The Beginner Photography Podcast

509: Tips to Overcome Photographers' Block and Revitalize Your Photography

• Raymond Hatfield

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In this episode of the podcast, I share my most effective tips for staying motivated, drawn from my personal experiences in the field. You'll learn how to start fresh by decluttering your past work, capture the beauty in everyday moments, and embrace spontaneity in your photography. By the end, you'll be inspired to adopt new habits that will not only keep your passion for photography alive but also help you refine your unique style. 

THE BIG IDEAS

  • Capture the Mundane: Embrace daily photography by snapping pictures of everyday items to enhance creativity and sharpen your photographic eye.
  • Start Fresh: Create a new folder for your photos to organize and declutter, letting you focus on fresh creativity without the burden of past projects.
  • Shoot Aimlessly: Allow yourself to take photos without any specific goal. This can unlock new creative avenues and rekindle your love for the craft.
  • Consume Less, Create More: Reduce time on digital platforms and dedicate more energy to creating original content. This focus on creation over consumption nurtures artistic growth.

PHOTOGRAPHY ACTION PLAN

  1. Organize Your Work: Create a new folder on your computer to sort your most recent photos. Review and delete any photos that no longer inspire you, keeping only the best to build upon.
  2. Daily Photography Practice: Set aside 10 minutes each day to photograph mundane objects around you. Experiment with different angles and lighting to explore your creative boundaries.
  3. Go on a Photo Walk: Plan a walk without a specific route and take your camera along. Capture at least five interesting subjects that catch your eye along the way.
  4. Focus on JPEG Shooting: Switch your camera settings to JPEG for personal projects to save time on edits. Use this opportunity to explore in-camera settings like color profiles and film simulations.
  5. Share via Email: Choose a set of your recent photos and share them via email with friends or family. Reflect on the feedback you receive and consider how it can guide your next photography project.

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Thanks for listening & keep shooting!

Raymond Hatfield:

When you go out with no expectations, and you're able to see something in front of you and then come up with an idea for that shot and then capture it. That is your trophy shot. When you see something right in front of you, you have an idea for it. And then you're able to capture it in the way that you want to. That is your trophy shot right there, no matter what it is. Hey, welcome to the beginner photography podcast. I'm your host, Raymond Hadfield. And each week you'll learn tips and tricks from me and some of the world's best photographers on how you can use your camera to capture beautiful images. In today's rewind episode, we are talking about ways to stay motivated in photography so that your camera does not get put up on a shelf and collect dust. But first, as always, the beginner photography podcast is brought to you by CloudSpot. CloudSpot has everything that you need to build a thriving photography business, impress your clients, deliver professional experience, and streamline your workflow all in one platform. So grab your free forever account today over at deliverphotos. com and only upgrade when you are ready. You may have heard recently that I was going through bit of burnout. I was struggling a bit and it was not necessarily being burnt out on photography. It was kind of the rest of life, right? I realized that I was feeling burnt out because I wasn't, utilizing my creative release that is photography. Now, even though I know the power that it has to help me feel my best self and my most creative self, I think that we can all kind of relate to. Photography being one of the easiest things to just set down first, right? We let the rest of life get in the way. So I thought today's rewind episode was particularly helpful for those of you who are feeling the same way. It is a number of tips to help you stay motivated in photography so that you don't. Set down the camera, so that you keep using it and that you do become your most creative self. So today you're going to learn how to prepare for a fresh start. It's not as easy as you think, but it's a pretty straightforward what to capture when you're just kind of going through life, which is particularly helpful in the colder months when you may be just inside more and how to create more by consuming. Less. That's a hard one. But again, super powerful. And as always, if you need just a little boost, be sure to come on in to the free beginner photography podcast community. You can share your struggles, share photos, and just share. We're a pretty helpful little community we are. So again, you can join the free community by heading over to beginner photopod. com forward slash group. With that, let's go ahead and get on into today's rewind episode. Today I'm going to share some, motivational tips that I know have not only helped me in the past, but, I'm going to actively be doing now to once again, get myself back on that horse to