Had I realized I was getting close to the 3000 mark, I might have done something a little more exciting to mark the milestone. But on the other hand, I'm glad it just happened somewhat naturally.

The day I took this picture, I was hoping to get some portraits of my niece in the pumpkin patch. But she decided to take a nap, and then the rain started, so we all ended up at a hole-in-the-wall burger joint in Bracken, Texas, of all places for a greasy (but delicious) cheeseburger.

I love how a single photograph can take us right back to those moments.

A couple of pictures should probably go right into the garbage can, they just didn't turn out at all and I had to squint to even remember what I had taken a picture of.

But a couple of them were decent, imperfect, and gave me a great lesson is using the camera. For instance: This camera needs LOTS of light; anything that happens to be in the corner will be blurry and soft; and I need to back away from my subject just a little.

I've just put another roll of fresh film in. I can't wait to see what comes out next!

The shot you see here is of the backyard tree that I photographed for a whole year. I thought shooting it on film would give me a good point of comparison.

Some of the folks there were very new to photography, so those of us a little more comfortable around a camera were sure to offer a few tips and tricks to anyone who needed assistance. One gentleman got help with setting the white balance on his new camera, one new member of the group ate his first-ever breakfast taco, and I shared a few tips for shooting food. These are the things I try to keep in mind:

1. Watch your background. Sometimes the background can be just as important and tell just as much of the story as the item that you're shooting, but don't let your background be too cluttered.
2. Natural lighting is best. Of course it is. But if you can't take a full meal into the backyard to take photos, at least open the blinds by the dining table or move what you want to photograph to a better natural lighting source.
3. Utilize props. Do be afraid to style your shots. Add a colorful napkin or a bottle of wine or an edible flower to your food subjects. Doing so can add interest, color and excitement to your photos.
4. Get close, but not too close. Focusing in on a single, beautiful bite of the dripping icing on cinnamon roll or the melty cheese on a burger is perfect, but make sure you stay far enough away that you can actually tell what you took the picture of.
5. Rule of thirds. The four points created by the tic-tac-toe pattern in the rule of thirds are great targets for food pictures. Make one of the four points your main focal point to add interest and draw the eye into your subject.

Holga cameras -- they're kind of dinky and plastic, so it makes sense -- are known for their imperfections. When I snap my first pictures on a roll of 120 film, who knows if there will be wild lighting flares, heaving vignetting or soft blurs on the printed photographs.

With my digital camera, it's become habit for me to shoot the same picture 20 times in a row and then pick out the best one, deleting the other 19. I can see the Holga challenging me to slow down, evaluate my shot and be much more deliberate with my photography.

I don't get Explore. It's a section of Flickr where they highlight photos with the most "interestingness" every day. Think of the thousands and thousands of photos uploaded to Flickr every minute of each day -- 500 of those will make it into Explore for that particular day.

Interestingness is based on a behind-the-scenes formula that no one really knows, but it's somehow determined by the number of views that a photo gets, combined with the number of times it's marked as a favorite by other Flickr users and the number of comments the photo receives. Tags also come into play, as well as how many groups the photos is in. Again, I don't get it, but I have 23 photos in there, and I think it's kinda cool to unexpectedly find one there. Like I did with this balloon photo this week:

To see if you have photos with lots of interestingness according to Flickr and your fellow photographers there, visit the Big Huge Labs website. Their "Scout" feature will tell you.

It was a group of food bloggers, who found each other because of Facebook and Twitter, who all read the same book and met up to share a meal together. We read "Omnivore's Dilemma" and all brought a dish prepared in line with the thinking of the book.

Were it not for the social media tools we have access to online, I probably would have never met these great people. Walking in the door, we all had three things in common already: a love of food and reading, and involvement in online communities surrounding both of those things. I've been chatting with some of the fine folks I met last night through Flickr and Twitter today. And we already have plans (via a group event on Facebook) to meet up again in two months.

I'll be there, with my camera in-hand!

I snapped lots and lots of photos this year as my passion for photography continued to grow -- I'm guessing close to three thousand. And included in that group of a thousand, there are 52 pictures of the Bradford Pear tree in our backyard. I decided to photograph that tree every Monday for a year, just to see what the seasons would bring.