The Beginner Photography Podcast

Breaking Photography Rules to Level Up Your Skills with Louis Stevenson

• Raymond Hatfield

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#543 Louis Stevenson is a photographer based in Washington State. Louis shares his journey in photography, which began in his childhood when his father introduced him to shooting with point-and-shoot cameras and later SLR film cameras. His renewed enthusiasm for photography was sparked by capturing the solar eclipse with his phone, which led him to pursue it more seriously. The conversation dives into the transition from shooting as a hobby to taking it professionally, with a unique focus on race photography and youth sports. 

KEY TOPICS COVERED

  1. Discovering Photography - Louis recounts his early experiences with photography, highlighting the influence of his father's documentation habits and his own desire to capture moments for personal memory and storytelling.
  2. Pursuing Photography as a Passion and Profession - The conversation outlines Louis's transition from hobbyist to enthusiast, notably after the solar eclipse event, pushing him to acquire a better understanding of photographic techniques and equipment.
  3. Action Sports Photography Techniques - Louis and Raymond discuss the intricacies involved in photographing dynamic subjects such as motorcycles and youth sports, emphasizing the importance of context, capturing action, and the technical aspects of utilizing shutter speed and autofocus efficiently.

IMPORTANT DEFINITIONS & CONCEPTS

  • Exposure Triangle: The relationship between ISO, aperture, and shutter speed in achieving the correct exposure.
  • Documenting Action: The importance of providing context and capturing dynamic moments to convey the intensity and story of sports events.

DISCUSSION & REFLECTION QUESTIONS

  1. How does your personal interest or hobbies influence your approach to photography?
  2. What steps can you take to understand and master the exposure triangle effectively?
  3. How can experimenting with camera angles and dutch tilts enhance the storytelling in your photography?

RESOURCES:
Visit Louis Stevenson's Website - https://stevensonfoto.com/
Follow Louis Stevenson on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/stevensonfoto/

Download your free copy of
46 Creative Photo Ideas to Get You Out of a Rut
at https://creativeimageideas.com/

Sign up for your free CloudSpot Account today at www.DeliverPhotos.com

Connect with Raymond!


Thanks for listening & keep shooting!

Louis Stevenson:

You learn not to get precious with your photos. You think you can save every one of them. It's like, it's not worth saving every one of them. You have 4, 000 more photos to go through right now. You need to get through this. If you're saving all of them, then you can have too many to deliver. And then also people are going to be seeing subpar work. So you just want to give the best you can every time. Don't waste too much time trying to save something that's not worth saving.

Raymond Hatfield:

Hey, welcome to the beginner photography podcast. I'm your host Raymond Hatfield. Each week I interview one of the world's most interesting photographers to learn what it really takes to capture beautiful images so that you can start to do the same. In today's rewind episode, we are chatting with beginner photography podcast, community member, Louis Stevenson about overcoming photography struggles with persistence. Many photographers hit roadblocks, especially when shifting into new genres or handling technical aspects like the exposure triangle. But today's guest, beginner photography podcast, community member, Louis Stevenson shares his journey from just being a casual shooter to becoming a dedicated motor sports photographer. He talks about those pivotal moments that pushed him to take photography seriously. The challenges of understanding the technical settings and how these hurdles can be overcome with perseverance and creativity. So in today's episode, you will learn how to embrace the learning curve rather than give up. The autofocus trick that Lewis uses to keep fast moving motorcycles in focus. And how to break away from traditional photographic quote unquote rules and create something uniquely your own. And as I said, Lewis is a member of the beginner photography podcast community where he has not only advanced his own learning, but where he now helps out others in the community because of what he has learned. You can be like Lewis. We'd love to have you. So come join the free and amazing beginner photography podcast community, which you can join right now by heading over to beginner. photopod. com forward slash group. I hope to see you there. All right. With that, let's go ahead and get on into today's interview. Why don't you just tell me who you are, what you do, and where you're from, obviously.

Louis Stevenson:

Louis Stevenson, I'm from Washington State at the moment. originally from Oregon. Moved up here about 10 years ago, and, my career has taken kind of all vast directions, but, Yeah, I got me started in photography when I was probably about six, he gave me my first point and shoot. And, from there, he gave me a SLR film camera when I was about 10, before digital way before digital, you start to feel old when you look back and like, oh yeah, digital has been around for a long time now, and then I didn't do a whole lot with cameras through school. I did some teacher's assistance in a photography class for whatever reason. I never took it. And then after school, my dad actually gave me my first digital camera. And that's kind of, I've had one ever since I've been using cameras regularly ever since. it wasn't until, The solar eclipse, what is that about four years ago now that, we went down to Oregon and I had just my phone. I didn't take a digital, you know, at that point I didn't have any modern digital cameras of any sign besides my phone. And I shot the photos. I sent you two of them. the frog photo in the pond and, uh, solar eclipse, um, on that, on that, I'm like, you know, I really enjoy this and I think these turned out pretty well. I want to get a real camera and see how I do. And that's kind of gone from there. So, started, I immediately actually, for whatever reason, I immediately thought about getting a business license and all that from the start, why, yeah, I just jumped right into it. Sometimes I do that sort of thing. That's kind of the way I did, uh, The race photography this year, I saw an opportunity and just kind of went straight into it. Didn't give anybody opportunity to say no, just went straight in. So,

Raymond Hatfield:

yeah, that's funny. There's a lot of things, obviously we, we jumped a huge amount there from, you know, film camera there in the beginning to all the way up to race photography today. So I know that, it doesn't sound like you were taking photography, seriously with any sort of intention when it comes to composition or technicals early on, but, was there something about photography that just really kept you interested in it long enough until we got to the solar

Louis Stevenson:

eclipse? It's well, I've always liked to document, things I want to remember later type thing. my dad will take pictures of just everything. I mean, you're like, instead of writing a note down, he takes a photo of

Raymond Hatfield:

it. I love it.