be that person who I want to be, to be the photographer who, captures my life so that when I. I'm older and my kids are older. I can go back and look at memories and look at images from my life and, have those. So let me just start off by saying it's very easy to get ourselves down because we haven't taken photos in a month, right? I'm serious. In fact, I took a picture of the camera and just how dusty it is. If you want to see how dusty I let my camera get, you can see it in the show notes of this episode. It's terrible. It's horrible. It's no good. It's very bad. So like I said, it's very easy for us to get down on ourselves when we don't, go out and shoot for a period of time, right? Because if you've experienced that flow when you're shooting, there's nothing like it, right? You just feel like you and the camera and your environment is one and everything is coming together. And that feeling only comes from when you are actively shooting. So when you take a break and you take some time off and not actively shooting, you feel a bit rusty. It feels tough to get back into the groove of things. And therefore that can be discouraging in and of itself, which can lead you to want to slow down your shooting even more, which will just compound and be very bad. So again, I really want this episode to, help you out. I want it to be a motivational to you as much to you as it will be for me. So I'm going to share some ideas. Some of them are going to be actionable. Some of them are going to be more, high level right now. Let me start here. And I don't know if this is even a tip, but I need you to know, and maybe this is just me talking to myself as well, but. I'm going to point it at you. I need you to know that there's only one you, there's only one you, and I know that sounds very, maybe cosmic isn't the right word, but very like airy. But what I'm trying to get at here is that because there's only one you. And your photography, the way that you shoot, the things that you shoot, your processes that you put in place come directly from your life experiences. And that means that nobody else can shoot the way that you do. So no matter how much competition there is, you're always going to be able to find a way to stand out as a photographer. If you learn how to say what you want to say with your camera. Now that's a conversation in and of itself right there, right? Using the tool itself to be able to say what it is that you want to say. So we're not going to get into that today, but what we are going to talk about is that, what I think is important is to actually just shoot as much as possible. Right. Because when you do the thing, you're going to realize what works and what doesn't work. And then adjust from there, according to your style of photography. So that's the first thing that I want you to know, right? There is only one you. And therefore, if you stay true to yourself and your style of photography, there's no such thing as competition. There's no one else that you should even be comparing yourself to. Because the photos that you create are going to be uniquely your own. Alright, so motivational tip number one, and I think that this is what got me, excited for the summer in the first place, is that you don't live in a magical location. You don't. Maybe some of you do, maybe you No, you know what? I will go as far as to say that you don't. Everybody believes that wherever they live, that the grass is always greener somewhere else, right? If you live in L. A., oh man, I really wish I lived in New York. If you live in Chicago, oh man, I really wish I lived in Miami. Whatever it is. Wherever you live, you always feel like the grass is always greener, and that you don't live in a magical location. And, for somebody like me, I live in a, suburb of Indianapolis, and my neighborhood is kind of, secluded like there's no sidewalks that go anywhere else. I mean there's sidewalks in the neighborhood, but like you can't you know walk to the store You can't walk to other places, downtown Which is very much What it was like when I grew up, right? So that can feel like If I only lived in this other place, man, the photos that I could take would be amazing. Right. And that's what I was saying earlier. I kind of felt like, this summer going out to California, going out to LA, I wrote down all these places I wanted to go and visit and check out, and shoot and photograph and, see new things. And, it didn't happen that way. It didn't happen that way. So when we got back to Indiana, I thought, Oh, back in this rut again. But honestly, I've taken some of my favorite photos ever In Indiana. So the location doesn't mean anything. So for me, because I don't live in a magical location, I have to get over it. Just get over it. It is much better to shoot what's around you than nothing at all. Right? Just because you don't live in, Hawaii means that you're not going to go out and take photos that you like. You're not going to go out and do this hobby that you love. Like, did you only get into photography because you love looking at pictures of beautiful locations or did you get into photography because you love using your camera to tell a story? I'm willing to bet that it is number two and number two is, location agnostic. It does not matter. So