The Beginner Photography Podcast

Photography Manifesto Pt10 - Kill Your Photography Teachers

• Raymond Hatfield

Share episode

#420 In today's episode of the podcast, you'll learn about the innate human instinct to seek guidance and look up to leaders. You'll explore the ease of finding mentors and teachers online, and how this accessibility can either benefit or hinder your growth as a photographer. Discover the importance of curiosity, experimentation, and taking action in your photography journey. Explore the concept of long-term projects and the value of personal experiences in improving your skills. Discover practical tips for becoming a better photographer and the significance of personal development in your photography journey.

THE BIG IDEAS

  • Seeking guidance and looking up to leaders is a natural instinct that can shape your photography journey.
  • The internet provides easy access to mentors and teachers, but it's crucial to be discerning and choose resources that truly benefit you.
  • Curiosity and experimentation are essential for growth as a photographer. Embrace new ideas and be open to trying different techniques and styles.
  • Long-term photography projects can be personally fulfilling and offer opportunities to witness your growth and evolution as a photographer.
  • The value of personal development cannot be overstated in improving your photography skills. It's not just about technical knowledge but also self-reflection and growth.


Resources:
- Join the Free and Private Beginner Photography Podcast Community 

Connect with Raymond!


Thanks for listening & keep shooting!

Raymond Hatfield:

When you love your photos more than somebody who you looked up to or somebody you look up to. You did it. You killed your photography teachers. And congratulations. I'm proud of you. Hey, welcome to the beginner photography podcast. I'm your host Raymond Hatchfield. And today we are wrapping up our 10 part photography manifesto series. Now, if you've been listening to this for a while, you know what this is about. Uh, but if you haven't been, let me fill you in. I was sick of watching all these fake, tricks and hacks, for photographers on YouTube or, Instagram or anything like that. And, I realized that none of these things that were being shared were actually helpful for photographers. they're not going to help them become better photographers. It might help them momentarily to, do something different, but long term, it's not going to help at all. So I built this photography manifesto series as a way to do just that with, 10 plus years of experience shooting professionally, more than 15 shooting on my own. I came up with this list of the 10 things that are not just overnight, topical tips or, hacks for your photography to become a world class photographer. But these are things that are actually going to not only help. You and your photography, but you personally, they're going to help you grow as a human. And that's how I view photography. So, to wrap it up today is, is part 10. So let me give you a quick overview real quick, on the first nine points of the photography manifesto. So point number one is that the point of photography is to enrich the human experience. Photography manifesto rule number two is to be a halfway decent photographer. You must dedicate all of your time to it. Photography manifesto rule number three is that moment matters most in a photograph, not camera settings. Manifesto rule number four, you don't need to know everything about photography to know anything about photography. Manifesto rule number five is that your camera gear is not holding your back. You are holding yourself back. Rule number six is that if there's no intention, there is no image. Rule number seven, the only photographer who you are in competition with is yourself. Rule number eight is that community is the only external source that is going to help you to become a better photographer. Rule number nine, which we covered last month, is that you cannot make money from your creativity as a photographer, and today we are tackling rule number 10. This is it. This is everything that we are building up to. Rule number 10, kill your photography teachers. Now, before, we get too wild here. This is a phrase, to kill your teachers, which is, an idiom, meaning to. To surpass them, not any actual, ill, physical harm, alright? So, I gotta put that little disclaimer in there, otherwise the, the whole team of lawyers that I have over here at the Beginner Photography Podcast, who hang out in my closet over here are gonna be livid. So, I had to throw that in there. So let's talk about today's topic. Kill Your Photography Teachers. So, back in, a few months ago, my mom came out to visit, and, my mom and I have a, a good relationship, by all accounts, a good relationship, I love her, we talk, there's no weirdness to our, our relationship, I would say, right? So, growing up, I looked at my mom as, I think most kids, Look at their, their parents. Like she is, she's everything. Like she's super smart. She helps me out. She's funny. Like she knows everything, right? The things that a kid would say about their