Louis Stevenson:

Yeah. So, I'm not quite that way, but I will take photos of quite a few things like that where I just need to remember something later on. But, For personal things, I enjoy saving a moment. So it's like, it's the whole like recording your life and moments, that sort of situation. So, that's why I've always kind of like, when I was going to market myself as doing, I originally wanted to go in and do sort of a. lifestyle type photography revolving around outdoor activities and basically go on hikes with people and things like that. The things where people normally just take a point and shoot camera or put, set up a tripod or something like that and actually get good photos of somebody and, you know, make friends at the same time. And that hasn't gone anywhere, but I can see. where it could eventually, you know, if I, you know, you just got to build up, your social network for something like that to work. So, yeah.

Raymond Hatfield:

So at what point did it was after the solar eclipse that you decided, you know what, I'm going to take photography seriously. I'm going to shoot more with intention. Why do you think those photos sparked that within you?

Louis Stevenson:

I don't know, something about the photos made me feel that these were pretty good. And. I was, I knew what was good and what wasn't, I didn't exactly know why. And so I thought, you know, if I can do this without knowing exactly why, then maybe I can do this, do better if I actually go at this with some intent. So, I don't know. I had. wanted to get a good camera for a long time is the, the eclipse photo was through my telescope. So I wanted to get a good camera for a long time that I could actually hook up with the T adapter through the eyepiece of the telescope. And that was part of the intention. I still haven't done that, but that was part of the intention. And, um, I have the adapters and just haven't got taken telescope out to do it. So I've just been busy doing other stuff, photography wise. So.

Raymond Hatfield:

So like, why was, once you started getting into it, you decided, you know what, I'm really going to pursue this. You got yourself a nice DSLR. Yeah. What was, obviously it's a big difference than, uh, iPhone that you were shooting with. What was the hardest part for you to like fully understand?

Louis Stevenson:

is exposure triangle for everybody. I really think it is. because you don't realize that you can only push the boundary one way so far before it breaks another thing. and for me originally, it was definitely ISO because everybody's talking about ISO noise, ISO noise, this and that, and they're like. And at some point along the way, you realize that, you know, you just got to get the photo and you got to stop putting yourself in this boundary that's preventing you from capturing the moment completely. If you capture the moment, even slightly below your normal, 100 percent quality that you want, you know, slightly subpar, it's still better than not getting it at all. I think that really was the hardest part. And, the manual camera thing. Actually, when I went into it, I went into it with. I always, when I had a point shoe, I always kind of went about knowing every part of the point shoe. So I would push, you know, I'd push every little manual lock I could so I could get the photo to do what I want elsewhere in auto, auto. So when I got the manual camera, I actually started out in manual only. and ran manual only for like over a year before I started even experimenting with automatic focus, let alone anything else. Oh my gosh. Um, and that it's hard. And what really pushed me to go past that was when I started doing the youth sports. And realizing that I got to have auto focus and I can't, focus on, I can't concentrate on exposure and all these other things at the same time. when I really need to worry about is shutter speed, because, each moment is slightly different and I'm just going to set the shutter speed where I need it so that, you know, always at the minimum that I need it so I can get as much light as possible, but at the same time, not worry about the other settings and let them do what they need to do so I can again, capture the moment. right.

Raymond Hatfield:

Was there a single photo that, taught you that ISO, like it almost doesn't matter as long as you capture that moment, or was this something that you learned through a blog?

Louis Stevenson:

It was kind of organic. I used to follow Scott Bourne a lot when he was doing podcasts a lot, and he was really big about not worrying about the ISO also, and getting the photo, exposing it correctly in camera, so that if you need to adjust it later, you can do that. Because otherwise you're introducing noise twice because once, because the camera's introducing the noise, because you've went, you know, because you're going to get noise on a dark photo, no matter what you do. Sure. And even if the ISO is high or ISO is low, you're going to, might have less noise with the lower ISO. But then when you go into the computer, you have a dark photo and now you're going to boost that noise is already there and introduce more. So if you start out with the proper exposure in my, you know, from what he was saying, and Then you have less noise to start. So I started experimenting with that and it seemed to work to me. So I don't know if everybody's process is the same, but for me, I got a lot more photos to keep. Whereas before I was getting a lot of them, I was like, um, there's nothing here to pull out. So, right. Yeah.

Raymond Hatfield:

Did you feel like a weight was lifted off of you when, when you decided to pursue that instead?

Louis Stevenson:

Yeah, when you're not locking yourself into the boundaries of what you think the camera can do or let it do what it's gonna do. and then you can focus on your composition and everything else so much more. You're not, you know, less worried about the technical details and just getting the photo.

Raymond Hatfield:

Right. Yeah. Less worried about the technical details. Just get the photo. Exactly. Let me ask you there. You said in the beginning you were doing like a youth sports and whatnot, and you were using manual focus. Why did you choose manual focus over auto focus?

Louis Stevenson:

because that's what I was used to at that point. and SLRs film cameras. well, no, I was, I had, when I got my first camera, I got the Sony a 6, 000. And I was shooting with that. And as I said, when I first got, I just started shooting manual, everything, um, just to force myself to learn it. And, I hadn't gone, I hadn't even experimented with automatic zoom or a focus, I mean, let alone, learn to trust it for anything. When I started doing that, I had to learn to trust it and figure out what focus modes I needed to be in and all that. Because I just hadn't played with it at all. I kind of did the backwards direction. Everybody starts out with auto. I went full manual and didn't know how to use auto. So

Raymond Hatfield:

that's funny. I was the exact same way when I was in film school. So like cinema cameras have no auto focus at all. And they're very manual, old lenses. And somebody's sole job is just to make sure that the image is in focus. Yeah. They're the, uh, the first assistant cameraman. So when I was in film school, I bought a Canon, XT, just so that I can keep my skills sharp as far as exposure goes. And I was the same way. I was like, full manual, everything. I even joked. I was like, I'm just going to break the LCD on the back of the camera. Like just so that I have to trust my eye. So I'm right there with you. And it is, it is challenging. And it's like that day that you decide. Okay, maybe I'll try autofocus here. And then you realize later, you're like, wow, like so many more photos were focused today

Louis Stevenson:

than they ever were. And you're worrying less about. You know that and getting, so you can focus more on something else because, yeah, you know, like, and like I said, with the races now, I just, all I'm worried about most is just shutter speed. And, I do review my photos. between races to see, make sure I'm catching focus, but, for the most part, I'm not worrying about that. right.

