The Beginner Photography Podcast

Embracing the Learning Curve in Photography with Raymond Hatfield

• Raymond Hatfield

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#534 In this episode of the podcast, I tackle the challenges of embracing the learning curve in photography. If you feel stuck or frustrated by your lack of progress, this episode is designed to help you reconnect with your passion and find joy in the process. You'll discover the importance of making small, consistent efforts and how to give yourself permission to experiment and explore creatively. 

What You'll Learn:

  1. Reconnect with Your “Why”
    Discover the importance of understanding why you picked up the camera in the first place.
  2. Experiment Without Pressure
    Learn how releasing the need for perfection helps unlock your creativity.
  3. Take Small, Consistent Steps
    Find out why small, regular practice sessions are better than occasional intensive ones.
  4. Reflect on Your Growth
    Realize the benefits of looking back at your older work to see your progress and stay motivated.

Learn What Camera Settings to Use in our free guide!
https://perfectcamerasettings.com/

Connect with Raymond!


Thanks for listening & keep shooting!

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As a photographer, not every photo that you take has to be a masterpiece. That's just a pressure that we put on ourselves. Early on, for me, I would show up and I'd be so stressed about getting just a great, a creative, a unique shot. That I would blow a fuse so early and I would just leave with nothing that I was happy with. I'd be so focused on, on getting something new, getting something creative that I would just, I wouldn't even be looking at the world in front of me. I'd just be so worried about getting that thing that I didn't even know what it was. So again, I would leave with nothing that I was happy with. Today, I now start the exact opposite way. Hey, Raymond here from the Beginner Photography Podcast, and let me ask you a question. Have you ever looked at your photos and thought, like, what am I missing here, you know? Or maybe you felt stuck, like you're not improving, no matter how much you try. If that's you, well then, you're gonna love today's episode. But first, want you to know that you're not alone, every single photographer who has ever come before you, whether they were an amateur or even the professionals that you admire. They've been right where you are right now. The thing that we often forget is that, the best photographers are not the ones who mastered everything in photography overnight. That every time they pick up the camera, they just produce gold. They're just simply the ones who have embraced photography as a journey. They're the ones who have allowed themselves to, to grow, to make mistakes, to explore creatively without fear, not run when things get tough. One of my favorite examples of this is from my interview with legendary photographer, Joe McNally, when he told the story of how he photographed Michelle Yo in the desert for a story for national geographic, that was about, America's fascination with Asian culture. I think in big budget Hollywood movies. Anyway, he shot all this film in the desert, right? He sent off the film to his editor, who called him immediately, yelling at him, saying, these don't say Hollywood. So, Joe McNally, on the verge of, potentially losing his job, he booked another shoot with Michelle Yeoh, hanging out of a helicopter in front of the Hollywood sign, to quite literally say, Hollywood. The photos were a huge hit. And this was all because he didn't give up on the journey. And he tried something new. So today, I want to help you shift your mindset and actually enjoy the process of learning photography instead of feeling frustrated. I want you to walk away after listening to this episode feeling, reconnected to your passion of photography. Excited to try something new. Um, And confident in, taking those small but practical steps that lead to real progress in photography. Because the truth is, progress in photography doesn't come from knowing every single camera setting, and creating perfect photos all the time. It comes from simply shooting more. It comes from experimenting and it comes from finding the joy in the process. Not the end result. So in this episode, we're going to break down the three most powerful ways to embrace the learning curve and get unstuck in your photography journey. If that's where you're at now. So today we're going to cover things like how to reconnect with the reason why you started photography in the first place. How to reignite your creativity and give yourself permission to experiment and how to make progress without feeling overwhelmed by simply doing small and consistent steps. All right. And to make sure that you have plenty of inspiration to take action, I've created something just for you. It is a free guide to 46 creative photo ideas to help you break out of a rut and start shooting again. You can grab that right now over at beginnerphotopod. com forward slash photo ideas, and I'll tell you more about it as we get later on into the episode. So, all right, let's go ahead and dive in. There's this idea in photography that, we get into it because Well, it's easy, you know, everybody has a camera these days on their phones. but when you invest, when you take that time to invest in a dedicated camera, because you saw how easy it is with a phone, you see how productive you can be. You're capturing these moments, you're capturing this, the beauty. That is life. You decide I'm going to invest in a dedicated camera, because if my phone, a cell phone takes photos, this good, imagine how great the images from a dedicated camera would be. Right? So again, you invest in that dedicated camera and