Pic of the week again!

Pic of the week again!

It’s been a while since I submitted anything to the StackExchange Photography “picture of the week” contest, and the way they handle the contest changed quite a bit since I last participated, but after quite a while in the “queue”, this shot finally bubbled up to the top. Incidentally, just like my last winning shot, […]

Learning by playing

Learning by playing

Among the most basic concepts in photography is exposure, yet it can be among the least intuitive concepts to grasp because of the way aperture, shutter speed and ISO settings combine to affect exposure.  Many different textual and graphical representations of these relationships already exist; among the most popular is the “exposure triangle”.  These days, […]

Basics of Composition: Rule of Thirds

Basics of Composition: Rule of Thirds

Earlier, I started this “Basics of Composition” series with an introduction to the importance of your subject.  In this edition, I’m going to explore the “rule of thirds” — perhaps the best-known rule of photographic composition, as well as the Fibonacci spiral, which is widely considered to be a close relative.  If you didn’t see […]

Just keep swimming

Just keep swimming

I was at a swim meet for my son a couple weeks ago. Various teams often print up t-shirts with motivational sayings on them — usually about swimming, of course, but I saw one that I believe is equally applicable for us “wanna-be” photographers, too: “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard” I […]

The rise of the third parties

A long time ago, I bought a 35mm camera kit — one of those deals where you got a couple of zoom lenses, a bag, and a bunch of other junk.  The telephoto lens that came with it was made by a company called Kalimar; I think it was probably something like an 80-200mm zoom.  […]