Focus Forward is where I share my journey in photography. I’ll share the good, the bad, and the ugly, and there’s plenty of all of three.
The week 1 challenge is Story: Rule of Thirds; tell a story using the rule of thirds. This is not as easy as it sounds, especially in a Covid world. We can’t really go interesting places like we usually would, with a lot of people around. We’ve also had a lot of issues getting time…
Dogwood Photography presents a year-long challenge every year. I missed it last year and i was late getting in on it this year. I’m trying to catch up but I’m having trouble finding opportunities to just take pictures. Nevertheless, I’m doing photography. I have a goal to print five of my photos, and this is…
In May of this year, we needed a break from our routine. We hastily threw together a trip to Fort Payne, Alabama, where we’ve stayed before. From a rented cabin in the DeSoto Falls State Park, we availed ourselves of the splendor of the woods, the river, the magnificent falls, and time filled with nothing…
Gear is what makes photography both more fun and more difficult. Lenses and tripods, flash apparatus and hoods can give us a level of creativity beyond just exposing a sensor to light and hoping for something to happen. I only use my iPhone’s camera for quick shots, just to document something, capture a moment to…
Note: originally published June 14, 2016; updated 10/17/2017 for optimization, and new content at the end. Instagram is fun. I like sharing some of my phone photos. And, let’s face facts–fancy filters notwithstanding, a good portion of the photos on Instagram are really simple phone photos. Yes, the latest iPhones and Android phones have…
I love equipment. For reasons beyond my comprehension, I could sit and watch road work equipment all day. I could watch heavy construction gear for hours. Since I’m always on the lookout for things to photograph, my eye is constantly scanning my horizon. Yesterday it fell on this piece of farm gear. Actually it’s not…
I’m always fascinated by patterns. I can’t help but notice them in sight, sound, and concept. So I’ve enjoyed watching our birds grow from baby puffballs into birds with patterned feathers. As I mentioned before, photographing animals can be a challenge, and even a fairly docile peacock, who should be marvelously photogenic, simply won’t stand…
Photographing animals is easy only if the animal is asleep. Otherwise all we have is varying degrees of difficult. Part of being a photographer is being ready to grab a great shot wherever you happen to be. It’s as true for hobbyists as it is for pros. This guy was the king of the hill where…
I was so excited to take my camera to our Youth Conference, which took place last weekend on the beautiful campus of Troy University in Troy, Alabama. And while it is a lovely campus, I didn’t find a lot of compelling shots. I did see things I wanted to photograph so I could remember them,…
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