right away, right away, you start running into roadblocks. It's way harder than you expected, right? It's not taking good photos. Definitely not taking great photos. And you think to yourself, how is it that a cell phone is taking way better photos than my camera? there's a moment there where photography becomes extremely difficult. I've been there. Maybe it wasn't, comparing it to cell phones, but like, I was that kid who, I always had some sort of camera, whether it was a point and shoot camera, whether it was a Polaroid camera, whatever it was, I took a ton of photos. I took a ton of photos of, of my friends in high school. I, I literally took my camera to school with me every single day. In high school and our math class was such a joke that I would just use that time to take photos of me and my friends, right? When we should have been doing math, which is probably why I failed math two years in a row. But regardless, I still graduated. I loved photography. I love taking photos of what was going on. And then I went to film school and because I loved just the process of, I loved creating images so much. Right. I thought film school is the place for me. So I went to film school and right away, there's no like on a film camera, there's no, Like, it is your job to make every decision that is going to be related to the image. So there's no auto mode, there's not even auto focus on cinema cameras. So quickly, right away, day one, probably, you learn about And, my first thought was like, why is this so complicated? The point and shoot camera that I have, just for photos, takes great photos. Like, it's making all of those decisions. Why do we have to complicate this? And that fell on my face. A lot. A lot. A lot of my shoots were underexposed, or my depth of field was way off, it was just like really, amateur mistakes that I had never really made before because I just let my camera make a lot of the decisions for me. let it produce, you know, photos. And I felt that suddenly creating images went from, just this fun thing that I would do, that I got enjoyment out of, and it quickly became a job. And I fell out of love with this thing that I enjoyed my whole life. I fell out of love with it for, for a bit. Now I have the, I mean, you'd call it an advantage if you want to, you could also call it an imprisonment, but, I had the advantage of being in an educational program, like that was my, that was my whole goal. So like, if I gave up, well, I would fail and that wasn't an option. So I was forced every single day to do this. If I wasn't in school and I didn't, you know, depend on a grade or, graduating with some degree, I guess I probably would have gave up. I probably would have gave up. And to me, like today, looking at y'all who are just getting into photography and trying to do it on your own, you bought the camera, now you're going to figure it out. Like so much respect for that. Nothing is holding you to photography. You could give it up at any moment, but instead of, of hanging the camera up on the shelf, when things get difficult, you, you know, you push through that on your own. And that is extremely commendable. That doesn't make it any less frustrating, but it's extremely commendable. So congratulations. But when we fast forward to today, I love photography. I love being out and shooting. I love trying new things. I love looking back at my images. I love all of it. I even host a photography podcast and I love it so much, but what turned it around for me was reconnecting to my, why, why did I pick up a camera in the first place? And my answer to that is that I loved that the camera became a tool for me to bear witness to life. to capture it in a way that only I uniquely see it. And even fast forwarding even further to today, like, photography has become a type of, like, second memory for me. it's strange to think about people who don't photograph their life as much as I do. Like some, you know, some people just don't photograph much of their life, and that idea is so foreign to me because like my photography again has become the second memory for me. It's, it's become a way to look back at my life. And that was the driving motivation to keep me shooting. So I get it, when you're caught up in camera settings, when editing seems impossible, when do you know how to stop? It's just all these sliders and these things, and there's a billion different possibilities, or, you're frustrated with the struggles of, of social media, it is so easy to lose sight of why you started in the first place, so that is step one. We have to reconnect to our why. Reconnect to our why. We have to reconnect to the passion that brought us to photography. Why did you pick up a camera in the first place? So I have some steps on how to reconnect. And the first step is to reflect on that why, you really have to sit down and ask yourself what excites me about photography. Is it just capturing memories? Is it documenting your kids? Is it, it gives you a reason to get out and, get into nature, is it the joy of storytelling? We have to find out what excites you about photography, because if you don't, it's going to be real hard to, stick with it when things get tough, you know? So I want you to take out a sheet of paper, lined paper, and I want you to write down your why. I want you to write down everything that you love about photography, you know? If you love the gear, that's fine. That's totally fine. if you love capturing smiles, like great, write that down. If you love being outdoors with your camera, write that down. If you love holding a print in your hand, write that down, write them all down, right? I mean, just, just set a timer for like five minutes and write down everything that you can think of that you love about photography and then set another timer for five minutes and