really being able to capture the location in which you live, I think is It's one of the most powerful tools in photography. Seeing blog posts of people who live in little rural towns and are able to, photograph that everyday life. I don't live that life. So looking at those images is phenomenal to me. It is eyeopening. It's very powerful. And, I promise you that photographer thought to himself, what am I doing here? I just live in a little small, tiny town. Nobody's going to want to look at this, right? Whereas people who live in say an LA or New York live in a very busy location and think, well, this is just life, right? Everybody lives like this. So they don't necessarily capture that thing, but that's not what's interesting. What's interesting is where you live compared to somebody else. So just because you don't live in a magical location, get over it, get out and shoot. Okay. Motivational tip number two. I'm going to give you something right now. I'm going to give you permission to shoot aimlessly with no end goal. Just go out and shoot whatever captures your attention, whatever captures your creativity. That is what I want you to go out and shoot. So a few years ago I was in the height of wedding season, shooting two weddings a weekend, probably for two months straight, which I know doesn't sound like, it's not factory work or anything like that. It's not difficult. It's just, it can be a lot And I had thought to myself, I was feeling kind of burnt out. It felt more like a job, right? People have said this before, they're worried about photography turning into a job. and at that same time, I saw that, Red Bull was actually coming to Indianapolis to host a rally car event. And if there's one thing that you need to know about me, I love rally cars. Well, I love loud cars. There's something about the rumble of an engine. There's something about the sound of that high cam angle that is so like low at idle. But when you get going, it is just roaring. I love it. I love everything about automotive sports. So when they were coming to Indianapolis, I thought, Hey, you know what? I'm going to apply to be a press photographer, right? Through the Beginner Photography Podcast. And, they accepted me. Even though I was very clear and upfront about the fact that I never shot motorsports before, but regardless, it was their first event. And it was here in Indianapolis. And I think that they were just like, whatever, just give them a shot. And I had this idea of like, Oh man, I can go and capture, you know, if I get there early in the morning, there's going to be a driver who's like, really focused about the day. and then it's going to go into the race. And then at the end of the day, they're going to win and I'm going to capture that story and it's going to be awesome. And then I thought to myself, what are you doing? This is going nowhere. Like I have nowhere to publish this. I'm going to go and have a blast, right? I'm going to go and I'm going to shoot aimlessly. I'm going to have no end goal and I'm going to capture whatever captures my attention and my creativity. And that is exactly what I did. And when I was done with the event, you know what I did? I formatted the memory card. Because I didn't want to look at those photos as any sort of work. I didn't want to edit the photos. I didn't want to do anything with the photos. I just wanted to use photography as a way to express my feelings again and get into that groove and that mode. And that's exactly what it did. And there's nothing better than that feeling. Now I understand that, maybe rally event isn't coming to, wherever you live. And unfortunately, They stopped coming here to Indianapolis as well. So that means that I can't do these. So how do we do this in our everyday life? Well, one thing that I like to do is I like to go on Fuji photo walks and I've recorded a number of these and I put them on YouTube where I just go out. I have no intentions of doing anything with these photos except for just to go out and shoot. Now I may give myself some sort of a prompt or a goal, you know, like I want to capture, stark lines. I want to capture, the relationship between highlights and shadows. I want to capture, things that are left abandoned. Things like that, right? So I'll give myself some sort of, task or some sort of guidelines rather, and then I will just go out and shoot based on that. And then within those parameters, I can shoot whatever I want. I have videos where I go, downtown. And I'm talking like my downtown, not downtown Indianapolis, right? But my suburb and I will just photograph things that are abandoned, right? Pallets, milk crates, tires, whatever it is, whatever I find, something that feels abandoned, I'm going to photograph that. And these photos are not particularly, great. They're not particularly, anything that is going to grab anybody's attention. But for me, I'm able to get out and shoot aimlessly with no end goal and capture whatever captures my attention and my creativity. And that is something that really rejuvenates me to keep shooting. A lot. So I encourage you to do the exact same thing. Go out, don't have any sort of plan for your photos. Have no idea what it is that you're going to capture. Because like I said earlier, that idea