Raymond Hatfield:

So I'm excited to get into that because I as well love motorcycles, but I want to stay on, youth sports here, uh, for just a moment because I'm sure was sports something that you were Always into, or was this kind of a foreign world for you to jump into as far as

Louis Stevenson:

no, completely foreign is, uh, growing up, my sports was motorcycles. Yeah. So, I did soccer in like elementary school, but nothing after that. And, so my daughter wanted to do, basketball. And then softball and that's what caught me into doing that. And I'm like, well, there's nobody here with a camera. Somebody ought to have a camera documenting some of this. And you can't do it with a phone because it's too far away. You're capturing like these specs out there. You're not seeing anything. So, that's when I started carrying the camera out there and trying to do that. my biggest problem with that was really marketing is I am not an extrovert at all. So, I mean, there'd be these groups of, mothers mostly, talking about talking amongst themselves or about their kids out in the field, that's terrifying to go talk to them. Right. Yeah, I get that. I did get to know a few of them, but it's nothing really came of that. but I think it's kind of where I'm at now if you're talking, if you work top down instead of bottom up. So like there, I'm, I'm with the parents directly. My plan last year before COVID hit was to go to the Recreation center and go through them so that my name is out there through them. And I think that works. I think it should work a lot better because they already got there. They trust the recreation center. They don't know you. And especially when, as a older man. Shooting new sports, there is a stigmatism there. You know, I can see it, you know, parents are like, who is this guy? And why is he taking photos of my child? There's that too. Mentally, I didn't want to put myself out there because that also That stigma prevents you from, it's hard to overcome. right.

Raymond Hatfield:

I get that. I get that. so then let me ask if your daughter wasn't into youth sports at all, and you're still shooting motorcycles, would you. Want to go back to youth sports or stick with motorcycles where you're at right now?

Louis Stevenson:

I think I'll still try to do that at some point. Yeah. but right now I can see where I can build a motorcycle thing up even further, maybe do cars and some other club activities. in the area. So, I'm going to push this as far as I can. there's other established photographers I got to work around at the moment, but you build up your reputation and the boundaries fall down. Of course. Yeah.

Raymond Hatfield:

So when it came to youth sports, this is kind of my segue question. When it came to youth sports, what was the most difficult part in doing that? Not like, because I would assume having my own daughter, Who's five now at four at the time playing, basketball. It's like, you really only got like the one vantage point unless you're running around the entire place. was there anything else that was difficult or was that, is that the

Louis Stevenson:

main thing right

Raymond Hatfield:

there?

Louis Stevenson:

Lighting light is you're shooting it really, and especially basketball, you shoot in a really crummy gym. In softball, I would say it is definitely your vantage points. Because you're trying to stay in a place where you're not going to get hit by a ball and stay out of the way of the players. So you're not exactly on the field. Whereas with basketball, it depends on the gym, but you can go clear around the court. you could even be underneath the basket. if it's far enough back, so you're not, you know, not interfering, but. Yeah. With softball, you're really limited on your location. You need a good lens to get out to the outfield. But, I would say that's, you know, again, for softball, for basketball, it's always lighting. there's all their softball games are during the day. So,

Raymond Hatfield:

yeah, would you be running up and down the court or do you pretty much find one spot

Louis Stevenson:

kind of the same way I do the racing in that I, uh, find a place to start with them and then, once I kind of get bored from that location, I moved to a different one. Once I feel like I got all the shots I can from that one location, all the players or whatever it is, the writers and on the track, I'll move to another location and then start over again. Yeah. Deciding on the angles I want and who need, who I, you know, hit my primary targets first and then start moving on to the rest of the writers.

Raymond Hatfield:

when you say primary targets, you mean specific writers?

Louis Stevenson:

Yeah. The specific writers that I have already paid me for the season. Oh, I see. So I feel kind of, I should, I should definitely focus on them first. Make sure I get the shots I want there first. Especially on track where you don't know if there's an on track event where they may be able to finish the race even so, they could shut the race down early because of an accident or you're, subject itself might end up having to have motor go out or something so that he may not be. I'll finish the race. So you get them as soon as possible and then move on to everybody else.

Raymond Hatfield:

What are some of the other similarities? You know, you mentioned finding a spot, starting with the spot and then just moving on when you got bored. Are there any other similarities when it comes to youth sports and motorcycle racing? it's all action

Louis Stevenson:

sports. Um, so you, I mean, your shutter speeds are all pretty similar, actually. the freezes softball, you're above 1200. To freeze a motorcycle. You're again, you're at 11200 or higher. they're all very similar, especially softball because I mean you're outside outdoor lighting again, depending on where the sun is, it's going to that's going to dictate where you're going to shoot from first. So with softball, in the evening, you're going to, you know, again, it's like if the sun's coming down over the back, you know, out the outfield, you're got problems because everybody's going to be in the shade. But, with the motorcycles, I can just move to a different side of the track. and just came from a different turn.