look at everything that you wrote down, just kind of absorb it for a moment. And then, try to piece it together into some sort of sentence. What is it that you love about photography? It's easy to say that we love, freezing the moment in time, that we can go back and relive. That kind of feels like a trope, right? So, try to find something more concrete. Because being able to freeze a moment in time, I have a hard time imagining that that is going to be the thing that is going to get you through a rough patch. Because when you're creating images that are not, uh, accurate representations of this moment in time that you're freezing, you're creating freezer burns, I don't know, on your photos, and that's not enjoyable, so that can very easily not be able to keep you from, the difficult time, so try to make it as, as concrete as possible. And, this will change over time, so don't worry about getting it absolutely, perfectly correct and right and definitive. This isn't the thing that's going to go in your gravestone. This can be something that you update every six months, every year, you know, whatever it is. But just get something down that is going to help guide you in the right direction. Step number two to reconnect with your work is to revisit your old work and do so without any judgment. I don't know how long you've been photographing. according to the survey results that I recently got back from you, listeners of the beginner photography podcast, the majority of you have been shooting for more than a year. So if that's you, awesome. This is going to be a little bit easier for you, but try to go back to some of your earliest photos. It doesn't even have to be since you started taking photography quote unquote, seriously, it could just be some of your earliest photos. Go back and look at those photos. Try not to critique them. You have more knowledge now about photography. Try not to critique them. Just try to remember the joy. The curiosity. That you had, you know, what is it about something while you were taking those photos was igniting a passion in you to go deeper into photography. Try to reconnect with that. Look at those photos, try to figure out what that thing was when you first started. So find, three, five old photos of yours that bring back just really good memories. And again, reflect on what made you take those photos. What is it? What's in those photos that made you say? Yeah, this is the moment that I want to capture Step number three to reconnect with your passion is to shoot something meaningful Now that you have some sort of idea of what it is that you love about photography, what drew you into photography, right? You have your list of ideas, you have your, your sentence, your why, and now you have a series of photos, that again, remind you of the curiosity and joy that first brought you to photography. Now it's time to take those things and try to shoot something meaningful. We're not trying to shoot, something quote unquote good. You don't need to feel the pressure of creating something, magical or perfect. I just want you to capture something that is personal to you. Maybe it's a childhood place. Maybe it's a childhood toy. Maybe it's a favorite coffee mug. Maybe it's your pet in their usual cozy spot, sunlight. Whatever it is, you have to find something meaningful to photograph. So today, I want you to do that. I want you to take one meaningful photo. Even if it's on your phone, that's totally fine. Right? The goal is to get you to take a photo. And then I want you to reflect on how that photo makes you feel like, why does it make you feel something? Why did you decide to take that photo? Try to connect with that feeling of why. All right. So that was the first part, right? The first part of, you know, learning to embrace this journey of photography rather than just looking at your images and saying, is it good or is it bad? The first part is to reconnect with your passion. That's what we just did. I gave you the three steps to reconnect. Now, the next part is we have to learn to embrace creative exploration, I found that in photography, you have to have permission to play. That's when you're going to be the most productive in photography. Even after shooting weddings for 10 years, when I think back to some of my favorite images, they come from my personal collection, times when I'm just kind of goofing off and trying something new. When I have the space to get out of my head, not worry about rules, not worry about all the technicals related to photography, but just shoot, just look at the world. So my signature style in photography right now is something that I call a stitch scape a stitch scape This is like a like a stitched Originally, it was like landscapes, but now it's just kind of like more scenes of everyday life, regardless. I call them a stitch scape. So, if you haven't seen any of these images, if you're not in the beginner photography podcast, Facebook group, or you're not subscribed to the newsletter, maybe you haven't seen any of these images. So imagine for a second that you're out shooting and all you have is like a 50 or an 85 millimeter lens and you want to capture more of a wide scene, right? But you don't like, you don't have a lens that's going to allow you to do that. So you stand in one spot and you shoot multiple different images of the scene that is in front of you. So, from left to right, you're taking photos, one, two, three, four, from top to bottom. So, you know, another one, two, three, four, and then the bottom one, two, three, four, and now you have a series of say, I don't know, 12 photos. You print all those photos out and then you lay them out to create the scene as if it was like, like a puzzle, like puzzle pieces, you have 12 puzzle pieces. And now you're going to try to put them together and create the full scene. I've been shooting these since like, I think like 2004, 2005. Never much with like, you know, a ton of intention. This all originally started because well, I had a Motorola Razr Cellphone with 0. 