parent, which is a natural thing. We, we look at parents as, these superheroes essentially. Now that we're both adults, she was out here and we were on an early morning walk and I was just kind of, bringing up some things from the past and like, remember this, remember that, what was this thing about? Because as you're an adult, you have a slightly different perspective on the things that, happened to you as a child. So, as I was talking to her, I had realized, throughout the length of our conversation that my mom, you're not going to believe this. She's like a regular person. Like she she questions her decisions before she makes them. She has doubts. She has fears. She doesn't know all the answers and like I couldn't believe it. I was like, what do you mean? Like you question the decisions that you make because my entire life I've always seen you as someone who's able to make those decisions who is somebody who takes action somebody who gets things done, and it not in a like in an overachiever sense, but like maybe it's just the glasses that I wear as a child, but you don't see your parent as somebody who wavers, as somebody who struggles, as somebody who, at times has no idea what to do. And essentially, they're just taking a leap of faith. We just see them as this rock, as this, solid, pillar in our lives that is always going to be there and always going to be there. To be able to help, What does this have to do with photography? Great question. Wonderful, wonderful question. Here's the thing. Having hosted this podcast for a number of years, we're going on seven years. Bananas. I've talked to a number of photographers, photographers who I literally never thought that I would have the opportunity to speak to. I've spoke with photographers who are, for all intents and purposes, world class. Like they're the best in what it is that they do. And one thing that I've learned about these photographers is that, just like my mom, they're regular people. They're regular people. They question their decisions. They have fears. At times, they don't know what to do. At times, the thought of making a decision is, is paralyzing. Sometimes they have bad shoots. Sometimes, they get bad reviews on their images. Sometimes they're not happy with the work that they're producing. Because they're human. These people are humans. We like to, just like I did with my mom, growing up. I look up to her because, you're a kid. You don't have any experience in the world, you don't know how to navigate things and when you need to be able to do something like survive, go to school, tie your shoes, bring a lunch and they're able to do that for you, you look up to them. It's natural to look to somebody for help. It is natural. It's just a natural order of things. We do that everywhere. We always look for somebody to either guide us, lead us, or give us the information that we need to make a decision. And as a, as a parent, even though, now that I'm a parent myself, and I can kind of look back at my childhood, And the decisions that, my mom made and think to myself, wow, she, she handled that extremely well, even though at the time, I don't know, I was livid for whatever reason, being a parent now, I see that that is my job for my kids. I need to help them. I want to provide insight and help. And the reason is because I want them to be. And I guess I could just say parents because parents want their kids to grow up to be functional adults. Like that is our main job as a parent, to raise children who are kind, who are responsible, and who make good decisions. That's it. So, when there's somebody in a role who, obviously wants to help a child, and that child needs help with things and knows that their parent will be able to help them, in our brains, we naturally just see, okay, there's somebody with more experience, I need to listen to them. I need to, stay close because they you know, going back to our Neanderthal days, they're going to be able to help in any sort of survival situation, even though tying your shoes isn't exactly the same as, don't know, running from a lion on the Serengeti, right? Like it's not the same sort of survival moment, but our brains think that it is. So we start looking up to leaders and now today with the internet. It's now easier than ever to find a teacher, mentor, a leader, somebody to guide you. These teachers are everywhere now. And that can be a good thing. That could be a bad thing. That can be a really good thing because now when you are interested in something, I mean, anything, underwater basket weaving, I would be willing to bet that there is somebody who can teach you how to get it done, how to do it. And when you have no idea what you're doing, you're now taking the guidance from, others who have come before you and applying it to your own life, applying it to your own practice so that you can grow your skills better, faster, stronger than the person who, came before you, that's what you want. You want to be great. You don't want to get into photography just because I don't know. I like to take photos every once in a while. No, you want to get into photography because you, whether you're going to say it