The modern photographic lexicon owes a lot to electronic technology. I’m not just talking about digital cameras; in fact, the technology to which I refer can apply to film as well. This technology is broadly discussed as “post-production,” often simple shortened to “post” on photography web sites. I don’t think this is a particularly good moniker…
Continue reading →One of the most rewarding aspects of my career as a photojournalist is capturing moments in the lives of those around me. It’s also one of the most difficult, because it requires me to be present not only at some of the best moments in people’s lives, but also at some of the worst. These moments…
Continue reading →I am pleased to report that after a hiatus, I am teaching Digital Photography for Beginners at the Pontotoc Technology Center tonight and the next two Monday nights from 6 pm to 9 pm. The class is $75, and walk-ins are welcome.
Continue reading →Photography and the internet are no longer just kissing cousins: they are married. They are so deeply integrated by this point in history that neither can exist without the other. Thus, to succeed in photography, one must master the internet, and to succeed on the internet, one must master photography. I thought about this as…
Continue reading →I have been the sole full-time photographer for the newspaper in my community for 26 years. In that time, I’ve seen and photographed a lot. There have been a huge number of stories to be told, on every emotional level. The community has come to know and appreciate me, and I am usually welcome. Even…
Continue reading →The marriage of photography and electronic technology is an odd one, and consistently takes imaging to unexpected and unpredictable places. In the camera phone era, the dominant photograph in the general public’s portfolio is the “hold-away” selfie, so called because the photographer holds the phone as far as he/she can to snap a self portrait…
Continue reading →Since our newspaper started publishing the quarterly Ada Magazine, and I was named its editor, in late 2007, I have included a feature in it called “Something Beautiful.” Its purpose it to feature an inspiring image of something in our area, either by me, my wife Abby, or from submissions from the community. “Something Beautiful”…
Continue reading →In Intro to Digital Photography, I teach a lot of basics. I point out the effects of changing this, changing that, changing the other, and how best to take advantage of the result. One thing we discussed recently was shutter speed, and everyone had fun waving their hands in front of each other at 1/8th…
Continue reading →Much of the world around us is driven by economics. Exceptions might be institutions like the Smithsonian or the National Archives, but even they are frequently at the mercy of money. That’s a shame, of course, but it’s a reality. In photography, one such reality is that, in the shift from film to digital in…
Continue reading →I’m teaching a beginning digital photography class next week, and 12 of the enrollees are high school yearbook students. It’s fun to have enough people in class, because it can energize the room, but I may find it difficult to convey to high schoolers one of my most important messages: storytelling. I’ve watched high school photographers at…
Continue reading →I’ve been shooting various Independence Day celebrations for my entire career. Our community, Ada, Oklahoma, has a big day-long party in Wintersmith Park. It starts at 7 am with the Fireball Classic 5k/10k run, and ends 14 hours later with a fireworks display over the lake in the park. Many Adans set up tents and…
Continue reading →Smart phone photography, taking pictures with the camera built into a modern multipurpose cellular telephone, is here to stay. Even the most “old school” among us has come to appreciate that the cameras in our phones can replace the point-and-shoot cameras we once toted around, at least in some cases. The good… Smart phones are…
Continue reading →Building a list of my top five favorite portraits was even more difficult than deciding on my top five travel images. For one thing, my portraiture spans a much longer period, reaching all the way back to the early 1980s. Another factor is that I married a woman, Abby, I consider to be among the…
Continue reading →Long before the digital revolution, my friends and I struggled to find the ideal way to express our photographic vision using film. Film was a fickle mistress at best, since it took a fair amount of finesse plus a huge amount of memorization to utilize film. A lot of photographers in the film era settled on…
Continue reading →My editor and I were talking today about some of our friends in journalism who have gone on to bigger news outlets and better pay, “bigger and better things,” in his words. His name is Gene Lehmann, and he is among the best editors I have known. “Everyone here,” he added, “could have gone on…
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