of having this expectation of, Oh, I'm going to capture this great event and this thing is going to happen and I'm going to get the, you know, I don't know, winning trophy over the head and the excitement. If those things don't happen, it doesn't matter how great your photos that you are able to capture are, you're going to feel like it was a waste. Like you weren't able to do what you wanted to do. And that is the problem. That is the thing that we're trying to remove. We want to be able to see photographically. Right. And that's kind of what you're doing in your mind's eye right there. When you're thinking, Oh, hold that trophy over the head and be really excited. But now we want to go out and use those skills to be able to capture, As well. So when you go out with no expectations, and you're able to see something in front of you and then come up with an idea for that shot and then capture it. That is your trophy shot. It doesn't matter if it's just a flower that is backlit. When you see something right in front of you, you have an idea for it. And then you're able to capture it in the way that you want to. That is your trophy shot right there, no matter what it is. So that is step number two, go out and just shoot aimlessly. All right. Motivational tip number three here. We are just cooking. Aren't we? Motivational tip number three here is, I want you to start fresh now. I don't know where you're at in your photography journey, but I know that when I had made the decision to leave cinematography and dive into photography, I almost went about it in the same way that I went through cinematography. was like, I need to learn everything about photography and then whittle it down to just what I need to use. Right. And that, creates a lot of mental weight, you know, how much, styles, to shoot in, how different focal lengths do certain things and how, your shutter speed does this and that. and all of these things together and it's interaction with light and making sure that you're also telling a story on top of these things was a lot of weight mentally for me. Luckily I kind of already had some sort of education through, cinematography on the technical side, but, when it came to that next step, right, going out and capturing the photos, then I would have to come back and bring those photos into Lightroom Classic. And I believe this was Lightroom Classic 2? Lightroom 2? It was a while ago. And, Lightroom classic is a very robust program. It is designed for professionals. And I was not a professional and there was so much that not only do you have to learn on the technical side of photography, but on the editing and the organizational side as well, from tags to, I mean, just editing color is like a thing in and of itself. And then on top of that, you have to make sure that your monitors have, there was so much. So when you go out and you shoot. There's something about knowing that you're going to have to come back and edit your photos in like a new program, like Lightroom at the time that made me not want to shoot. It made me question the photos that I was taking, which in and of itself, isn't a bad thing. But, when you look at your camera and you're like, I have some free time, I could go out and shoot for like 20, 30 minutes. But I mean, honestly, it's going to take me like two or three hours to edit the photos. And I kind of don't want to do that. Cause I got work tomorrow, you know, yada, yada, yada. And that is a problem. When there is something that is in your way from capturing the photos that you want to capture, that's a problem. So I encourage you to start fresh today, right? And when I say start fresh, I mean, think of who you are as a photographer, what is important to you. So for me, in my photography, as much time as I spend in Lightroom, and for me, I believe that it is necessary. I don't love editing. And when I say I don't love editing, I mean, I don't love, the full image manipulation. I don't like, bringing things into Photoshop and combining things and tools and, moving this around and, putting this crazy sky in this image when it was actually kind of mundane that day. And then like, maybe making the eyes a little bit bigger. And that is a style of art that Many do, and many do very well, and I have a great appreciation for, but it is not what I want to create. And therefore, I need to figure out how to be fast. That is my gig in photography. I like speed. I want to be able to go out and capture something, and have it be 95 percent of the way there. or more before it is shared out, right? I don't want to take multiple photos that I know are going to be composited together. That's just not my style of photography. I want to take it and I want to have it right then I want to share it or whatever I'm going to do with the photo. I want it to be done within minutes or within the day of me capturing the photo. So therefore, for me, what is important is to shoot, to In JPEG. I love shooting in JPEG because one speed is King and the JPEG is done because I shoot on Fuji it's color science and, being able to use film simulations allows me to achieve a look in camera that would take me minutes per photo to achieve within Lightroom and I get it instantly every time I press the shutter button. So I want to