Can you take a picture either on a cloudy day or when the sun is not shining directly on the grass? And can you take one from farther away? Or is the entire lawn like this?
Where do you live?
What kind of grass do you have?
Have you been watering the past month? If so how often and for how long?

Most of the lawn is green. I live in Durham, NC. The grass is fescue. I wasn't watering the lawn much when the grass started turning brown 3-4 weeks ago. I have been watering 1/2" to 1" per week for the past two weeks, though. We've had a few weeks of temperatures above 80 degrees.

Some grass greens up when I water, but most stays brown. It seems like the problem is getting worse.

I noticed some patches on my lawn that have an orange tint to them. Here's a photo of a different part of the lawn with a few orange-colored spots.

Could this be fungal growth?

I'll add that the past two times I watered, I did so in the evening.

I am not sure - but to me it reminds me of times when I have seen or heard of people applying to much fertilizer. Maybe you overlapped to much at borders and in that tight spot? hatch not closing on turns?

How does a screw driver go into those areas compared to the green spots?

I suppose for NC, lawn dissesses could be creeping in already... does remind me of summer patch... but I don't know much about that.

When you say 1/2 to 1" per week... is that in one application? Have you received any rain? Any 90's yet?

I may have overlapped too much. I fertilized back in February or March, though. It was slow-release fertilizer, but I would have expected burning to happen earlier on.

A screw driver goes in maybe 1/2" in the brown spots.

I watered in one application this past Monday, but we got a tiny bit of rain on Tuesday night, I think, and some more on Wednesday evening.

We've had a few days in the 90s.

Hmm - could be stress brought on by hard soil?

Read up on watering practices - generally you want to put down 1" of water per week if there is no rain. Ideally at one 'watering'...if you have hard soil where runoff and puddling is common... then you might need to put down .5"...do the rest of the zones... and then put down another .5" on all of the zones to allow time for soaking in. Your weather in NC has been mild thus far... June/July will surely bring worse i would think?! Training now(and always) for deep rooting is key to get it ready...

Using soil conditioners, natural fertilizer sources (milo/grains/etc), and shampoo(1-3oz/1000ft) can help slowly with soil hardness and water/root penetration.

Like houseplants.... give them a good soaking, and then once fairly dry, give another good soaking.

Sometimes there will be troublespots that will dry out first - spot watering might be needed. Sprinkling peat moss in these areas has also shown to help some for moisture retention/OM

Someone in town said I should remove thatch, so I spent some time doing that. There was quite a lot of it! We'll see if that helps. I'll also look into helping the soil not be so compact.

If the issue is fungus, I've read that I shouldn't water. If the issue is dry grass, I *should* water. How can I tell which I should do?