Raymond Hatfield:

what has it been like for you to get out on the track and capture those photos? Like, I guess, I guess what I want to know here is, when it comes to, action sports, one thing that I always struggle with is that like, obviously baseball, basketball, you can get the emotion, you can get that, the excitement or the focus that you can get when it comes to, motorcycle racing, like what is the shot?

Louis Stevenson:

For me, it's one of the shots. It's probably like the last, one of the last shots I got that I sent you a photo of with the yellow motorcycle there in the front, and you got, you can see two other motorcycles behind him. It's all in the turn, they're folding and they're just battling right there. The only other place you can show that sort of action solely is a panning shot, but it's not, it's still, if you get a pan with more than one bike in it. That's where it's really going to be at, but it's, it's difficult. because the angles you're getting, typically, if you want to fit more than one bike, you gotta get them towards the, you gotta be in front of the bike. So, you're not panting at that point.

Raymond Hatfield:

why is that the shot? Like why that one over any other composition or,

Louis Stevenson:

because I think it shows the action going on, whereas, everybody else, a single rider photo. Especially with a high frame rate, high shutter speed, you're just showing a person on a motorcycle. They could be anywhere.

Raymond Hatfield:

Yeah.

Louis Stevenson:

Whereas. if you really want to show them on a track, you've got to show a mid corner. And if you really want to show that they're racing, not just doing, riding around the track, then you got to get multiple riders in that same frame and, you can be wide angle and kind of show the same thing. But when you're up close, my favorite is when you got a rider that have clear visors and you actually connect with their eyes and it just, You can see the intensity going on there. Whereas, the reflective visors are really beautiful. They can make beautiful shots, but it's not the same as when you connect with somebody's eyes, you know, just like wedding photographer, anything else you got to connect with the person. So

Raymond Hatfield:

was it the same with, you sports when it came time to taking that photo is the photo quote unquote, one that has other players in it as well.

Louis Stevenson:

Yeah. softball and I never could grab one is I just wasn't the right place, right time. I think the slide, we get someone sliding into home or in any base and there's somebody trying to tag out same time as really a great photo basketball. I got it. Couple, jump shots with multiple people trying to block again. It's showing the actual action of the game. otherwise again, it could be just a solo player and it doesn't really show that you're in a game otherwise, unless you have the other people involved. sure.

Raymond Hatfield:

So it sounds to me like. Context here in other players is one of the most important things that you can capture in, yeah, in some sort of action sports photograph.

Louis Stevenson:

Yeah. Okay. it'd be like getting a wedding photo, but they're not in a wedding dress and they're by themselves. Oh, yeah, right now. Yeah.

Raymond Hatfield:

It doesn't really tell the story. There's no story going on,

Louis Stevenson:

or even if they're just in a wedding dress by themselves. What's that? Is it actually at the wedding? Or is it just somebody in a dress? Right? Yeah, exactly.

Raymond Hatfield:

That's funny. That's perfect to think about. Let's talk about gear for a little bit when it comes to motorcycles, because, you know, you got to have those long lenses. But specifically, I also want to talk about autofocus performance and like what's most important there because that's a world I know nothing about when it comes to high speed tracking and things like that. So walk me through what's important for you.

Louis Stevenson:

Well, lenses, I'm shooting crop sensor, APSC. So, I honestly think that's an advantage for action sports. is that reach? Yeah, my end. I'm not packing around a 10 pound lens. So I'm shooting a 7, 300, which is actually a full, full sensor lens. just because that was the option when I bought that lens and I wanted a ability to upgrade later on, if I do get a full frame camera, but, you know, I'm shooting 7, 300, that's a 104 50. Whereas, you know, I'm shooting with other people that are also at 7, 300, but I got, 50 percent more reach, um, with, same megapixels for the most part. So most of the people are, you know, 24 is pretty, is pretty high for anything. And the photos you're delivering, most people don't care if it's 24 or 10, they just like the photo. um, and then the focus, I went from a, that Sony a 6, 000. My first round this year was with the 6, 000 and, I was doing a lot of, I I've always shot that camera. And, uh, center focus mode is just locked in the center and I would just manually track the rider, whoever it is, or try to capture them as they're coming into frame. But it doesn't it's slow. it's an older camera after the first round I saw I was there was enough income coming at that point I'm like, well, i'm just going to go ahead and upgrade now and I looked at getting the a7r4 But I realized that camera came out two years ago and they upgrade every two years and i'm I think You know if they come out the a7r5 i'll be able to get the four for way cheaper So and i'd looked at the 6600 For a while and I liked the camera You There's a couple of features I wish it had. It doesn't have, but it's the same, body size as what I was already shooting. I knew that I'd be comfortable with this. So I went in and got that. And it has similar focus performance to like the A7R4 and it's tracking is just phenomenal. I just, when I see a rider come in, in the frame, I just do a half press, half shutter press and, move my camera to where I want it and wait for him to fill the frame where it is. And then click the photo. Even at a distance, you can block the frame onto like the front of the bike. And it just follows it all over the place. Wherever the bike goes, the focus follows it. Um, it's really good. last race. I was having some issues with heat and I think that was, you know, at some point you start wondering, is it my camera or what it is, but then you look back to the photos and I sent you, I think that wheelie shot, if you look down at the curbing next to the bike, you can see heat waves right there next to the bike. So, yeah, so I, the photo was. some of those were soft and, and that's, those are the ones I know. If you saw, I posted about that, ran those through, the topaz, AI, Dino, uh, sharp. Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah. But again, I delivered a number of photos that were just slightly soft. Nobody really cares. They just, it's the moment that they're grabbing. I see them, but again, I'm, most of these people look at them on their phones or a small computer screen. I'm looking at them on that, you know, a 27 inch screen. So it looks soft to me. So most people aren't going to be doing that. Sorry, it's my dog. No worries. It might pay off to be a little critical. because you're delivering better work, but at the same time, you can't be overly critical of something that no one's going to care about.