3 megapixels, but the lens was not a wide lens at all. So oftentimes I would just take two or three photos, one left, one center, one right. And then I would just kind of stitch those photos together in Photoshop, and try to make it look as if it was one photo. But today I will do my best to print them out and put them together physically, you know, and again, I've shot hundreds of these, many of, of my life, many of them actually at weddings, I loved doing it during the first kiss and many that are just simply landscapes. But it really wasn't until I, I walked away from weddings that I decided to physically print out these photos and compile them together like a puzzle. I was so busy shooting weddings. I was so busy waiting for the right moment. I was so busy, worrying, about the hair and the getting everything picture perfect that I didn't have time. I didn't have the space to explore creative ideas. I had to give myself permission to play around and try something new. And now it's my favorite thing in photography. So you may be struggling because, again, you feel overwhelmed by all the rules in photography, or just the amount to learn, and you don't even know where to start. Or you're afraid to get it wrong, you know? And God forbid, let's say that you do get a photo that you like, and you post it on Instagram, and I don't know, some, some jerk who, whose favorite hobby is like cutting off people in traffic, they decide that they're going to just unleash complete undeserved anger on you one day. And that is going to wreck you. We need to get back to the creative space, not just worrying about the technicals all the time. Creativity comes from experimentation. It comes from trying something new, not just following a formula. So how do we explore our creativity? The first thing that we need to do is just remove the pressure of creativity. of playing around. I try to think of photography, like our own physical bodies, okay? When you go out and you do photography, imagine that as a sport. If you watch the Olympics, if you watch any sort of professional sports, these athletes are professionals. This is what they're paid to do, right? They're a peak performance. And before every game, before every match, before every tournament, what do they do? They stretch. You gotta stretch, you know? stretch, when they loosen up, they're not doing it the degree that they need to later on to compete. They're just moving around. They're just kinda, getting the gears going. They're As a photographer, not every photo that you take has to be a masterpiece. That's just a pressure that we put on ourselves. Early on, for me, I would show up and I'd be Let's, take a wedding for example. Or just anything. Anything. I would show up and I'd be so stressed about getting just a great, a creative, a unique shot. That I would blow a fuse so early and I would just leave with nothing that I was happy with. I'd be so focused on, on getting something new, getting something creative that I would just, I wouldn't even be looking at the world in front of me. I'd just be so worried about getting that thing that I didn't even know what it was. I was hoping that, lightning would strike and be like, this is the thing. Capture this and everything changes for you. But that never happens. So again, I would leave with nothing that I was happy with. Today, I now start the exact opposite way. I show up and I ask myself, what are the photos that everybody else would take here? And then that's where I start. I start taking those photos. That's the warming up, you know? And then before I know it, I'm starting to change up my angle, maybe play with my shutter speed, maybe even a little forced perspective if I'm feeling crazy. And before I know it, I'm in the zone, trying new creative things. But it starts with getting those gears going, loosening up, trying something new. So for you, try, I don't know, a bad photo challenge. Try a bad photo challenge where you intentionally take 10 bad, or just boring photos to free yourself from that fear of imperfection. When you take just 10 like bad photos again, or boring photos, then you're just like, okay, I get it. Okay, I'm in it. Let's go ahead and get going. So try that. That's going to help release that pressure by just playing around. You also, another way to explore your creativity is to experiment with a new technique or subject. Right? I think that we all kind of naturally gravitate towards one thing or another, whether that's, you know, landscapes, portraits, street photography, whatever. Try something new. Try something new don't normally shoot, you know? For me, when I was shooting weddings, I'd be so in the zone of, of portraits and, these environmental portraits and, focusing on the moment that I had to get out of my head and I experimented with some product photography. And at the time, me and my neighbor were like brewing a bunch of beer. So we had our own bottles and I was like, yeah, I'll like photograph our, our own, homebrew beers, in this really cool and fun way, and I spent a whole afternoon just like photographing a single bottle and I remember that afternoon very well. I don't remember what year it was. I don't remember what weddings I had shot before after that, but I remember that time because it was something new and it was something that got me out of my head to try something new. And those photos, like I didn't bring them into Photoshop. I didn't do like, you know, I didn't post them on my Instagram. I didn't do anything with it. The goal was the exercise itself, but just to get out of your zone and try something new is