Hello everyone!

Hello everyone, I'm Alex, and three days ago I bought my first SLR from a guy I found on kijiji. It's a Ricoh KR-5, and it's been a lot of fun the past few days; I've taken two rolls of ISO 200 print film with some long exposure night shots and some regular daytime shots, just to begin to get used to the different variables like shutter speed and aperture, and so far it's been a lot of fun! I've only got the one standard 50mm lens so far, but I've been eyeing a used 80-200mm zoom in a local camera store. Right now I'm working my way through a roll of slide film. I've got a projector and I'm really excited to see how things turn out!

I've had a couple of "photography experiences" I guess you would call them already...
Yesterday after taking some photos in an empty public park of a bench and some garbage, a police cruiser pulled up to me and my bicycle and explained that they were investigating a compliant about taking pictures in someone's backyard. I was kinda shocked, but explained that I had only been in the park, and after checking my ID, they left me alone and drove off.

Then this afternoon, after a long disappointing walk through a wooded area looking for wildlife, I came across a Canada goose eating grass in another public park area-not even close to the woods! I was so happy to have finally found a worthy subject, so I carefully started to crouch low and slowly work my way closer and closer to the goose. (Not that I wasn't completely obvious to the goose, there were hardly any trees or tall grass around) I managed to take a few shots, and the goose didn't seem to hardly notice me, so I was about to try and get even closer, when suddenly a kid came running up to scare the goose away! It was clear that this kid (maybe 10 or 12) had done this because I was trying to take photos of the bird. I didn't say anything to the kid or her friends -there would have been no point; they wern't about to justify their actions to me with some logical argument- but it left me feeling so angry... oh well, I did end up getting some pretty close up shots of a pair of mallards later on.

Are these sort of experiences common when you're trying to take pictures?
haha.. other than what I've mentioned here, I've been having a fun time with photography.

Anyway, hello everyone, and I look forward to learning more about photography.

Alex