Raymond Hatfield:

Ah, that's another one of those. It's a balance. It's a fine balance. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So then what's the process of, delivering photos, I guess, for all sorts of action sports? Are you calling through the images and picking out the ones that you like best, or are you showing them all and then letting the writer chairs? I'm calling them?

Louis Stevenson:

this is one of those interesting, organic stories where. I originally shot a half day of a race. I guess it's been almost three years ago now. The guy at the time of shooting all the club races invited me out and I shot lunchtime all afternoon. And at that time, what I ended up doing is just dumping them all to Flickr. you know, I had people thank me, but no, you know, I didn't get me a purchased anything. And then, the youth sports thing came up and from, you know, everybody there's got a numbers. And so I just immediately started tagging everybody with numbers and organizing. And I learned how to do that over, the three seasons I did, two basketball seasons and a softball season. And I learned how to do that, column and organize them and sort them into their own folders and then upload them to smug mug. And in that time and over those three seasons and got it down fairly quickly. At first it was taking me like a week and I got it down to a few days. And then this year I've been doing the same thing with the races but now I'm doing a lot more photos. So yeah, in a week and now, I think I mentioned on there, my, uh, I Delivery. I deliver about eight to nine hundred photos a weekend and I'm shooting about nine thousand eight to nine thousand. And so I, my initial import, I bring them, I originally, it's funny, I've lost a bunch of imports by, you know, by accident is originally I was calling them before I clicked import, but I, the tilde key and the escape key right next to each other. And tilde is kind of universal. I like save or don't save thing. So I use the X to go, no, I don't want that. But sometimes like, no, I actually did want that when I go back at the tilde. Well, if you get 400 photos in and it suddenly hit the escape key, it tells it, oh, you're done. And so I did that a few times. I'm like, no, that's not working. So I just start importing all of them and going through them. and I literally just, you know, right arrow key X, right arrow key X, and just go through all of them. until I, you know, I get to a group burst shot. I'll just, I'll, I'll, uh, if I see if the first one's the one I want, then I'll keep that one and X everything else out. But sometimes I'll get into a burst and realize I like that one, keep that one, go back a couple and then change my, you know, change the tag on it. But, you literally just go through all of them. and that's the first step. And that first step's gotten a lot simpler, since I'm actually on the same laptop right now. My wife bought me a new Mac book. because my original plan was to do all this on my iPad at the track until I realized that the iPad. Flight room, their tagging system still sucks, right? Yes. I really wish they'd fix that. It'd be perfect for that because you just sit there, swipe through them and tag, but you can't do that. So, now, Saturday nights is I'm usually staying at the track. I just import everything to my computer and start immediately calling everything. I'll be done calling that that evening for the first day. And then when I get home on, Sunday night, then I just have to work on Sunday. And then from there, after a call, that's when I go through and actually start tagging with riders names. And, well, I just do the race numbers. The first couple of races this year took longer because I didn't have the race numbers. I didn't have keywords set up for everybody yet. But I have keywords for 99 percent of the writers. Every once in a while, a new one will show up, somebody will switch numbers, something like that. And I have to change numbers in the, you know, keywords in the system. But, I really, it's, you see a writer, I hit a couple of numbers because everybody's got, you know, at the most three digit numbers and that pulls it up and you hit enter and just go on to the next one. The one thing I added about halfway through the season was the loop deck and the loop deck just revolutionized everything for me because I've had this thing for a couple of years, but hadn't really used it other than just, you know, occasionally, but it's fun to spin dials rather than trying to slide things with the mouse because I think the mouse. Mouse is really crude when it comes to using sliders because, you know, you always go too far too much and you're trying to do a little detail and it's great for, you know, if you're doing selective editing, but if you're trying to do a bunch of photos quickly, it just, it's rough. uh, the loop deck, I literally just set it in front of my key, regular keyboard, and while I can be. Typing on the number pad on my regular keyboard for the key wording. And I can be spinning dials on the loop deck simultaneously. Oh, wow. And, because once you learn where each dial is, you normally use, you don't, don't even look in that, that you're reaching down and grabbing a dial, like I need a little more brightness on this one, or bring the shadows up on this one and then right arrow to the next photo and you're done. And I normally I'll, I'll rate the photo and tag at the same time. and I only rate them because sometimes I'll get multiple photos that look similar over a day and I'll just go like, well, I got three photos the same, but this one actually, I have a higher rating for whatever reason. I don't look at it closely and just dump the other ones. So I'm not delivering, 10 photos from the same angle, maybe different corners, but look the same.

Raymond Hatfield:

Yeah, I would imagine that in volume shooting like that where you get a bunch of photos in a row, that is probably one of the most time consuming parts for you on the back end is just figuring out like, okay, well, which shot is actually is actually worth

Louis Stevenson:

it. You learn not to get precious with your photos. You think you can save every one of them. It's like, it's not worth saving every one of them. You have, you have 4, 000 more photos to go through right now. You need to get through this. So that one's done. Yeah. You're just sitting there thinking like, yeah, it's good, but it's not great. And you know, it's, you got two days of photos. If you don't have one from that, then hopefully you get one next round. Is, uh, you just, if you're delivering. If you're saving all of them, then you can have too many to deliver. And then also people are going to be seeing subpar work. So you just want to give the best you can every time. Sometimes it doesn't work. So you just, you know, don't waste too much time trying to save something that's not worth saving.