encourage you to start fresh, right? For the type of photographer that you are. If you're the type of photographer who wants to make, large composites, digital manipulations, that is fine. Know that that's what it is that you want to do and create a fresh folder on your computer that isn't jumbled up with all of your past stuff, where you were trying to figure things out and you were doing this thing and it's kind of all over the place, start fresh, create a fresh folder on your computer, start over today and go from there. All right. So motivational tip number four is I want you to capture the mundane. I want you to capture the mundane because, like I was saying for me, speed is King and I'm a creature of habit, right? So I have to have that motivation. So the more that I can shoot, the more creative I'm going to feel, the more creative I'm going to be. So the more that I can shoot. means because I'm not out all day, every day, because I'm not in a beautiful location, I have to capture the things around me that interest me. So this can be, your unique location. Here's an exercise that I'm going to give you start every day by taking a photo. Of your coffee, right? If you drink coffee in the morning, that's probably one of the first things that you do wake up, try to take a photo of your coffee. That's going to get you in this mood. I haven't tried this, but I can imagine that that's going to get you in the mood to like, okay, I'm going to start seeing things this way. Right. Okay. I got to take a picture of my coffee. Oh, then you look over at your car keys and you're like, oh, wow, look, the lights coming through the window and hitting the car keys and then you take a photo of that, whatever it is. So start your day off by capturing a picture of your coffee, because we're going to capture the mundane, right? You do coffee every day. Take a photo of your coffee. Take a photo of your car keys. Take a photo of your closet where you grab your shoes and your jacket. Take a photo of your fridge. Take a photo of your toothbrush. Why are we doing this? Again, I really want you to see Photographically every single day and the more of those photos that you can take and these are the types of photos that I'm gonna be capturing Going forward. I think those are gonna have a lot more weight later on in life starting to realize looking at photos From when the kids were younger. It was like, Oh man, I forgot about that toy. And that was like, our daughter's favorite toy. She loved that thing. And it made this weird sound that sounded like a mix between, I don't know, a hedgehog and a turtle. We would always make fun of it. And I totally forgot about it until I saw that photo again. So it's those mundane things that we need to be taking more. Again, for long term, recall, but also, being able to get you in this mindset of daily, photography practice, taking photos of those mundane things. All right. Motivational tip number five, and I know I'm going to get a lot of heat from this one, and you might even just press that fast forward 30 seconds, a few times, but I'm going to encourage you to shoot in JPEG. I just mentioned this in tip number three, I'm going to encourage you to shoot in JPEG because it is faster. All right. It feels freeing knowing that you don't have to do any sort of heavy processing before sharing. Here's the thing. Okay. So I know that in photography we are taught, Oh, raw is better. Raw has all of the sensor data. So it allows you to edit more stuff. it's an insurance policy. if you screw something up now, you can edit it back and save a photo when you didn't think that you could save it before. I shoot weddings in raw for that reason. All right. Because I know that when it comes to a wedding, I'm going to be doing quite a bit of editing to my images. And therefore I do want those additional capabilities in being able to edit my photos, but for all of my personal photos, I shoot. In JPEG, because again, for me, the name of the game is speed and it is momentum. The faster that I can be done with a photo, sooner I can go out and shoot more photos. And that to me is the most important thing. Now I've been shooting, raw for more than 10 years at this point. And I can tell you without a doubt that my 5D Mark II, which, It's still a very capable camera. The raw files that I was getting out of my 5D Mark II are Inferior to the JPEGs that I'm getting out of my Fuji, even my Fuji X pro two, which came out in 2016, which I still shoot with because it is such a tank of a camera. It is a beast. I love it. I don't think I will ever get rid of it. And I'm scared to death of the day that I'm going to have to upgrade. But my point being is that when I bring my photos into Lightroom to put my signature on these photos, right. And make those small adjustments. I've never thought to myself ever, man, I wish that I had more flexibility this image, every single thing that I've ever asked a Fuji JPEG to do, it has been able to do without any argument. It just does it and it's happy to do it. So that is to say that technology and JPEGs has come a long way over the years. And I think that this idea of shooting in raw. Is kind of dead, right? For a lot of, use cases. Again, I shoot in raw for weddings because for me, it's an