From the start of my career, the photography press recommended using a filter on the front of all my lenses, and my peers always used a filter on the front of all their lenses. This filter was usually an ultra-violet (UV) blocking filter, but once in a while, especially early in my career, a “skylight”…
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I had another great night at the Oklahoma Press Association’s annual convention June 6. I received first and second place for education story, first second and third place for feature photograph, first and third place for news photograph, first second and third place for photo essay, and first place for sports photograph. ______________________________ Props to…
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I’ve never been shy about suggesting to my readers that the act of updating, migrating, and curating old photographic content is important. A phrase popped into my head the other day that went something like, “No one has ever taped a Facebook post into a scrapbook.” It is a sobering, even depressing, truth that social…
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Something calls to us when we see or hear something that feels or looks innocent. It’s true when we are falling in love, listening to beautiful music, or, in today’s topic, interacting with and photographing babies and animals. My next door neighbor Mike Nipps loves keeping chickens, ducks, guinea fowl, dogs, and one grumpy goat….
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It has been a raining off and on this week. Instead of last year’s endless parade of severe thunderstorms, this week has mostly featured quiet, steady, intermittent showers. I have already made three walks in the rain, one with our summer intern Sara Mearns to get to a house fire, and two with my Chihuahua….
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When the Artemis II mission to fly astronauts to the moon was being prepared for launch, the internet photography media, and its readers, were losing their minds about the astronauts being equipped with “10-year-old technology.” The technology in question is the Nikon D5, a digital single-lens-reflex design that represented the top of the line when…
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Are you a photographer, or a shopper? Are you an artist, or a dilettante? Do you really want to make pictures, or are you following the crowd? Are you into photography for the right reasons? I’m going to go down a rabbit hole here – or possibly open a can of worms – whichever analogy…
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Last week I discussed my Uncle Wes’ Canon FTb, a gift to me from his daughter, my Cousin Lori. In the same box she gave me was a much older, odder camera, the Canon II. This camera came out of the post-war period of the twentieth century when camera names were pretty straightforward, unlike today’s…
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I was attracted to photography since I was a young kid. The first camera that I owned myself (meaning not my family’s shared camera) was a Yashica GSN Electro 35. A lot of us had this camera in the 1970s because it was cheap, and made great images if you knew what you were doing….
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Spring is about to spring forth, and with it, color. Photographers across the northern hemisphere will pull their cameras out, charge their batteries, format their storage media, and generally “suit up” for the coming weeks. It’s a time of brown grass turning green, flowers and trees blooming, outdoor gatherings that include Easter and Ada’s excellent…
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My readers know that one of my favorite things about photography is lenses. One of my favorite lenses, which I have talked about before, is the 85mm focal length. I love it for any number of different situations. For some of the now-ending basketball season, I shot basketball action with it. I love it for…
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In my current class at Pontotoc Technology Center, my students all have new Canon mirrorless cameras. The mirrorless scene is an interesting and exciting evolution in photography, one made possible by the fusion of digital imaging sensors and the instant read-and-feed technology that lives in our smart phones. Because mirrorless cameras don’t have mirrors, the…
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I think cameras are better that smartphone cameras. I know, I know. Smartphone cameras are great, and I admit I use my smartphone for work almost every day. But here’s why I think cameras are better than smartphone: the experience. I’ve been using a smartphone for my news and sports work for as long as…
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I have bought and sold a few lenses in my day. Many of my favorite lenses, like the beautiful manual-focus Nikkor 105mm f/1.8 and Nikkor 24mm f/2.0, simply wore out, a testament to the fact that they were so great, so I used them all the time. Other lenses were not as great, some were…
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Photographers can be a little obsessive. They worry and fret about lighting, content, image quality, location, time of day, access, lenses, cameras, and much more. It is hard for us to switch off the inner photographer and just relax and enjoy the moment. Even when we are not the photographer, like when a close friend…
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