studied the art of photography, I have learned from that bad lighting does nothing to enhance the quality of photos.

As such, I frequently find myself feverishly completing what I hope will be the last few stitches and weaving in ends between the hours of 5pm and 7pm in the hope that I will get a picture taken before the sun has completely set. And while I appreciate the lengthening days of spring, I realize that all too soon the days will once again be getting shorter, and wonder what will I do then?

Tuesday I finished my mother’s Mother’s Day present well after dark with no hope of daylight for another 12 hours.

I had, as usual, meant to get it done earlier, and, also as usual, earlier didn’t happen.

One happy difference was that I had gotten my own Mother’s Day present: a SunPak 620-eBox Portable Mini Studio.

It is pretty much exactly as described, portable and mini, and it all folds up neatly into sort of portfolio that is easy to store.

All that, and I can now take pictures at night.

As Fate and the technology demons would have it, this was the perfect moment to smite me and demonstrate their power against a mere mortal and they did two things:

The first was to totally mess with the template for my blog; but it turns out, that was just a distraction from what for me was the more vexing problem.

The second was to make it impossible for me to use the series of steps I had previously used to upload photos, and instead left me with only one readily available alternative that required my husband to teach me how to use some html code.

I didn’t totally freak out, but I wanted to. As my husband patiently walked me through the steps showing me where to insert the necessary code, my head quickly filled to bursting, much like SpongeBob when Squidward tasked him with learning how to run a fancy restaurant in twenty minutes. However, I was able to retain what was absolutely essential, and with my newly “expanded” skill set, I was able to upload these photos I took using my new SunPak:

Clearly, I still have a lot to learn with regard to taking photos, but I am happy with what I was able to do.

Today is a new day. My hope is that the technology demons will find themselves busy humbling someone other than myself.