insurance policy. But now that I think about it, I can think of very, very few situations in which I've, really had to use it. You know what? The next wedding I'm going to shoot, well, I will shoot it in raw and JPEG, but I'm only going to edit the JPEGs and we're going to see, what happens. And I guarantee you, it is not going to be. Okay, so again, shoot in JPEG for speed, okay? I'm not saying shoot in JPEG forever, I'm just saying maybe for the next 30 days, all of your personal images, shoot in JPEG. See how much faster it is and see how much freer you feel by being that much closer to being done before you're able to share an image or get it out. I know Samantha's listening right now and she's not happy about that, but I'm going to challenge you, Samantha, do it for just 30 days, personal photos. Let's see how it turns out. I promise you, you're not going to be as, disappointed as you think that you are. All right. Motivational tip number six. I want you to go on a walk. and this kind of goes back to number one, now that I think about it. number one is that you don't live in this, beautiful location, right? You don't live in this location that immediately brings, the craziness of the world that you want to capture to you. Since you don't maybe live in New York or in LA or I don't know, Hawaii, Alaska, Miami, Chicago, whatever it is. Because you don't live in a location like that. You're probably like me, you live in a suburb, you live in a neighborhood. Go on a walk, take the dog, take the kids, walk to the corner store, whatever it is. Because the more that you are out of the house, the more that you are out seeing other things, even if they're things that you've seen before, the more opportunities you're going to have to see new interesting things. Thanks. Maybe you don't think that anything interesting happens in your neighborhood because you spend all your time at home inside. I promise you interesting things happen, Interesting things happen outside L. A., New York, and Chicago, right? let me put that in there. They happen everywhere, but you have to be outside to see them. So go ahead, go on a walk, right now, even if it's just your phone, right? To take photos with, I'm good with that. Go out, take photos, and just see You know, where it is that you live again, when you're outside, you're open, you're going to see those interesting things. And then you can then capture those interesting things. Maybe it's not, a taxi cab, driving through a puddle, splashing, Something or someone maybe it's just the way that the light comes through the trees. Maybe it's the way that I don't know your neighbor has landscaped their yard and they have these beautiful or Birds of Paradise or whatever it is, whatever is out there and interesting. We're gonna go back to number two And that is to just shoot aimlessly. But to be able to do that, you have to be outside. So go for a walk. All right. Motivational tip number seven. I'm really excited for this one. Motivational tip number seven is to consume less and to create more. All right. Number eight. No, I'm just kidding. Number seven, right? So we have to go a little bit deeper into this consume less. Create more. What does that mean? I can tell you by looking at my screen time on my, screen time report on my phone, that Facebook and Instagram take up a lot of time. I hate that because I can't tell you when the last time I saw a photo that really like stood out to me on either of those two platforms, right? Something about the digital medium perhaps just doesn't really excite me. And it doesn't inspire me to go out and shoot. So I'm going to consume less and create more. And I'm going to encourage you to do the same. Get off Instagram, delete it from your phone, delete Facebook from your phone for just 30 days. Just try it for 30 days, delete Instagram, delete Facebook from your phone and go out, capture more, create more, go take more photos. And then on top of that, this is what I'm going to be doing with you this year. Since you don't have the Instagram to share your photos, since you don't have Facebook to share your photos, what are you going to do? Who cares about the photos that you're taking then? Right? What if you go out with some friends or some neighbors or some family and you go out And you take a few photos. How are you going to get those photos to them? What would you do in the past? You would post them on Facebook. You would tag them in it. Done. What are you going to do now? I want you to send your photos with cloud spot, send an email to your friends with your recent photos. It is an experience to look at a body of work rather than just scrolling past what, somebody did last weekend. This is something that I'm really excited about, right? There's this idea that, we can either share our photos on the blog or obviously on social media. And because people are already on social media, we just share our photos there or whatever. And it takes a lot of work to get people to your blog. So they don't get as many, views, but honestly with, whatever algorithm is going, who knows how many people are actually seeing your photos, that's probably not a lot. So imagine if you got an email, right. From your friends. Saying, Hey, we went camping and I took some photos. Here's