Filters

It was impossible to be patient. Hillary scanned the street as she watched the icon on her phone track the delivery truck that would bring her the package. Just as the miniature truck turned on the corner, Hillary heard the familiar sounds of the delivery truck. A rather cute guy hopped down and scanned the box as he made his way to Hillary's door.

"Hey there," Hillary called from the front porch.

"Hello, delivery for Hillary Cummings?"

"Yep, that's me. Do I need to sign?"

"Yes M'aam, right here, just use your finger."

Hillary signed the touch pad and turned to go inside. She heard the truck rumble down the street as she opened the door. Once inside, Hillary grabbed a knife to cut open the package. She was so excited that she nearly cut herself.

Finally, she opened the box and pulled out the next one containing her prize. Carefully, she opened this box and took out the brand new camera she had ordered. It had been an expensive purchase, but she had always wanted to study photography so it was worth it. Hillary took out all the components and began reading the owners manual. Hillary was one of those people who not only read the manual, but studied it. As she read, and played around with the camera, she was excited to find that the camera had come with not only the camera, but two lenses, and two filters.

One lens was just the standard one, but the other was a zoom. That was cool, because Hillary wanted to learn to take wildlife photos like the ones she had seen in National Geographic. Hillary knew just a little bit about filters from her Snapchat app on her phone, but she didn't really understand how to use them on a camera. She turned to the section about taking photos and looked at the filter section. It was full of a lot of technical terminology, but the gist was that you could change how the light affects your subject.

After about thirty minutes of reading about the camera, Hillary decided that the best thing to do would be to take a bunch of random pictures using all the settings and the two different lenses and filters to just test them out. Hillary put on the regular lens first and took a few shots of the vase of flowers on the dining room table. She reviewed them in the small screen on the camera and was fascinated by the clarity of them. Next, she put a red looking filter on the lens. She took a few more pictures of the same vase and reviewed them in the screen. This lens made the reds of the roses much deeper and made the green leaves somewhat muted.

It was a neat effect, but why anyone would want to use it was unclear to Hillary. She hoped that when she went to the workshop the local camera store offered she would get a better idea. Hillary knew she had a lot to learn, but she liked learning new things. She wondered if the red filter would do anything for a picture of a human subject. At any rate, Hillary took the filter and lens off to try out the zoom lens. She carefully placed the heavy lens on and took a few shots of the vase. She then zoomed in on one rose surrounded by baby's breath. The picture looked amazing!

Hillary could see what looked like velvet on the surface of the rose petals, and the baby's breath showed its complex crepe paper folds. Hillary placed the red filter on the lens and took the same shots. It was astounding. The red velvety rose was almost a dark crimson and the white baby's breath was very vibrant and white. Hillary was thrilled. After playing around for a few more shots, Hillary decided to take her camera outside. It was a bright sunny day, so surely she would get some good shots.

Hillary began by taking photos of the flowers in the garden and of the neighbor's cat Morris who was sleeping on his front porch. She used the filter just for fun just to give a different shot and perspective. In the small screen, Morris' green eyes were just visible behind his mostly closed eyelids. That was really neat and a little creepy. Hillary wondered if Morris was vaguely aware of her camera, or perhaps he had heard the shutter click. "Sorry to bother you, Morris," Hillary said aloud. Morris' only response was a slight flicker of the end of his tail.

Hillary smiled and then began walking down the street taking photos of whatever caught her eye. She tried to focus on all the things that were red, because of the filter, and she wanted to look at them later on her computer. She took photos of the fire hydrant, some crepe myrtle trees, a car, a sweater that had been left on a bus stop, and just to see something different, the blue hydrangeas one of her neighbors had planted. After about an hour, Hillary began walking back home when she heard the sound of the delivery truck again.

Hillary watched as the truck stopped and lo and behold, it was the same cute delivery guy. Hillary felt a little weird but she took a photo of the truck with the delivery guy in the background. It was just an impulse, but when Hillary looked at the small screen on the back of her camera, she was surprised to see that the delivery guy was a vibrant red. The truck was red as well. That was really weird, but Hillary chalked it up to her inexperience and something to do with the lighting. She would look again later.

Just at that moment, her neighbor, Morris' owner, came up and said hello. Hillary jumped a little and they both laughed.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," her neighbor said.

"Oh that's okay, I was just testing out my new camera. Would you like to see the cool pictures I took of Morris?"

"Sure, he is such a sweetie," her neighbor replied.

They looked at the photos and on the last one where his eye was showing her neighbor remarked that it made him look like the Hulk. Hillary explained a little bit about how the filter changed that light to make his eyes look greener.

"So the red filter makes green things, greener?"

"Yep, it has something to do with the light spectrum or something. I don't really know, but I'm taking a class to learn more."

"That's cool," said her neighbor. "Well I have to feed Morris so I'll see you later."

"Okay, give him an extra treat from me," Hillary replied.

Later that evening Hillary connected her camera to her computer. She began looking at the photos she took, when once again, there was the picture with the delivery guy and the truck showing up bright red. Hillary zoomed in on the guy, and to her surprise, he was looking directly into the camera. She hadn't noticed that before. The truck was also a bright red, but other than that everything else was its correct color if not more vibrant.

It was weird. Well, she thought, if nothing else, she could ask the camera shop teacher about it.

That night, Hillary had a strange dream. The delivery guy rang her doorbell with a package. She signed for it, and the delivery guy waited for her to open it. To her surprise it was a contract that bound her to the delivery guy for all eternity. When she looked up at him, he was bright red, with green eyes, and a long tail that twitched. Hillary sat bolt upright in her bed. Hillary got up, found her camera and boxed it up. She knew she was overreacting, but she had seen enough movies to know not to play around with things. She resolved to send the camera back in the morning.