I teach photography lessons in Wilmington, Delaware, privately. For 13 years, I taught at the Delaware Art Museum. Above is an image from a portrait class at the museum. Before I honk my own horn, here are some links for you to explore. A listing here does NOT mean I recommend the teachers unless I […]
Mostly text comments by Danny Schweers as he explores writing, photography, and publishing.
Composition – Rule Of Thirds
When you compose an image using the Rule of Thirds, vertical elements in the viewfinder are placed one-third from the left or right edge of the frame, horizontal lines are placed one-third from the top or bottom, and sometimes both. If you do NOT have strong vertical or horizontal objects in the scene in front […]
Composition: Lines to Corners
The idea behind “Lines to Corners” is a simple one: frame scenes so that lines point to one or more corners. Sometimes what goes to corners is not lines but things in a line. Below are some images using “Lines to Corners”. Eric Kim has an interesting discussion of diagonals. He favors images with one […]
Composition – Separate Subject From Background
You can take better photographs if you learn to separate subject from background. There are many, many ways of doing this. Here are a few rules, and there are exceptions to all of them. 1. Fascinating subject and boring background. 2. Subject is whole and background is cut off. 3. Subject is larger than […]
Delmarva Peninsula
Delaware is the lowest of the 50 states; that is, its average elevation — 60 feet — is lower than any other state. Forget mountain majesty. South of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, the Delmarva Peninsula has marshes and tidal rivers, big skies and flat farm land. The Delmarva Peninsula is divided up into parts […]
Composition – Lines to Corners, Rule of Thirds, and the Letter “K”
A friend recently wrote: “I’ve been composing in my head a letter to you re the wall art at this hospital, you having mentioned that some photos of yours were chosen for display in a hospital. The ones on view in this hospital are ocean/beach scenes for the most part. Nothing obviously dramatic or particularly […]
Austin Book of Days 1977
On January 3, 2017, John Van Beekum, editor of the 1977 Austin Book of Days appointments calendar, began to re-issue the images on Instagram. forty years after the initial publication. He began with the published 1977 cover with Stanley Farrar’s Lake Travis image. Click here or the photo to visit John’s page on the Instagram site. […]
Danny at Gallery 919 in early 2026
Of the many thousands of photographs I have shot recently, which few are worthy of your attention? The photo in the graphic above and by itself below is a photo of my wife, ready to do battle against a nest of yellow jackets. Yes, I am in love with a killer! I think this is […]
Turtles All The Way Down
In one cosmology, the universe rests on the back of a turtle, and that turtle rests on top of another turtle, turtles all the way down. In another cosmology, the one I prefer, the universe rests on forgiveness. How else could quarks and leptons be so closely bound? How else could protons and neutrons combine […]
Double Shadow
Yesterday morning — Monday, July 28, 2025 — on the sidewalk outside the Chris White Gallery, I noticed I had two shadows from the low sunlight reflected in the large plate-glass windows. Hard to explain except to say one is from my shadow being reflected and the other is from the reflected light casting a […]
Graphic Design – Chair Yoga
Inspiration struck early today while I was updating the “Upcoming Events” post on my church’s website. SsAM is offering something they call “Chair Yoga”. I wanted a simple square graphic using those two words and an image of a chair. I kept working with those elements but could not get them to work together. The […]
Arden, Delaware – Fire Hydrant Spray People
2012 thru 2025, Arden, Delaware — Every year, the Arden Community Recreation Association hosts its July 4th Games on the green in the Village of Arden, Delaware, where I live. The gathering ends with people cavorting in spray shot from a fire hydrant. I love how stately the gyrating people look when photographed. They are […]
Ardencroft, Delaware Maps
The Village of Ardencroft, Delaware asked me to photograph two maps from 1953 of the municipality’s street and lot plan. Click on either image to see it larger. To get high-resolution JPEGs, please use the Contact Us form on this website.
Photograph What Is Close At Hand
Good, even great photographs may be found anywhere, at any time. There is no need to travel to get good photos. Washing dishes, mowing the yard, pumping gas, buying groceries — all of these are prime locations for wonderful images. Recognizing the photogenic in the ordinary can be challenging. When I travel, my eyes seem […]
Bellevue State Park, Wilmington, Delaware
Bellevue State Park is an often-visited place for me, not far from where I live in Delaware. When this park was a DuPont estate, they had race horses and an oval track. Horses no longer use the track — that’s for walkers and runners — but the horse stables are still there, home to 70 […]
Featured Artist at Chris White Gallery
On July 23, 2024, I was the featured artist at the Chris White Gallery in downtown Wilmington, Delaware! Sixteen of us were asked to lend our names to this non-profit’s summer fundraising campaign. I hope my endorsement makes a positive difference! I am inspired by Chris White’s vision for Shipley Lofts and continue his efforts […]
Las Vegas Strip, April 2023
Any event becomes exciting if you bet money on it. Where will the wheel stop? What card will turn over next? When will the stars align? I could not spend nine days in Las Vegas without visiting The Strip with camera in hand, from the MGM Park to the Bellagio. Of course I went […]
Austin, Texas, Easter 2022
I have been walking downtown Austin, Texas since 1970. You can click here to see some of my early photographs of the city, now in an archive at the Austin History Center. I lived in Austin for 30 years but, even after moving to Arden, Delaware in 2000, I continue to visit and photograph this […]
Ten Days in Paris, Spring, 2007
The one time I was there, I went looking for intimate images of Paris. The dates were April 26 through May 3, 2007. I wanted to photograph the people and places tourists would miss — the idiosyncratic and personal — photos distinctly my own yet also distinctly Parisian, not forgetting the inspiration of Henri Cartier-Bresson. […]
Outdoor Night Photography
Night is seldom really dark, especially near urban centers that glow with street lights, vehicle headlights, porch lights, and security lights. These lights make the sky glow (and make seeing the stars difficult). This means we can often take photographs outdoors at night and have details in the shadows. Also, camera manufacturers have made stunning […]
Explore Your Camera’s Manual Mode
Make images as light or dark as you want Many, perhaps most, professional photographers shoot in Manual Mode. Cameras in automatic and semi-automatic modes cannot guess what you want. If you want the image darker or lighter, or if you want to control the ISO, Shutter Speed, and Aperture all at once, then shoot in […]
True Posterization Using Photoshop
I worked many years using a copy camera to produce 12×18-inch litho negatives. I especially liked the way that high-contrast medium transformed gradual tones into hard-edged images. I like woodcuts and linoleum cuts for the same reason, especially the work of Cynthia Back, one of my former colleagues at the Washington Printmakers Gallery. Click here […]
Control Motion Blur by Varying Shutter Speed
Changing the shutter speed on your camera allows you to control motion blur — Releasing the shutter lets light into the camera for a fixed amount of time. I encourage you to try various shutter speeds, especially at the extremes of your camera. For most cameras, that is 30 seconds for the longest time (slowest […]
Twenty-Six Hours in New York City, January, 2023
My wife, perhaps at some cost, has accepted that I am a photographer. If we visit a city like New York, chances are good that I will be making photographs. It makes me a less than ideal companion. God bless her. Here is a sample of a 26-hour visit to New York City in January […]
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