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If you want to learn about aper­ture, f‑stops, shut­ter speeds, ISO, and HDR, this web­site is not for you. I write arti­cles for peo­ple who just want to take bet­ter pho­tos with their phone cam­eras, not who want to learn to be pro­fes­sion­al photographers.

This web­site is about learn­ing to use your phone cam­eras and hav­ing more suc­cess and more fun shoot­ing pho­tos. I’m a life­long pho­tog­ra­ph­er, although not a pro­fes­sion­al. I’ve co-authored one pho­tog­ra­phy book, eBay Pho­tog­ra­phy the Smart Way (pub­lished by Ama­com) with a pro­fes­sion­al photographer.

Although I used a Sam­sung Galaxy S1 smart­phone for two years, I didn’t pay much atten­tion to the cam­era inside it. I’ve always had a typ­i­cal three-pound pro­fes­sion­al cam­era  (cur­rent­ly a Sony A7 II) and a nice point & shoot (cur­rent­ly a Sony water­proof TX30) which I’ve enjoyed. So I didn’t take the S1 seri­ous­ly. When I upgrad­ed to the S3, how­ev­er, I real­ized that an 8 MP cam­era inside a phone is not a triv­ial thing. So I start­ed shoot­ing a lot with it. What great fun! I now regret that I didn’t shoot more with the cam­era in my S1. I missed a lot of good photos.

In the past five years, I’ve done a lot of shoot­ing with my cam­eras, about half of it with the Sam­sung S3, S5, and S6. It was a busy time in 2013 when I start­ed. Fam­i­ly mat­ters took me from the San Fran­cis­co Bay Area, where I live, to Ari­zona, New Mex­i­co, Col­orado, Okla­homa City, and oth­er places in Cal­i­for­nia. Sel­dom have I trav­eled so much. And the S3 was a wel­come com­pan­ion. I’ve used my Sam­sung phone cam­eras as well as my wife’s iPhones many times since, although I haven’t trav­eled quite as much as I did in 2013.

Much of this web­site will be based on what I’ve learned as a life-long pho­tog­ra­ph­er and late­ly an earnest phone cam­era user. Much will be based on learn­ing and using new techniques.

Look at the menu on the right side (at the bottom for smartphones) to read the articles.