out loud or not, you want to be able to create images that are going to make an impact on somebody else's life or your own life. Remember rule number one, the point of photography is to enrich the human experience. It's not to live in a silo. So when you want to help, you also need help. You have to be open to taking help. And that is why it is so great that, we live in a time with the internet and can find teachers of all sorts to help us achieve the things that we want to achieve. But this can also be bad because there's that I don't know what it's called, there, there's the, the paradox of decision overwhelm, right? There's so many decisions that you get overwhelmed, or decision fatigue rather, there's so many decisions that you get overwhelmed, you get fatigued, that you end up making no decision. And when you make no decision, you don't make any action. And when you don't make any action, you make no progress. But man, in those moments, does it feel good and does it feel easy to watch somebody else on YouTube go on a, downtown photo walk? You almost feel like you're getting out and shooting. You almost feel like their photos are your photos. You're like, Oh, I saw that too. I'm glad that, we took this photo. Even though you know in your brain, logically, those aren't your photos. You didn't go out on a photo walk. that can stimulate the same area of the brain as actually getting out and doing it. And this is terrible. This is real bad because now you're learning nothing. You're doing nothing to become a better photographer. You're watching other photographers shoot. You're not actually shooting. That's not helping you. That's not helping you. So as any parent knows, that you gotta get your child to become a, a decent, a kind, a functioning, a responsible member of society. Teachers feel the same way. But here's the problem, the problem is twofold. When you give birth to somebody, or a child is introduced to your family, there's almost like an end date to when they're a kid. Whether it's 18, whether it's 13, whatever that number is in your head, these kids are growing up. They're eventually going to leave the nest. I got to do everything that I can now to prepare them for that moment. When you're an adult, and this is a hobby, and there's no project or deadline in which you need to achieve something, we can very easily get caught in the cycle of, just continuing to do the same thing over and over again, because it feels comfortable. It feels like we're making progress when actually we're not doing anything. So we have to ask yourself, we have to ask ourselves, when do we grow up? At what point do we grow up? And again, I'm not, I'm not talking about, being a child turning into an adult. I'm But at what point do we learn enough about photography that now we get out and flap our wings? no direct answer. I can't answer that for you. Society can't answer that for you. I can look at your photos and I still can't answer it for you. I can find out how you shoot and I still can't answer it for you. Nobody can answer that for you. You have to answer it for yourself. And that's why it is hard. And I get it. I get it. You needed help. didn't know what was the difference between aperture and f stop. You didn't know why all your photos are turning out blurry. you're photographing kids running around, or birds. You don't know why your photos are so dark every time you're inside, or why your photos are so yellow. You don't know these things. But let me remind you that you only don't know that you don't know these things. Or you only know that you don't know these things because you tried something. Because you actually got out and you tried something. And just like a kid doesn't grow up and just sit there and ask you questions. Hey, when I'm 15 and this kid at school, is a jerk to me around the person that I like, what do I do? No four year old's ever going to ask you that question. We don't know that question to ask. Until we're in that situation. Meaning you have to go out and shoot, you have to go out and shoot. That's the only way that you're going to get the experience to mean, again, you grow experience. That's the only way that you're going to get experience. But that's also the only way that you're going to be able to know what questions to ask. To know where you need help. To know what is important to you, what is not important to you. But it has to start with you shooting. So in the same sense that today I'm 35, about to turn 36. And I look at my mom, and I think, oh man, when she was 36, I looked at her as if she had her life together. I look at photos from that time of her life, and I think to myself, she did it. Like, she is an adult. I look at myself at this exact same age, and I think, nope. Heh heh. What am I missing? What don't I have together? What is not figured out? And yet I look on paper, And I say, wow, I've actually done a lot of the things that I wanted to do by 35. I don't consider myself a failure, but I definitely don't feel like I don't have the same confidence that I thought my mom had when we're at the same age. And yet here we are both adults. She's older in life. She has more experience. And