Like Record photographer Clifford Oto, I was inspired by the clouds that marked the skies around San Joaquin County this week. Unlike Cliff, however, I lack skill with a camera. I’m still learning.

After I left the gym Thursday and Friday morning I spent a few minutes taking test photos of the sky in downtown Stockton as seen looking east on Main Street from Hunter Square. Most of the photos I shot Thursday looked like this.

An ideal news article has three elements: Text, photos and multimedia features. Over the past few years I’ve been working to put together a toolkit that would allow me to produce each of those elements for Recordnet.com and The Record.

The first item in the kit was a MacBook Pro for writing text while out of the office, if necessary. Then a Pentax K200 digital camera was added for taking photos. This Christmas I was able to complete the kit with a Flip HD camera for multimedia.

My first test of the kit came Jan. 5, when I brought my cameras to the Andrew Jackson Jihad concert at the Plea for Peace Center in Stockton. It resulted in a blog about weeknight entertainment in the city that you can find here.

I discovered that producing the text and video for the blog was relatively easy, as I have experience with both. Taking photos, however, was a challenge that involved making a complicated connection between the light, the subject and the technology of the camera. It’s as much of an art as it is a science, and it gave me additional respect for the great news photogs I know and admire.