About

I’m an amateur photographer (even that’s a stretch) and engineer residing in the hill country near Austin, TX.  God is my creator and Jesus is my savior.  My wife and I have ten children (seven of whom are still living at home).  Our family is racially mixed — white, hispanic, Apache Indian, “African” African-American, and “American” African-American.  Never a dull moment.  My real job for the past 20+ years has been designing microprocessors.  I like sports, running (OK, I don’t *like* running but I do it anyway), woodworking, camping, hiking…lots of interests.

I really enjoy taking and sharing pictures.  Many authors, bloggers, tipsters, and photographers have helped me improve my photography so I want to give back what I can by helping others (however little that may be at this point).  I really appreciate those photographers who readily share advice and act like they want to help others improve.  My favorite blogs/posts are those where the author gives some background into what they were thinking when they took the shot, how they edited it, and why they made the editing choices they did.  I can’t stand the few photographers who are all to happy to share how they know so much more than you *and* how much of an idiot you are.  See this post for more about why I’m doing this blog.

I don’t have one favorite type of photography.  I enjoy getting up at dawn to capture the sunrise or to get great light for a scene.  I love chasing the kids around the yard with the camera.  It’s fun taking pictures at a party or a wedding.  Photowalks in random spots are great.  I wasn’t overly keen on HDR when first exposed to it but have grown to be captivated by (much of) it.

There are way too many people who deserve mention for improving my photography and enhancing my enjoyment of it.  Way too many to mention all of them.  Kelbytraining.com is a great resource with a large variety of subjects to learn about.  Photo.net has tons of information.

I hope you find at least one thing to learn and/or enjoy on this site.  Please post only comments (and responses to other comments) if they are encouraging to others.  To be clear, I consider critiques to be encouraging when done for the purposes of improving the “critiquee”.  If comments degrade into the “you’re an idiot, I’m better than you, Canon/Nikon sucks” mode they’ll be gone.  Fortunately the online photography community has a very low level of that from what I’ve seen.