she tells me that she, yeah, she struggles making decisions. She questions them, but she has to make a decision. You have to make a decision. And the only way to make a decision is to have experience. And that experience comes from actually doing something. I moved out. I went to film school. It wasn't across the country or anything, but it definitely wasn't just right down the road. It was like a full day's drive to get back home from when I was in school. It isn't just like a, like a quick thing, like, Oh, I don't know how to do this. I'm going to go over to my mom's house and ask her this one question. That's, that wasn't a possibility, but I had to leave the house because that's the only way that I can start to do things that I wanted to do. I wanted to make an impact with images. That's why I knew that I wanted to get into cinematography. I love playing with light. I love playing with lenses. I love playing with gear and technology and camera angles. And all of these things, this idea of motion, like it is, I loved everything about it. But if I waited until I said I was ready, I will never be ready. Because what I learned from my mom is that she's never ready. She never feels ready. There's no way that you can prepare for absolutely everything. The only thing that you can do is trust in yourself that you're going to make the right decision to the best of your ability. I mean, you think that that's what everybody does. Like even my daughter who wanted to, run upstairs with her roller skates on her feet. I had to be like, Hmm, I don't think so. She thought that that was a good decision. We all think that we're making good decisions and that's all that we can do. Or, we know that something's a bad decision and then we don't do it. And perhaps if I wasn't there to say like, you know what, maybe not run up the stairs. With the roller skates on. Terrible idea. If I wasn't there to do that, and she would try, and she fell, and she, I don't know, busted her lip open, she would now have the experience to know, hmm, that's a bad idea. I'm not going to do that again. But that only happens by doing. So at some point, you have to leave the nest. At some point, you have to grow up and move out of the house. Thanks. At some point, you have to do the thing. I wrote down this quote from Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo da Vinci said, Poor is the student who does not surpass the teacher. you know, I struggle with this a lot because there's a lot of ideas that And I, I've said this on the podcast before, maybe there's an American, maybe there's like a Western thing. don't know, but there's like this hustle culture and like, you always have to be busy and whatever you're doing, you have to turn it into a side hustle and like make extra money and all these things. And that, because there's so many people on earth, because the internet brings so many people to us, we see other people doing these things. I've this past year have, gotten into lawn care. I play disc golf. I brew beer. All of these things. I'm not great at. I'm not, I'm not the best. I'm not great. In fact, if I was in a room full of, a hundred other people that were also into disc golf, I would feel. Like I know the least about disc golf there. That would just be the frame of mind that I would have. Even though, I've literally been playing for years, not competitively, just for fun. But you still have that feeling. That's natural. Completely natural. You may feel that way, too. You may feel like, what do you mean I have to leave the nest? Like, I don't know anything about off camera flash. I don't have the right gear. I don't have the right lenses. I'm still shooting with a crop sensor camera. Not that that really matters, but not that any of that matters. But if you let that fear of, corn court, I'm not ready. Hold you back. You're never going to, again, leave the nest. And could you imagine, being going your whole life? Living at home. Not that that would necessarily be a, a bad thing, but I think that if you could imagine meeting somebody in their, older years in life and they never left home, that there's almost like an emptiness to them, that there's an aspect of life that they never had to go through. They never had to, drive to work with the gas light on and knowing that it's still like five days until payday. And you have zero dollars in your bank account. They've never had to feel, the need to, to figure these things out on their own. They've always had some sort of safety net. Which brings up my next point, which is that, to be able to leave, you have to. Learn, right? To get to this point that I'm saying right now, to just, abandon the education of everybody who you pay attention to online and really try to go out on your own. Before you do that, you do have to know some stuff. I wouldn't be an adult if I didn't have a parent. I wouldn't be here talking to you if I didn't have teachers. So you do need that. That is a very important element. And I don't want this whole idea to be misunderstood as like, forget training, forget education, forget all that. Just go out and do it. You're ready to go. Because that's not what