Learning to use my camera

Work asked that I go to a local mall and try to take some ‘retail’ pictures that could be used on flyers/brochures/ads.
Requirements:

No truly detailed faces
No seasonal decorations to place the ‘time’
No store names

Since I had to make sure no faces were in ‘focus’ or filled out in detail, I tried being further away from the [...]

A couple of neighborhood snapshots

I recently picked up a new camera, a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ28K. It’s snazzy and takes nice pictures, and even does them in RAW format, though I’ve recently learned Adobe’s Camera Raw doesn’t support it yet because it’s still too new. Rolls eyes. Oh well, the JPEGs are still very good quality and hopefully sometime soon [...]