Raymond Hatfield:

Yeah. So, well, keep talking about that as far as saving something. like how much, what is your editing process like? Is it, pretty extensive edits or is it just trying to be as

Louis Stevenson:

basic as possible? No cropping. The only, actually, I, I started doing some cropping this last time because I, my process got fast enough that still delivering them a day earlier than I used to, but editing every one of them. Whereas before, the first few rounds, all I would do is pretty much auto everything, auto white balance, auto settings. And if it was something was horrible, I would adjust it. Uh, other than that, I wouldn't touch it now. I do auto settings, but I'm leaving white balance alone because I found the auto white balance is just awful. It just, it's your end up changing it anyways. And most of the time you don't need to tweak it at all because the in camera white balance is close enough. And I'm, shooting in daylight. So my in camera white balance, I have it set at 6k and just leave it there. it's usually close enough. But yeah, I'm going and then I do some, uh, usually what I'll do is tweak the first dozen photos and figure out what I'm doing on what tweaks I like the most. So like, if I want some clarity or if I need to bring up shadows, just because of, you know, where I was at that point in the day. I'll go through that. And once I figure out those settings and I'll copy them across or sync them across, the group of photos are similar. Some of the settings like clarity and, some saturation contrast, those things I'll just do across the entire day. once I decide I have something I like, so. it's pretty basic. Once I get to, you know, there are the ones detail. Okay. So sharpening and denoise, those are basic settings too, that I just do across all of them is once you realize where the camera's at, that's where it's at for the whole day. Um, and then. what I'm really tweaking when I go photo photo is maybe as a little bit of exposure. and a little bit of white balance and that's mostly what I'm doing. Every once in a while, I'll find a photo that I really like. If I, if I find a photo, I just think five stars, then I'll sit there and tweak it. Like I'll just go through it really well. So that when I know somebody is going to want this photo, I just want it to deliver and be right. So, if I don't have time, some of the people will pay like PayPal and then I'll go through before they. download them, they tweak all of them. But, most of the time nowadays, they're buying them off my, sales site, which is through SmugBug. And, sure, I just want them to be right to start with, and get them close enough. like I said, with the photos, the best photos, I tweak those one by one. But it's usually out of, the 800, 900, I deliver usually about 30 of those I tweak, one by one, everything, those are the five star ones. Yeah. and then the only thing I crop, I started cropping this weekend is the inter race photos where you have somebody either holding up like number one finger or, the waving or something like that, I'll crop in on them a little bit. So you can see their face or smile or whatever. And, but that's, again, that's not very many photos. You're talking maybe cropping a dozen photos. so yeah, you just don't have time to do anything else.

Raymond Hatfield:

yeah, I would imagine. I couldn't imagine going through and cropping, you know, I'll deliver eight, 900 photos, same thing, like for a wedding. I can't imagine going through each one of those and doing the exact same thing. There's no time to crop that many photos. Yeah. And I think that's kind of hard. because it's like we get into photography, I think oftentimes for the artistic side of it. And we like the control that we have over a photo. And then at some point you get to like where you're at now and you realize I actually have to let go of some of this control in order to still be efficient with this. Did you struggle with that at all?

Louis Stevenson:

no, I, I've always had this breaking limit where it's like, when enough stuff, you know, it was like, you know, like the garage or something, like there's enough clutter, things just have to go and just start tossing things. So, so I think it's kind of the same way with, photography. I realized that it's like, I got a pile here. I just got to do it. And yeah, I, I'm, maybe there's a photo that I just really, really will like, so I'll save that for later. It didn't come out right, but it's so rare anymore that, Now that I've figured out the angles I like. And where I need to stand to get in close enough and all that it's, there's just really aren't that many photos. I think I need to go back to later.

Raymond Hatfield:

Let's take a step back and kind of look at photography overall here for a moment when it comes to, inspiration, where do you draw inspiration from? Where do you get your ideas from?

Louis Stevenson:

Other photographers, mostly, like when I started this year, I was, if you look at my first couple, especially my first round, you see a lot of them are just very, horizontal. Not a lot of really up close. I was trying to get more groups of bikes, but I didn't know how to get it and be up close at the same time. So I was, it'd be a wider photo with a lot of bikes, but, it's, you don't get. You don't see the individual riders as well. When you're wider, you're not seeing what they're doing there. You know, their feet, hands on the controls or feet, positioning their body angles, all that stuff. You don't see as well when you're further back, you might see the little bit of the action, but when they're spread out, that's not kind of, it's kind of like more of a train than it is like showing two bikes next to each other, both at full lean, that's, Much more intense and to show that really well, you're going to be up close anyways. So, I lost my train of thought.

Raymond Hatfield:

So, um, I like to ask very open ended questions that can kind of go anywhere, especially I think when it comes to inspiration.

Louis Stevenson:

Okay. So where my inspiration was, so why, and after the first race, I was putting photos up and I was getting good results, but at the same time, I got a couple comments that made me wonder what I could be doing differently. And one of them mentioned a local photographer that was doing all the track dealers, the difference between a race and a track day as a race is an organized competition, whereas a track day is just a day you go out on the track and you ride. By yourself, basically. Yeah. There's other bikes on the track, but you just do your own thing. it's not competition. If in fact, if you actually get into competitions, they can take you off the track. So it's just out there to learn, get experience and practice. This local photographer, he's pretty much got all the local track days tied up and I'm not sure if he's doing cars too, but after they talked about him, I went back and started looking at his photos and seeing what he does. And that's when I realized, You can be turning the camera. There's no point in not turning the camera. And that's when they kind of clicked on me. I'm like, Oh yeah. All those photos I used to love as a kid in the magazines. Yeah. Those cameras, those photos aren't square. They all have tilts and, they're at odd angles or in, the colors are more punchy, there's all kinds of little things that, it's the things that everybody likes in social media, put photos because they're different. And, it's not the photos that you're snapping at the side of the track with your phone, because that's not what they're paying you to do. Even if you look at car race photos, you'll see that, especially on the closer photos, you rarely have a square photo. when they're on track, they're usually If you're up close and, you know, filling a frame with any vehicle, there's no frame of reference for level anyways.