I'm saying. But I will say, that I have found that 99 percent of people are more ready than they think that they are. And that hold you back when you feel like you're not ready. It is scary to take that step when you feel like you're not ready. Of course, it looks like everybody else has their stuff together. When you feel like you're not ready, who are you to go out there and do that? Right. I felt that very heavily when I really started to get into weddings. When I started to market myself as an Indianapolis wedding photographer, one, knowing that I live, about 40, 45 minutes away, I was like, can I even label myself as an Indianapolis wedding photographer? And then two, I would see the works of these other photographers who lived near me doing what it was that I wanted to do. And I would think to myself, I am not on that level. How can I call myself the same thing that they're calling themself when I'm not on that level? But it takes trust in yourself. It takes knowing that that's what you want to do. It takes curiosity to explore. It takes being humble to know that's not where I'm at, but it's close to where I want to be. And that takes time and that takes curiosity, being curious about the world around you, about how things work. I mean, I'd give anything for my kids to stay as curious about the world as they are right now. Because that is such an important quality to foster as a human. When you're curious about something to explore it. Don't just immediately say, I heard other people talk about this and they say that it sucks. So guess what? I don't like it either. And I'll be honest. I get that a lot when I tell people that I shoot JPEG. I get this. I've seen so many videos by X photographer who says that is a terrible idea. no latitude. You have zero dynamic range. Your photos could be way sharper. How do you control that? It's dumb. I get that stuff. Like, people say that to me. Like, immediately, it's like if you're in a room of photographers and you say that you shoot JPEG, man, you are the loneliest guy in that room. I'll tell you what. I will tell you what. And boy, does that not feel good. And it makes you question yourself. But in the end of the day, like, they're right. Shooting RAW is a better format. It's more flexible. But for my use, for the reasons why I shoot JPEG, I know that it's the right choice for me. I had to go out on my own to find that. If I just sat behind some headphones and listened to podcasts, if I just sat behind a computer screen and just watched YouTube tutorials, I would never be able to make that decision on my own. Coming to that decision took me trying something. Me going out on my own. Rather than saying, Hey internet, thinking about just maybe shooting JPEG, what do you think? And then just being, murdered with the worst comments you could ever imagine in your whole life. Because if I did that, I'll tell you what, I probably wouldn't be right here, right now, talking to you. I feel so embarrassed, but you have to know who you are. You have to know the reasons why you do the things that you do. And the only way that you're going to do that is by doing it yourself. And the best way to do it yourself is to actually go out and try, gain that experience. But know that experience is not just blanketed wisdom. Sure, I have more experience than you, maybe. But that doesn't mean that everything that I do, or everything that I say, is going to be right for you and your photography. Sure, that person on YouTube who you watch who does all these endorsement videos because brands love them and they have their own line of, backpacks. Tons of experience. You've even seen their photos in their YouTube videos. What if you don't want to live that life? What if that's not the style of photography that you want to do? I don't know. Are those photos really making an impact on anybody? Or are they just popular? You know what was popular? Giant hair in the 80s. Looks dumb today. If I saw somebody with like giant shoulder pads today, I'd be like, What happened? What hot tub time machine did they just hop out of? Because they're not from this time. Things change. But the only way that you're going to figure out how to do things is to go through life and do them yourself. And I thought about this, the other day when I was at my daughter's, basketball game. We were getting ready for her game. And, we were there a few minutes early and we were watching the game being played before. It was with some older girls. I don't know, 12, 13, something like that. And, as we're watching the game for a few minutes, you can tell the order in which, I don't know how good these girls are, I suppose, because everybody seemed to pass it to the same one or two girls and before they would take the shot. So clearly these girls were, some of the strongest shooters. Great. That's fine. You know, whatever. But one of those two girls, I noticed every time she would get the ball, She would immediately look back over to the coach as if like, okay, now what, now what do you want me to do? What should I do? And you know, the coach would be right there like, yeah, let's go. Good job. Like go down the court, and then