(Originally published September 7, 2003; Page B03, Washington Post, Sunday Outlook)
By Sheryl Van der Leun
LAGUNA BEACH, Calif.
This past summer, I almost lost my husband, the man I love desperately. Not in a car crash. Not to SARS. Not to another woman, and no, not even to golf.
Tragically, I almost lost him to digital photography. I was just this side of becoming a digi-widow. Day after day, night after night, the camera was his de facto companion. He'd be out at all hours, his Nikon Coolpix 5000 strapped around his neck, lens cap dangling, hand intimately caressing the case, thumb ever-quivering above the shutter button.
In the old days, when it was just film, it was never this bad. Back then, he would take pictures like a "normal" person. A roll here. A roll there. But once he started dipping into pixels, well, it was like Fast Times at Digital High.