Raymond Hatfield:

Yeah,

Louis Stevenson:

so it's only when you're at a wider angle when you got trees in the background, stuff like that, where things start to look a little weird, but you can break that far enough. I think, it depends on the angle of the track and where you're at. I posted a couple of them where you're at the top of a hill and the track goes off and down at a long angle and you can see. Like a thousand feet of track, but it's around a turn. And if you turn the camera in such a way that track will enter at top one corner of the frame and drop down to the bottom corner of the same frame. And the apex of the turn will be all the way over on the opposite side. And I really liked that photo because you can get a bike. Upright actually coming out of frame over here. But at the same time, you're getting bikes at an angle coming down, from the top of the frame. And it's, um, at that point, the camera's turned at, it could be like a 30 degree angle. It's way turned out. If you look at trees in the background, they're all crooked as it can be. But you're not looking at that. You're looking at the bikes and the bikes are already leaning. So you're making, you might make one rider upright where everybody else is leaning even further.

Raymond Hatfield:

And you just learn to be okay with these things.

Louis Stevenson:

Yeah. You just gotta be okay with, realizing that your subject is what you make it. It's not, these aren't people standing upright. I think, you know, even if you had like, I can think about a softball now, especially if you're looking at the diamond, the angles on the diamond are, you know, when you're looking from home plate that you've got angles like that. Now, if you were to square Now you're, you know, you got your second baseman is going to be an angle, but you're sliding. Somebody might be sliding into that. You could angle the. The second basement into the slide person slide, and you have a completely different image, because they're going to be leaning into it already. You can lean them further. Whereas that's what you're doing with a lot of these motorcycle photos. You're actually putting a slight angle on it such a way that the bike actually looks like it's leaning further than it normally is. It doesn't change the gap between the bike and the pavement, but it gives you the initial impression that this, you know, of action, whereas normally it's just like, oh yeah, it's somebody going around a turn and that's something you see every day. But, when you're putting your own sort of impression on it. It's like, yeah, this, is what actual reality is. Now, this is my reality. This bike is you're showing more action than you would normally. that's not even the right term for it because it's. I think the camera is very two dimensional. So you got this flat image and then you're, if you keep everything square, you have just, you're keeping, it's all flat. It's, it's square to the frame. It's flat up and down. It's flat left to right. And you're, no depth to it. as soon as you, if you can get the bike, you know, like the one, those last photos I showed you, the bikes are coming in at an angle. and you're throwing a little tilt on it. It just, it gives depth to the photo. Intensifies the action that's already going on. it's not ruining the documentary part of the photo because you're not changing what's going on, but you're bringing that to life where it's not really there normally in a camera. It was a camera, just squishes everything.

Raymond Hatfield:

So, of course, especially with such compression, I'm sure that you have out at 300 millimeters.

Louis Stevenson:

Yeah. that actually brings me as something else I thought about when I was first started doing this is you're, you're doing documentary photography. But the moment you shoot the click the shutter, it's a different moment than the next. So you got the first person bike and frame going out of frame. So the first one that's about to leave the frame, that's your leader, no matter when you take the shutter or click the shutter. So you got, it could be the real leader or it could be 10th place and he's still got bikes behind him. He's now the leader of your photo. Every photo documentary or not is still judgment of the photographer to, place where you want things placed. So, right. Yeah. So, and that's the same thing with, you know, the tilting the cameras, the same difference. Yeah, the Dutch tilt things funny. And like I said, you know, it's like I talked to somebody, you know, somebody mentioned, you know, posted up their day about a building photo and it's like either you square the building or you lean it even more. Yeah. And you'd make a different photo. there's an in between point though, that looks unnatural where it's just slightly out of angle. And that looks unnatural, but if you break it. If you break the photo, I like to call it breaking the image because it's like, it's suddenly your body's not looking at it the same way before you're looking at it. Like, oh yeah, it's just not a good photo now. It's like, oh, this has some intent to, it has to be, or the person just really bad.

Raymond Hatfield:

Yeah. But, uh, fell while they were taking a

Louis Stevenson:

photo. Yeah. So, that's what I started doing out there on the track. I went from taking the square photo to leaning it and then really leaning in the scene. If I could, you know, what would look like if I stood the bike up when they're already leaning at a 40 degree angle, if I stand the camera, tilt the camera, almost 45 degrees, stand the bike up and have the land at the angle, what would happen? And I tried that a few times. It works in certain situations, but most of the time people just go like, that's weird, but you know, it just, you have to find the right angle for it on the track, where you're not, don't have a lot of background. references for the level of the land and stuff like that.

Raymond Hatfield:

I really hope that people listen to this and think to themselves, I'm going to tilt the heck out of my camera after this episode and just try something. break the boundaries because it's like you put yourself in this box of what is possible and until somebody tells you, you can do something differently. You don't even ask the question. You don't know that, you know, I kind of, we talked about that a little bit earlier, maybe before we started recording that you don't know what questions to ask until you get in a situation where you need to have an answer and you don't know what, you know, so, you try to, think ahead, but you can't think ahead without knowing all the details of what's going to come up. You just break out a test and test and test and test and break your boundaries over and over and over again, until you find out what you like. So what people like. It just comes with experience. Yeah.

Louis Stevenson:

Yeah. and. this has been a great year for me because again, I'm shooting, you know, shoot 8, 000 photos. there's a lot of time to experiment and I can have a bunch of bad photos and still deliver a lot of good ones. yeah, you can't, I don't think at some point in your life, I don't think in your photography life, I don't think you can shoot too much. You just sit there and pull the trigger and see what happens. Is it's not like film, you know, and you're not throwing away, you know, and not go in a dark room and go, oh, well, there was a bunch of money thrown away. This is just digital. Yeah. I may wear out my shutter, my camera eventually, but it's paying for itself at this point. So I'm not worried about that. Right.