we'll be yelling out, pass it to, I don't know, Sarah, whatever. And then this girl would, she would do these things and then she would look back and she did this over and over and over again. And there was once where. somebody on her team shot, missed rebound and she caught it and what she could have done in that moment, of course, I'm just on the sidelines, is that there was somebody down, back a little bit that she could have, who was open to throw the ball to and then they could have made the shot. But what she did instead was look at the coach. And the coach had to say, throw it to, I don't know, Erica. Throw it to Erica, who was that girl who was open. But by the time she turned around to look at Erica and throw the ball, somebody was now covering her. She missed that opportunity. She missed that opportunity because she wasn't willing to go out on her own and try things. She's scared to fail. She's so scared to fail that she needs validation from everybody else. To say, Hey, you're making the right decision, or that's not the right decision. And that feels good inside. Because suddenly, if something does go wrong, because, Hey, we're human, things go wrong all the time. Now we have somebody else to blame. Well, Hey, coach told me to throw it to Erica. So I did. It wasn't my fault that somebody else was covering her. When we take that blame off of ourselves. A little bit of us dies inside, like we almost become a little bit more calloused to trying new ideas, to being open, to exploring new things. So, okay, you get it, you get it. how can we then go out on our own, right? How can we go out on our own? Let's talk about that. How can we go out on our own? What are the things that we can do as photographers to go out on our own? Okay, first thing that you need to do is turn off this podcast. I'm just kidding. Don't do that. Please don't do that. Please. One thing that I did personally was, I realized that I was getting into this habit to where, I'd be busy throughout the day, I'd be working on stuff, and then we would have, basketball practice in the afternoon, or I'd have to mow the lawn, or, house things, and that kind of the only time that I was having to myself was in the evening, 8, 9 p. m. 9pm, you know, the sun is now down, now that it's, wintertime, you're not going to go out and shoot, you're not going to do those things like maybe you could in the summer. So what I found is that I would, was, was just watching videos on YouTube. Again, I'm human. I don't know what, I don't know what you think of me, but I am human. I have flaws. And when I would watch these videos on YouTube, it would just become mindless. I would just watch them and say, okay, yeah, like, oh, that's interesting. Oh, wow. Or like, that's a really cool idea. That's really neat. And now I see what happens when you do this. Like, just literally just the other day in our town hall meeting. In the beginner photography podcast community. Barry was talking about tri chroming photos and I had knew I had known what this was because I've seen videos of other photographers doing it. I've never done it myself, but I, almost like immediately dismissed it. Not as if it was a bad thing, but like, Oh yeah, no, I know how to do that. Like I understand the process of doing that. That's really interesting, but I wasn't interested in doing it. I took somebody else's experience. As my own by watching that video, I said, Oh, I've seen this photographer go out and shoot trichrome, which if you don't know, is a, it's a series, it's taking three photos in black and white, one with a red filter on your lens, one with a blue filter on your lens, and then one with a green filter on your lens. And then in Photoshop, you can merge those colors, those photos together, and you can actually create a color image out of black and white photos out of three black and white photos. It's crazy stuff. Okay. Anyway, I thought to myself, I've, I've seen that done before. I see where the struggles are. I see what's hard about it. I see what's interesting about it. Cool. I get it now. I understand it. I get it. And yet I've never done it before. I've never gone out and shot trichrome or arrow chrome. Like I believe Barry was actually doing. and that's on me. That's because I was rather than. Actually getting out and doing things. I was having an opinion formed based on the experience of others. And that's dangerous. We need to get out and we need to shoot these things ourself. So once I realized that, you know what I did? I bought those three filters because I'm going to try it myself. Do I think that it can fit within my workflow? I don't know. I don't know because I've never tried it before, but I have to try to be able to see if it's going to work. There's something interesting enough about it that I do want to try it. But I was holding off because I had seen how difficult it can be. So listen to yourself inside and say, Is this something that I mean, there's any sort of possibility that I might actually be interested in, and if there is, then try that for yourself. And if there's not, well then, stop watching that video. Like, what are you doing? Like, then you can