Bullseye at the rodeo school

 THIS PHOTO HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MY STORY 

I was working at a tiny newspaper in 1983, and everyone kept telling me that I was a lousy photographer; all of my shots were fuzzy.

Turns out, though, that it wasn't me. I was using a camera with a long zoom lens, and I eventually learned that, if you zoomed all the way in or all the way out, the photos were slightly out of focus. I also learned that they weren't that great somewhere in the middle. It wasn't a great camera (or lens), period.

Then one of the news reporters moved to another newspaper, and for a day I inherited the Nikon that she'd been using to take mug shots at town meetings.

My first time out, I did a story on a rodeo school, and I used the Nikon. The result? The photos were so sharp that our artist cut a bull's tail into the Lifestyle logo, and the page was beautiful. The page won the South Carolina Press Association's award for best lifestyle page that year, and my photography skills got a reprieve.

But I don't remember using the Nikon again. Rats!

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EMAIL: tgilli52@gmail.com  BLUESKY: PROFILE

MORE BLOG ENTRIES BY TOM GILLISPIE

• Resume for a writer and editor

• An editor's views on powerful writing

• Advice for be and would-be novelists

• Links to TG's stories online

• Favorite quotes

• What I do when I'm editing

ANECDOTES BY TOM GILLISPIE

• Wipeout at Death Valley

• Days with rainbows

• A desperate writer working in the dark

• Yer OUTTA there!

EDITOR@WORK BLOG ENTRIES

• You really DO need an editor

• Reminders for would-be novelists

• What I do when I'm editing

• What I charge (it's a deal) and what I edit

• Slogging through the Internet

• J-school: More eyes on your stories

• J-school: Go out and learn

• Rookie mistakes for magazine writers

ENTRIES FROM THE DOG BLOG

• Katie cried

• Growl and pull

• 13-plus years with my dog Lady

• ... said the spider to ...

• The Dog Diary (2014)

• YIP! YIP! The stereo-sound huskies

• What Lady and Michael Jackson had in common

BLOG ENTRIES FROM THE AUTO RACING JOURNAL

• Angel in Black: Remembering Dale Earnhardt Sr.

(a book of great stories about the Intimidator)

• Then Junior Said to Jeff...

(the book of great NASCAR stories)

• My best day as a sports writer

• Jeff Gordon's milk toast to Dale Earnhardt

• Wayne Auton: A life in racing