really, really hard. a huge boost to your creativity because now your brain is, is trying to figure out all these new pathways, and again, you don't have to make it a big thing. You don't have to go out hire models or go on a trip to Nepal or whatever. if you need to try landscape photography, you don't need to do that. Like these can be things that you do at home to push yourself. I shot that bottle of a beer in my. I put it on a stool. I set up some lights around it, some reflectors, and I did it just in my kitchen, you know, it can be at home. And if you need a little help, well, this is what I was talking about earlier. I invite you to grab my free download. It's called 46 creative photo ideas to get you out of a rut. And I created this. It is loaded with with fun and challenging ideas, again, to get you to stretch and to get you to warm up your creative muscles. That's the whole point of this. You can download it right now for free as in like free, free that, you know, you don't have to put in your credit card or anything, it's just free. You can grab it over at beginner photopod. com forward slash photo ideas. Again, beginner photopod. com forward slash photo ideas. You pick one thing from the 46 creative ideas. And just give it a shot. Try it out. See what happens. All right. Now, the last thing that we need to do to learn to embrace the journey that is photography, is we have to simply take small, practical steps. Because the small and practical steps where we're gonna get our biggest wins, you know. Photography can feel overwhelming, I know, I've been there. And when you think that you have to master everything at once, oh my gosh, there's camera settings, there's lighting, there's composition, there's editing, there's moment, all these things. That's a lot to do all at once. But the truth is, is that progress comes from consistent, but small steps. It doesn't come from leaps. Nobody gets to the top floor of a building by taking one giant leap to get up there. They take a bunch of small steps and learning photography is exactly the same. But I guess the analogy is a bit different because in a building there's a theor, I guess there is a physical top floor, but in photography there's, there's not. Photography's gonna be a lifelong journey for you. So there is no top floor. That's the thing, my goal. For this podcast is, is not for you to just listen. Like, I don't care about download numbers. don't care about like so many things that when I look at, like photography growth hacks or whatever, like, I don't care about that stuff. want you to not only like, I don't want you to just listen to an episode and then do nothing about it. I want you to absorb the information and then take action. Because consistent action, even tiny actions, will amount to greatness. I've shared this on the podcast a bunch of times, but if you haven't heard it, my weddings in May were way worse than my weddings in October. Meaning I was better at the end of the season than at the beginning of the season. Because by the end of the wedding season, I had been doing these small little actions. I had been learning to be just 1 percent better at each wedding. Not totally transforming who I was fundamentally at every wedding, and taking massive leaps and huge investments in gear and all these techniques. Just 1 percent better. And at the end of October, there I was way better, way smarter, way more creative of a photographer. And this all came from all of those 1 percent days that simply added up. And as far as I can tell, like that's been the best way to learn and to grow, that's been the best way to make consistent change. I've shared this on the podcast as well, like, my weight has always been a struggle in my life. And, there's this idea that, like, there's maybe too, too much information here, but it's like losing one pound a week is better than losing 50 pounds in a single week. Because when you lose, a small amount over a longer period of time, now you're developing the habits, the skills that are required to, to be a healthier individual long term. If you could easily lose like 50 pounds in a week, let's just say, you know, 15 pounds in a week, then you're not going to hold on to that habit. You're just gonna say, oh, well, this was, this was easier than I thought. I can just go back to my old ways and then just spend a week and, get back to it. And in photography, it's, it's very much the same. Your cell phone takes great photos right away. And you think to yourself, oh, this must be easy. So you don't really put in a lot of effort into thinking about things like composition. You don't put a lot of effort into thinking about things like, like moment, the things that aren't related to the gear at all, or lighting. You just think, oh, it's fine. Like, whatever. But if photography is hard, that is a huge, huge benefit. Because when you get to the point to where you feel, wow, I've actually made some progress here. Then you know. That it's genuine progress and then it's going to last, So again, how do we make that consistent progress? How do we make those small steps? Well, the answer, I think the first part is just to, just to focus on one skill at a time. Very often we'll go out and think, I'm going to the park today, you know, whatever, going to a nature park. I want to focus on, I'm going to get some great light. I'm going to, focus on my compositions, maybe get some leading lines of a trail, do all this stuff, hopefully I'll find some birds flying and I'll be able to capture them as well. All of these, like we're putting in so many things. We're putting so much weight onto the growth of that one session. That it becomes heavy. It's overbearing. So focus on just one skill at a time, you know? If it's gonna be composition, just focus on composition. If the light's good, awesome. If