ignore it. If you think that there's nothing about this idea that you find interesting or could use yourself, don't do it. Save your time. Do the things that you do think might be interesting or useful or you could use in your own photography and find fulfillment in. Tri chrome is one of those things. I just never did it because I could see how hard it was. So, I bought those filters. Sure enough, they'll be here, I believe, tomorrow. And I'm gonna try it myself. I'm gonna give it a shot and form my own opinion of it. I had to kill that photography teacher and their ideas that I had seen in the video. And if I find that it's just as frustrating, wonderful. Now I know for myself, and I'll have examples for myself. If I find that yeah, it's frustrating, but what if I did it like this? Or what if there was this other thing that could be introduced? And then that starts something new. How great is that? I mean, building a house is hard. But people build houses. People need houses. They're useful. They're helpful. Sure, getting that one photo might not be as easy as just like snapping a quick shot. It might take some actual work and it might take some actual planning. But sometimes those photos end up meaning the most to you. The point is, is that you have to be able to do something to try it, to decide whether or not it's going to work. Rather than watching reviews and then taking those opinions or their experience. As fact, and that it's going to be that way for you. Like I said, I shoot JPEG. That doesn't mean that I think you should shoot JPEG. And you shouldn't think to yourself, maybe I should try to shoot JPEG. You should think to yourself, what are the benefits of JPEG? And would it help me at all? And then you can look into it and then you can decide, but just because I've experienced in something doesn't mean that it's going to work for you just because that person. Talking about how difficult it is to try chrome photos doesn't mean that it's going to be the same for me. You got to try. You got to figure it out. So, I guess getting back to, the whole point of, of that was that I had realized that by, spending my evenings watching videos and whatnot, it felt productive because it was within the world of photography, but I wasn't actually doing anything and productive. In fact, I was just kind of zoning out. I wasn't learning anything. So what I did is that I've given myself a limit to give myself more space. Because for me, creative ideas happen when there's space. We have ideas that come at us from all angles. Look at this interesting photo on Facebook. Look at how this one photographer used light on Instagram. Look at this technique that somebody on YouTube is doing. Cool. If you take in all this information, but you don't give yourself the space to let your brain do something with it, then it's going to be wasted. Space is so, so, so important. Helpful. There's that quote, I think it was Benjamin Franklin, but I'm not sure who it was, who said, if you give me an hour to solve a problem, I'm going to spend the first 55 minutes defining that problem. And what I take that as, as, sometimes it's not about just like brute force, taking in all the information, watch these videos, listen to these podcasts, read these blog posts. Let me see all the photos on social media. Sometimes it's being more intentional. Sometimes it's saying, I want to look at less wedding photos. I want to be interested in the printing process. And then watch four or five videos on that, and then literally don't watch anything else for like the rest of the day. Limit yourself to like three or four videos, and then just don't watch any more videos for the rest of the day. And let those ideas from those three or four videos start to grow in your head. Cause it'll happen at random times. And it is hard. It is hard. Come 8 PM kids are going to bed. Okay. Now, now what you can sit and you can scroll on your phone. You can look at photos. You can, get on YouTube or try this. You can. I know this sounds like a romantic idea, but like, you know, you can get yourself a glass of tea, a cup of tea. You can sit out on the, back patio and enjoy the sounds of nature. But just give yourself some time. And you will discover, before you know it, that these ideas start to form. Huh, that one guy said that this is how he does this sort of printing, but it's a little bit different when you do it at a different aspect ratio. But I wonder if I shot like that in camera and then I did this other thing as far as post production goes, I wonder what that would do. You're taking these ideas that you ingest, and you're taking your experience that you have by doing things, and then they come together and something new happens. But that's only when there's space. So to go out on your own, oftentimes just means give yourself some space. Stop watching as many videos, stop reading as many blogs, stop consuming as many images on social media. Stop listening to as many podcasts. Give yourself some space. work on something long term. This is something that I've been really only recently doing. And by recently I mean I guess since last October when I shot my last