Let's set the record straight right away. The Olympus Stylus 'point-n-shoot' I was given to take photographs is a woefully inadequate tool for photojournalism.

To remind the reader. Executive Editor Alec O'Meara and I have engaged in a friendly wager to prove the concept that I have espoused and continue to believe in. That is, people take photographs cameras don't.

So, off I went to prove the theory by covering an event with an 'I will do everything for you' point and shoot digital camera. Alec, in turn, is to take a picture or two with my Canon professional level digital SLR.

Included with this column is my second attempt at taking pictures with the Olympus. I was covering the fourth-graders at Inter-Lakes Elementary while on hawk watch, scanning the skies for migrating raptors while recording relevant weather data.

My style of photojournalism is pretty straight forward. Stick my nose, or camera in this case, into peoples business and come away with an image that makes the viewer “feel” as if they are there. Am I always successful at this? Most definitely not, but that is my goal at all times.

There are a couple of details that I always strive for in my images. First is to establish a major center of interest. In this case, it is Sage as he checks a weather instrument. Secondary to him is enough background action to continue to tell the story and to give the viewers eye somewhere to wander. Again, in this photo, it is the other students partaking in the event.

Without regard to camera, I spend time engaging my subjects with conversation and observation. It is a time for the subjects to get comfortable with me and I with them. My mantra in this work is to figure a way to get into my subjects 'space' without affecting that 'space.' In other words, I try to make my photographs not broadcast the feeling that a camera is present. This is all about connecting with people and has nothing to do with camera gear. Thus, part of my reasoning for the above mentioned mantra.

This particular point and shoot has very few dials, wheels, and buttons. The concept is to give the user very little chance of messing up and to make most decisions on behalf of the photographer.

Almost all manipulation of settings must be done via a menu interface, precluding the shooter from making on-the-fly adjustments 'blind', that is, without looking at the controls.

There are a number of adjustments that should be made for given conditions that I am sure are not done by many people. As I mentioned in my last column they are: white balance, effective ISO and picture taking mode. These settings should, at the least, match the environment in which you are shooting. The proper use of flash is also essential to obtaining a balanced low contrast image.

For the photograph included here, I set white balance to cloudy, since it was; I set the ISO to 250, because it was sufficiently bright out, and I set the picture taking mode to landscape. I may have been better off choosing portrait mode to better throw out of focus those lousy cars in the background. Do you, the reader, know why that is?

This picture taking mode business is one of my biggest complaints. First off, how many of you with these type cameras ever change the picture taking mode? As for me, this camera gives me no control over aperture and/or shutter and I simply can not live with that, I'm sorry. So mark that 'feature' as a major no-no!

Now, how about the flash? The tiny little point of light that sputters out of this little camera body is worthless most of the time. In this case, however, it was a great tool.

I was shooting from the ground up towards Sage. He was severely back lit by a very bright cloudy sky. Without flash, his face would have been in silhouette. In order to balance the contrast, that is, the difference between the brightest and darkest part of the image, I used flash to fill in light on his face. But wait, this camera knows better than I, right? It refused to fire the flash, because it was so bright out. After a bit of looking around, I did discover that I could set the flash to go off anyway, despite the camera's insistence not to.

It saved the image.

I could also go on and on about how difficult it is to see anything on the LCD viewfinder in the outdoors. You are required to look at it very much straight on-I take pictures from anything but a straight on point of view.

So, here's my picture. It gets the job done, but I didn't like doing it.

So, back to my mantra. Yes, people take pictures, cameras don't. The effort that most amatuer photographers fail to make is to get in as tight to the subject as this image represents to be sure the reader is focused on the center of interest.

To do so, with this small camera, takes a lot of effort, but it does make for a better picture.

I'll take my digital SLR's back now thank you, and I will never want for this little guy.

Now, sit back, relax, and let's wait for that image that I know Alec is out looking for.