My name is Rob, and when I take pictures alone, I prefer to be by myself. Ok, that's not entirely true, but I only came to that realization recently.

Most of the time I'm out having fun with the camera, I'm out by myself. When it's just me, I can block out everything else in the world except the subject I want to focus on.

heh, focus. See what I did there?

Ok, Rob, Focus!

hehe, there it is again.

Concentrate!

Right, so when other folks are around, I tend to either get lost and ignore whoever is with me, or ignore my camera and the reason I took it wherever it was that I went. Neither of these scenarios are really pleasant for me, hence why I usually go out on my own.

That feeling changed last week. I joined the North Alabama Photographers Guild recently, and my first outing with the group was a photo-walk of the Tinsel Trail in Big Spring Park.

I showed up a little late, because that's how I do. Upon arrival I ran into two guys that I'd not met before. One immediately started jabbing me about shooting Nikon, and the other started jabbing him about shooting Canon. This was to be a fun group.

We started on one end of the trail where one guy set down his tripod because he saw a shot he wanted. The two of us remaining looked around and set up shop nearby.

We then proceeded to shut the hell up, and concentrate on what we were there to do - make photos.

When everyone got the shots they were after, we picked up the conversation right where we had stopped as we worked our way to the next destination.

Maybe it's because I'm fairly new to the world of photography, or maybe it's just that particular group of folks. Either way, that's the first instance I can think of where I managed to strike a balance of being social and getting what I wanted out of the trip. I can't wait until the next outing with this group.

Here's what I managed to walk away with.