our camping trip. And you could see it in a succinct album of, photos from the start and they're packing up the car photos of the drive, eating Cheetos. Photos of getting to the lake, or the camp spot, photos of setting everything up, the adventures that they did, the s'mores, the campfire, the waking up, the making the breakfast, all of those things, going on a hike, packing everything up, going back, this body of work, Looking at your friends photos is so much more of an experience and you as a photographer should be working towards telling better stories with your images. And there's nothing better than being able to do that and see that in one place. So here's what I'm going to do for you. Technically it is for me, but I'm going to do this for you. I want you to go to Beginner photo pod.com/ 3 1 8 Because in an attempt for me to consume less and create more, I need a little bit of accountability here. Right? So I'm going to be posting my photos every single month in a cloud spot Gallery. all of the photos that I take throughout the month, right, the photos of my life, the non commissioned photos, the photos that I need to take outside of work to feel fulfilled as a photographer, right? These are the photos that I'm going to upload every single month. to my CloudSpot gallery for you to go and see for yourself. And again, that is a way for me to be accountable without having to consume by just going on Facebook or Instagram, where it's going to get lost in the shuffle, I'm never going to see it again, but to create an actual body of work, to create a time capsule, if you will, of what happened in my life. Through the stories of the images that I am sharing. And I'm going to invite you to take a look into my life, right? Which feels very, scary to allow anybody really into my personal life, but I'm going to do it because this is a way once again, to create accountability and, I can only imagine how great of a resource this is going to be as time goes on and we get older and be able to look back at these images. And that is what photography is about to me. And with cloud spot, I can just take the photos, right. And then upload them right away, even through Lightroom. So again, I want to invite you to check them out. It's live right now. Beginner photopod. com forward slash three one eight. Okay. Motivational tip number eight. When you go out and you shoot, right? These are personal photos. Maybe you're going on a walk, maybe you're just going out and shooting aimlessly. I want you to try to listen to music. I think we all know music is something that can, bring up certain emotions in us. Music is something that can make us feel a certain way. Music can just really get us fired up. Right. And when we are actually out and we're shooting, I really think that that can change. How we shoot, it can change the way that we shoot, the way that we interact with the world. So for me, I listen to music with words. I have to listen to like instrumental type music. So if you're on Spotify, I listened to a Spotify playlist called lush lo fi L U S H L O F I. And then there's another Spotify playlist called brain food. Both of them are actually by Spotify. Spotify creates these playlists, but they are. kind of, instrumental, they're kind of electronic, they're kind of very low, they're kind of slow, you're not going to find yourself rocking your head to it. And I find that when, listened to something that can kind of take up that empty brain space, but doesn't have any words that allows me to think more clearly about what it is that I'm doing, what it is that I'm shooting, what it is that I'm seeing. And it provides almost sensory deprivation experience while you're out shooting, which just, deepens. Your, experience of the photography of the photos that you're capturing. and it really is something unique and something that you're going to really enjoy. So I encourage you to, when you go out and shoot next time, if you have Spotify, listen to the lush lo fi playlist or the brain food playlist, or if you need words, you know, listen to whatever you want, but those are the two playlists that I listen to, and I think that it really is able to slow me down and look at a better photo before I capture it. All right. Motivational tip number nine. As I said, for me, speed is the name of the game. So for the next 30 days, I want you to set your camera to black and white, not do it in editing. I want you to set your camera to shoot in black and white, right? There's something about looking through the viewfinder and seeing if you have mirrorless camera seeing in black and white because we as humans see in color, it's hard for us to imagine. Seeing the world, not in color. So when we change our image settings in camera to black and white, and suddenly we can see through a mirrorless viewfinder in black and white, wow, I cannot tell you how much easier it is for you to see compositions, to see, lines, for you to compose an image that is stronger because it is black and white, and because you're focused on composition, once you get that composition, now all you have to do is focus on the moment, and that is a big, Step forward in your photography when you realize there's just this feeling of like when you remove one element being