One of my heroes, Francis Schaeffer, had some very good insight on the criteria of what art should be. I have tried to use these rules whenever I create a photo, and hope that others will put these guidelines into use as well. These guidelines are called the "Four Standards of Judgment" and they should be applied to every work of art.

The first "Standard of Judgment" is Excellence. This simply means that it should be well done technically. Thanks to the efforts of the Dreamstime editors, we can be pretty sure that most of the images on here are well done technically. Here is one of my images that fits this criteria. Not only is it technically well done, but the lighting was also well done in my own humble opinion (although with no help from me).

The second "Standard ...

I'm sure many of you have heard of the recent oil spill off the coast of South Korea. I was here in Korea when it happened and I enjoyed being able to volunteer my help in cleaning up the mess that had been left.

My dad, some friends, and I set off with a group of several hundred volunteers from a church near Seoul, Korea. Although we didn't join the cleaning effort until several weeks after the actual spill, the beaches were still covered with oil. After donning some of the most ridiculous looking hazmat outfits I've ever seen, we set out for the coast.

Our group spent the entire freezing day cleaning one small peninsula that had a layer of oil over everything. Our job was very monotonous. With old rags, we had to scrub every rock by hand trying ...