Shifting the Focus
An Adjustment to My Methods
PHOTO JOURNAL 2026
James Bradley
4/2/20264 min read
An Adjustment to My Methods
Shifting the Focus
When I started this photo challenge, organizing everything by week made sense. It gave me a way to keep the photos grouped together, keep the posts moving, and make the whole thing feel somewhat manageable. At least, that was what I had intended.
As this monster kept growing, the weekly system, or lack thereof, started getting a lot messy. My days of the week were not lining up with my posting schedule, due to my lack of organization, and I was getting frustrated. Trying to keep track of them had become a nightmare. I ended up with screwy numbers like 12.5, 16.1, and 16.2. In case you can’t figure out why, the months that have four and a half or 5 weeks really threw off my internal tracking algorithm (ya, right). I’ll chalk it up to old age. That sort of worked for keeping me moving at the time, but it also started to pull my attention away from the whole point of this project: Photography
My point has never really been to create a perfect calendar archive of the challenge. The point was to pick up the camera, learn something, keep shooting, and see where the process took me. I also intended to have my friends, family, and new followers along for the ride.
So, now that I built the clock for you, I’ll tell you the time. I am going to shift the focus of these posts a bit. Instead of worrying so much about whether each post fits perfectly into a week, I am going to focus more on what I am learning, or have learned, through the photos themselves.
What this will look like is, more about camera settings, light, composition, editing, mistakes, experiments, and those insane moments where I think I know what I am doing right before the camera proves otherwise, which it does to do quite often.
I’ll spend more time talking about things like the exposure triangle, shutter speed, aperture, ISO, focus, depth of field, and how all of those pieces work together. Or, more accurately, how I am slowly learning that they work together while still occasionally wondering why the camera is pissed off at me.
I also want to pay more attention to composition. What makes one photo feel balanced and another one feel awkward? Why does a certain crop work better? Why does moving a few feet to the left completely change a shot? Why does the background suddenly become the boss of the whole photo when I was not paying attention? I'll talk about where I found my information on any or all of the subjects, and who my influences through the challenge have been.
Light is becoming a bigger part of the learning process too. Early on, I mostly saw light as either “it’s too light” or “it’s too dark.” I had no idea about low light shooting. Now I am starting to understand that the type of light, the direction of light, and the color of light can completely change the mood of a photo, and how the camera settings can change the effect of the light as well. Full daylight, golden hour, indoor lighting, shadows, reflections, and even the Kelvin settings on lights all bring their own challenges.
I'll also be talking about the gear I have been using, how and where I got it and what I use. What camera bodies (Sony), lenses (Sony, Tamron), and all the other miscellaneous goodies and gadgets, like tripods, bipods, memory cards, backpacks, and external monitors that could easily overwhelm me if I don't control their volume.
This does not mean I am abandoning the timeline of the challenge. The posts will still move forward somewhat in order, and the photos will still follow the path I have been on. I am just not going to waste time fighting the calendar as much. The date on the post will be approximate. They can handle the timeline. My writing can focus on the lesson.
This feels like a better fit for what my passion project has become.
What started as a way to make myself take pictures every day has turned into a vastly larger learning process than I expected. I never had any idea that learning the camera, editing, lighting, organization, and learning what kinds of photos I like would be such a monumental undertaking. I can honestly say I have gained a healthy respect for all the photographers, beginner to expert and amatuer to professional out there taking the time and honing the craft. Kudos to all of you!
So, from here on, the blog may feel a little less like a weekly report and a little more like a photo journal, which was the original intent. It will still be the same challenge, same flailing, same learning process, just with a little less calendar wrestling (please pass the sanity).
I would love to get some feedback from you all about the photography learning process. Please feel free to shoot me an email through my contact page.
Thanks for reading!