color and you can focus that attention on everything else that you're doing in a photo, you're going to make a stronger photo. So I would be willing to say that it is impossible in color and convert it to black and white and make it as powerful as an image that you actually captured in black and white, because it's what's going through your head. It's the way that you see the scene. It's the way that you wait for the right moment. It's the way that you compose the image, which is going to be entirely different. And that's a very exciting feeling. Very exciting feeling. All right. motivational tip number 10. This is going to be my last one here. All right. Motivational tip number 10. If you have multiple cameras, sell one of them and buy yourself a photo book. As I mentioned, when we went out to California, I brought eight cameras and man, that was a big mistake. I've realized that when I have multiple cameras. get stuck in this decision fatigue, which camera am I going to bring? Because whenever we go out, I don't want to bring eight cameras. I just want to bring one camera. Which means before we leave, I have to make a decision. And that decision fatigue is, not conducive to creativity. If you have more than one camera, if you have multiple cameras, I really want to encourage you to sell one and buy a photo book because photo books, I have found to be very inspirational, very motivating to actually get out and shoot when I can look at. Instagram for an hour and have no additional desire to go out and shoot But I can look through two or three pages of a photo book and think i've got to get out there I've got to be capturing photos of this caliber. Many of the past guests on the podcast have photo books from chris orwig We got michael rabibi we got vanessa joy joe mcnally, kim beale scott strazzanti as well I own all of their books. I own books from all of them And again, like I said, scrolling through just two or three pages of a photo book will really inspire you to get out and want to shoot more. So that is it with my, uh, photography motivational tips today. I guess I'm going to end it, in also kind of a motivational way. And that is, I know that in photography, and early on, we are Told we have to do things in a certain way. If you want to be a photographer, you have to shoot in manual. If you want to be a photographer, you have to shoot in raw. If you want to be a photographer, you have to have a full frame camera. If you want to be a photographer, you have to have the 24 to 70. You got to have the 16 to 35 and you got to have the 70 to 200 millimeter lens. You also got to have some primes. if not, nobody's going to take you seriously. That is BS, right? You. You are in control of your own photo journey. And the advice that is given to many the advice that I give out on this podcast. Is meant to serve as advice that you can use however you wish. You don't have to edit in a certain way. You don't have to shoot your 50 millimeter 1. 8 lens at 1. 8 all the time. You don't have to share your photos on Instagram. You don't have to shoot in raw to be considered a photographer. You don't have to take your camera with you everywhere you go to become better at photography. You don't even have to have anything more than just your phone. It all depends on your goals as a photographer, right? You are the artist. You have to determine the tools and the processes that are right for the story that you want to tell with your images. Everything else is just noise. Everything taught to you is just a piece of information that somebody else learned and worked for them for their artistic vision and their style. And it could work for you. It might not. But that is why we have. This podcast, that is why I talked to so many different photographers. This is why it's not just me talking to you because I want to hear everybody's experience. I want to hear everybody's point of view and I'm going to pick and choose what is right for me. true to yourself as a photographer is so much more important than, quote unquote, doing it right. So I hope that you found some motivation today. I hope that you found some motivation to go out and shoot and capture more of that world that is around you, even if you don't live in a, tropical or magical location. and I know that I gave you some challenges, right? I challenged you to shoot in JPEG. I challenged you to shoot, in black and white. I challenged you to just photograph the mundane things around you. if you want, I invite you to join the beginner photography podcast community on Facebook. And you can share your photos there if you wish. if you want to grow your skills as a photographer, I really think that, the best way to do that is to surround yourself with others who are just as passionate about photography as you and can provide helpful answers to the questions and even give back. Feedback on your photos, which is great. so if you want to join the most helpful community for new photographers on the internet, head over to beginner photography, podcast. com and click the link on the homepage now. All right. That is it for this week. Again, remember the more that you shoot today, whatever it is, the more that you shoot today, the better of a photographer you will be tomorrow. Talk to you soon.