wedding. When I wasn't shooting as much, I found that I was looking at my images more. And when I looked at my images more, I started to recognize patterns. I have a lot of photos of my own shadow. I have a lot of photos of just cars on the road. I have a lot of photos of infill structure. I have a lot of photos of, like, just beautiful stuff that I see around Indiana that, like, says Indiana to me. And as I'm looking at these photos, I realized to myself, like, this is a body of work. I have a collection of images of just infill structure. I have a collection of images called The Road. I have a collection of images called Love Letters to Indiana. I wouldn't. have thought of that, I wouldn't have been able to connect those together unless I had the space. So now that I have the space and I saw what this project could be, there's no, like at a wedding, there's a time limit. It's the end of the night. But for a project about infrastructure, a project about clouds, a project about Indiana, There's no time limit to that. And in fact, there shouldn't be. And that makes it more interesting because now, every time I'm out, oh wow, that is, those clouds look very defined. They look very angry. I'm gonna take a photo of this. What would this photo be? Am I adding context? Am I not, is there a tree in the way? is it completely empty? Is it abstract? Is it full frame cloud? Now when I'm out, like right now is like prime harvesting time in Indiana while it's known for corn. So you better believe that I have stopped on the side of the road and taken my fair share of photos of, combines. I think it's a combine. I don't, is it, is it a combine? that like harvests the things? Or is that just a tractor? See, I don't know, but I'm curious about it and I want to know and I swear to God, right after this, I'm going to Google it because now I'm really interested. But I stopped and I took those photos because I was interested because I had the space to show me what was here the whole time. I found this long term project to work on and I was curious enough to continue to work on it. These things don't have to be brand new ideas that are just like, groundbreaking. It's just kind of interesting to you. That's all that it has to be. And nobody ever has to see these photos. But when you start doing these things, when you can Google wedding photography and see a billion examples, you have an idea of what wedding photography is when you Google clouds. Whoa, It's all over the place. Is it scientific? Is it just like from a point and shoot camera? Is it like all of these things? It's not as defined. So now you have to come up with what that photography means to you. So having this long term project, being able to see what it looks like, as it grows, as it evolves, is amazing. It is a dream. Amazing. And when you're here, I'll tell you what you want to spend less time looking at other stuff because you say to yourself, man, I really liked this photo. Like this one turned out really good. You almost don't want to look at the work of others because you don't want it to be influenced. Like you feel like this came out of your brain. would you want somebody else to tell you how that should be, to tell you how it should look, leaving you feeling disappointed? That's how you get to the road of mastery. That's how you start to master photography. You kill your photography teachers. And then, I think that the phrase is when the, when the student becomes or when the student surpasses the master or the student surpasses the teacher or whatever it is. That's an internal thing. There's no labels that says this person is X. That is internal. When you love your photos more than somebody who you looked up to or somebody you look up to. You did it. You killed your photography teachers. And congratulations. I'm proud of you. I have one last quote here. Actually, take that back. It's not a quote. It's just an idea that I had. So this quote is by me. Hey, cool. Okay. I wrote this down. It says, mastery is knowing when something is out of balance and where to start to fix it towards your own vision. You can't have your own vision. Unless you have the space. Unless you're out on your own. No, unless you're out on your own and you have the space. This was fun. Alright. Well, that was it for today's, the last, of this ten part series. This manifesto series. I hope that you enjoyed. Next month, I'm going to come back with a recap of everything and more practical ideas of how you can implement all of these ideas to become the photographer that you want to become. But for today, I challenge you, this evening, whatever your routine is, whatever your, less than ideal routine is, whether it's sitting in front of the TV or if it's scrolling on your phone or, whatever. Just try to find a place or find some time to just sit and do nothing. And then just notice the thoughts that come into your head. See if you can explore those. So that's it for today. Again, remember, The more that you shoot today, the better of a photographer you will be tomorrow. Love y'all. Talk soon. Thank you for listening to the beginner photography podcast. Keep shooting and we'll see you next week.