One thing I learned quickly is that photojournalism is often about making the best of an imperfect situation. Mobile photography is often like that too. Because you always have your "camera" with you, those random photo opportunities show up when you least expect them. You're in the wrong spot. Or too far away. Someone walks into the shot or a car goes by. You grab what you can. But you don't have to live with it. Cropping became the secret weapon in my photo toolbox.

There’s no better horizon line than the ocean itself, but my pictures tend to lean a tiny bit to the left. Occasionally, I deliberately add some tilt to the composition just for interest’s sake. But, mostly, I’d just as soon take a nice square image as not. Which brings me to the updated Camera App in iOS 17. That has a level!

I’m a fan of random photo samplers. Starting the day off with my pictures from a forgotten moment, portraits of a loved one, or that special trip is wonderful. It’s a delight that’s both simple and profound, like discovering an old cafe matchbook at the bottom of a memory box. Now, since iOS 16.1, you can enjoy that same experience on the Lock Screen itself.

Our iPhones are always with us in ways that the film SLR’s of the past never were. And their small size makes them perfect for candid and street photography. So how do you master the iPhone quick draw?

If you have a regular Memorial Day tradition, it’s a great time to make your own slideshow retrospective of Memorial Days past. The years you visited friends or family to celebrate the start of summer. Those backyard parties. And, of course, the parades.

GPS location tagging on iPhone photos is a world class gift and I can tell you that it's saved me more than once from minutes of swiping through years of pictures to find the one I want. When I show the Places tab in Apple Photos to my clients, and teach them how to use it, I swear that I see tears of joy.

iCloud is just like that gas station along the highway where $2 gets me a quick, accurate tire service on a rainy night. I’m thrilled that it’s there. I’ll pay a little extra for the convenience. And I’ll probably pay more attention to my tire pressure just because I don’t have to crawl around and fuss with the tire gauge thingy to get the proper pressure.

Just when you thought that Apple was running thin on new iPhone camera tricks, hey roll out - TA DAH - Macro Mode. Macro Mode merges image information from all 3 lenses to create one excellent photo. Even better, Macro Mode works with video captures too, including Slo-mo and Time-lapse.

My son recently flew off to London for a holiday. Color me envious. So I asked the logical question, me being a Boomer and all; had he bought a London Tourist Guide? Today, it’s all on your iPhone.

Want a sure-fire/first class/award-winning Mom experience for Mother’s Day? For you or for the Moms in your life?

Here’s what you do.

Back in the day, before Garmin suctioned GPS pods to every windshield, getting directions to obscure locations was often an exercise in oral history, not unlike The Moth but far less entertaining.

How do you keep your workplace/remodeling/physical therapy/window treatment/shopping reminder/dinged bumper pictures from cluttering up your Photos Library?

The whole idea of Apple Photos is to create a safe, secure library of pictures that can be called up and exported on demand, customized for their particular destination.

My first real gig as a freelance photographer was shooting sailboat races in the Pacific Northwest. I'd stand near the bow of a 16 foot long powerboat, taking pictures, as we sped alongside crazy fast racing dinghies plowing through turbulent seas.

Let's "face" it. Pictures of our friends, family, the people we miss, the people we met, and people we may never see again are the foundation of our Photos Libraries.

This is a year of years in so many ways. It's changed the way we live. Changed the way we see the world. And it's changed photography in the process.

For most of my career in photography and commercial printing, the game has always been to come close to the magic of the human eye.

One of the coolest features of Apple Photos is the People tab that uses face recognition to create personalized collections of our lives and the people we know. Family, friends, colleagues, that old boyfriend, a favorite teacher. Now, more than ever, we want to celebrate our community and remember those who have shared our journey for an hour or for decades.

Let Apple Photos do the de-cluttering for you. It turns out that if you hop over one tab from All Photos to Days, that clutter disappears! Same with Months and Years. Photos is smart enough to hide anything that doesn't seem "on brand" for your usual photo browsing.

As a lover of photos in general, and the caretaker of my own family picture library, it tears me apart whenever I hear someone caught in that terrible place. That one where their iPhone is crushedsoakedloststolendeadgone and it's the only place their honeymoonnewbornlatefatheroldfriend's photos exist.