Raymond Hatfield:

That's just part of the gig. But it's funny that you say that because That's exactly how I feel about weddings is it's like, even if you shoot families, you want to shoot families, you want to photograph kids, you want to do all these things like that's fine or whatever. But how many chances do you get to shoot? Uninterrupted for like eight hours straight, you know, and just the amount of practice and experience that you can get out of that. I think is, is invaluable. So even if, you have no interest shooting weddings, trust me. I totally get it. I think that you should at least go to a wedding and just shoot the entire time and just see what that's like, because you're going to come out the other end of it. More experienced than, than you started. Well, you're going to

Louis Stevenson:

see how the lighting changes over the wedding and all that. shooting out of the box, are you talking about being out of the box a little bit, but you're, you're not risking anything. If you, again, it's like with the wedding or the race photography, you get the key photos you need to get upfront, then play, just do whatever you need, you know, do whatever comes to mind. At that point, it's all your time. for me again, the racing is, I would almost be out there for free, but I'm not going to tell them that. So it's so awesome to be out there. So yeah, there's a lot of work, but it's fun to be out there and watch the bikes up close and places that nobody else has access to.

Raymond Hatfield:

Yeah, no, it's fine. I also love seeing, your photos in the group because, there's not many of others in the group who are shooting, sports, at least at the level that you are with, you know, very fast moving subjects and very fun motorcycles to watch. But that brings me to one of my last questions here, which is, you know, this community spotlight series is, is about you and it's about the group. So do you remember how, how did you find the group in the first place? How did that get

Louis Stevenson:

started? It would have been. Right after that solar eclipse again, I was already listening to a lot of podcasts. like Leo, the poorest podcasts, all his stuff. And, so I started just doing searches and that's when I got into like Scott born was doing podcasts at that point before he got out of it and Kelby one and all that stuff in your name was up there too. I'm a beginner. I've tried this out and, the podcast, I've gotten out of listening to a lot of pockets. I just hadn't had a whole lot of time, but the group is still fantastic. I just, I really don't think there's a better community on Facebook anywhere. Facebook is full of awful communities and this is, this one breaks the rule by far. I don't know how it exists, honestly. But it is definitely worth is there for a while. There was, I was, had no reason to be on Facebook, but it was the only reason I was on Facebook. Oh my gosh.

Raymond Hatfield:

Well, why do you think that is? Why do you think that out of all the groups online, because I'm there with you. And to be honest, I don't have an answer, which is why I'm so curious about this. why do you think it's so enjoyable?

Louis Stevenson:

I think typically I maybe just the name beginner. It you get a lot less people that you know, I think there's a lot of people out there I think they aren't beginners but really are and those are the type of people that really have opinions that just aren't worth listening to and but they like to throw their opinion around a lot And I think maybe they just don't bother to join because it's a beginner group, but it's really, we got a wide mixture now, you know? And so, I mean, we got, people shooting for money and we got people that, you know, you got podcasts guests that chime in once in a while. And, so it's been, there's a wealth of knowledge there. if you can't find it there, I mean, there's lots of other places, but it's usually you can find an answer to a question there.

Raymond Hatfield:

What do you think is most valuable? Is it the ability to ask and get answers to questions, or is it just the community seeing what others are doing?

Louis Stevenson:

It's a little bit of both. I think, for a beginner, it's nice to have a group of people that are at a similar level, or, you know, to compare to without, hurting your own ego or, you know, maybe occasionally you pump up your ego or something, but you're not threatened. I should say by the community, because they're all. willing to help you. but without hurting your ego and that's, it's everything about art is ego. Um, and anybody who thinks they're not artists and shoots photos, doesn't realize what photography is because it's all art. So if you're a photographer, you're an artist. It's just, they're this go hand in hand.

Raymond Hatfield:

That's another thing that's hard to wrap your head around at the beginning is that, if you're creating something, you're creating art, I mean, art is kind of everything. So yeah, I love that.

Louis Stevenson:

That kind of goes to what I was talking about, documentary type style photography, because it's, there's no photo you're going to take that's ever gonna show exactly what was going on that day. You're yeah, what you're showing is what you saw. And by doing that, you've already changed the whole experience for anybody else looking at that photo. So you've created that no matter what you think. Even a snapshot is creating something. It may not have as much intent in it, but it's still creating something. yeah,

Raymond Hatfield:

we got deep there for

Louis Stevenson:

a second. I love that. philosophy of. art and photography.

Raymond Hatfield:

yeah, yeah. Well, I think I could definitely tell that, with your responses, oftentimes in the group, I find that you're one of the most valued members, I think, in the group because of your responses. always look forward to them. And even if they go against popular opinion, which I think is really cool, because oftentimes, you've said something and I've had to sit back and think to myself, like, well, why do I think that or, you know, like, that ability to comment on something and still be challenging, which I find to be Incredibly helpful, which is why, you know, again, I love having you in the group. And, uh, today of course, you're welcome. It has been a blast for me to chat with you one on one and not just over, online avatars. and I'm sure that the listeners are thinking the exact same thing as well. So before I let you go, can you let us know, aside from the group where we can find, more of your work online?

Louis Stevenson:

Well, I'm Stevenson photo everywhere. well, spelling it is the challenge. So, Stevenson S D E V E N S O N. And then I spell photo the European way F O T O. and I'm that where I primarily on Facebook right now. but I have my websites, the same thing. That's pretty much everything right now. I do have a Twitter account. I haven't been paying attention to, and I have just every all the social media. I got that when I picked out my name, I just got it everywhere. I just right now, because of where my customers are, I pretty much on Facebook only and my website.

Raymond Hatfield:

Thank you again for joining us on today's episode of the beginner photography podcast. Don't forget to come join us in the free and amazing community of photographers, just like you looking to learn and grow their photographic skills. Just head over to beginner photopod. com forward slash group now. Thanks again for listening. And remember the more that you shoot today, the better of a photographer you will be tomorrow. Talk soon.