a bird shows up, sweet. Even better. But if not, that's not what you came there for. photographers have, hoped that this isn't me, go to Alaska hoping to photograph a bear, and a bear doesn't show up? You have to have a backup plan. You have to have like a main goal that isn't related to things that are outside of your control. So work on things like, just spend this whole week working on noticing light. Don't worry about your settings right now. Just notice some light. Look at how the light comes in the window. What is the intensity of light on the objects closer to the window than further away from the window? That means that there's fall off somewhere. Can you photograph that fall off? Next week just focus on composition. Oh, wow. Look at that. That's a leading line right there going to this thing Oh, what a beautiful frame that would be. The next week just color and contrast Set micro goals for yourself for your next session It'll be way more productive than you ever could have imagined I promise Okay, so here's another issue that people face, right? Because if, if we're coming up with consistent progress, right? We need to make consistent progress. That does not mean I'm gonna take two hours this Saturday to go out and practice my photography. And then next weekend, well, things get busy. And then the week after that, well, I'll have 15 minutes to, you know, squeeze in or whatever. And then hopefully at the end of the year, I'll be a better photographer. No, no, no, you don't have to do these in huge hour, two hour long chunks of time. Is that better? Yeah, of course, but consistency is better than overall time, okay? And if that only means that you practice 15 minutes a day, at home, Again, those tiny steps, you pick a subject, pick a coffee cup you know, and photograph it a bunch of different ways. Photograph it, from above. Photograph it from below. Get some closeup detail. Find some harsh light next to a window. Find some soft light. Use a unique framing technique. You know, whatever it is, get a number of photos that you can try at home. And then after that 15 minutes, well, then, then you can stop, but then do it again tomorrow with something else, shorter amounts of time that are more focused and more intentional on the one aspect that you're going to learn light composition, color, you know, whatever is way more beneficial than just one, two hour long session where you have all this weight on yourself because you only get it once like a month to get out and shoot. just not sustainable. Focus on those shorter, more consistent sessions. And then this isn't required, but this was always a big help to me is, is to track your process or progress rather. You do that by reviewing your own work. So in, in my Lightroom catalog, I categorize everything or I catalog everything by month and by year. So all of my 20, all of my May 2024 photos, I know exactly where they are. All of my January, 2025 photos. I know exactly where those are. All of my November, 2018 photos. I know exactly where all those are. So I can go back two or three years and see my images from then, and then I also favorite all of my images from each month so I can look at all of my favorite images from that time period. And then I can today look at all of my current favorite photos and see how much I've grown in that time. See how my, my vision is changing, what is it that I'm focusing on now that I wasn't back then? I can see that growth. You can do something similar. You can create a, I don't know, before and after folder to see your improvements over time. Just pick three, five, 10 photos that you took over the past six months, put them in a folder. Wait six months and then do it again. For that month or whatever, and just look at the differences and see where your photos have changed. And when you do that, you'll be able to see definitively that you are a better photographer. You'll see how you've improved. And sometimes just seeing like, Oh, wow, I have made progress will be enough to keep you going. Because again, the goal is not to get to the end fastest. Because there is no end. It's a circle. There's no end. So why try to do it all at once? You're not going to get there any faster. Let's go ahead and recap the key takeaways from today. If you want to avoid the overwhelm and you really want to look at photography as a lifelong journey. And you want to embrace this learning curve. Even though right now it's, it's pretty difficult. It feels overwhelming. The keys to doing that are, one, you need to reconnect with your passion and remember why you started. And then capture something meaningful today. Two is to embrace your creativity by playing with new techniques and perspectives without any pressure. And three is to make progress in small steps by setting tiny and achievable goals that just keep you shooting. If you want to kickstart your creativity and build a regular photography practice. Again, I invite you to download my 46 free creative photo ideas guide. It's filled with again, simple, but powerful prompts to get you shooting with fresh eyes. Grab your copy right now over at beginner photo pod. Dot com forward slash photo ideas. Again, that's beginner photo pod. Dot com forward slash photo ideas. Here's today's call to action. After you try one of these creative challenges, after you've taken one of the steps from today, I want you to share that photo in the beginner photography podcast community, which you can join over at beginner photo pod. com forward slash group. Again, totally free. We'd love to have you and I'd love to see what you create. So that is it for today until next time. Remember the more that you shoot today. And you do so consistently, the better of a photographer you will be tomorrow and every day subsequently. So that's it. I'll talk to you soon.