Photography can be a rewarding and fulfilling hobby. But it can be difficult to find time to shoot when you have a full plate with a family and full time job. Today I share 7 steps that will help you regain lost time so you can get out and spend more time shooting and practicing photography!
Full Episode Transcription:
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Raymond: 00:00 This week's episode of the beginner photography podcast. I show you how to make more time so that you can get out, practice and shoot more. So let's get into it.
Intro: 00:11 Welcome to the beginner photography podcast with Raymond Hatfield, the podcast dedicated to helping you grow your photography skills. Raymond interviews the world's top photographers in their field to ask questions that will get you taking better photos today. Now, with you as always, husband, father, Ho brewer, La Dodger Fan, an Indianapolis wedding photographer, Raymond Hatfield. Welcome
Raymond: 00:41 back to this week's episode of the beginner photography podcast. As always, I am Raymond, your host and wedding photographer here in Indianapolis. Uh, and I'm also a father. As you heard all of these things in the, uh, in the intro, it has been a, uh, kind of a crazy week for the Hatfield household. Uh, several things, uh, you know, just like it, it's mostly just like a lot of annoyances that have, that have, uh, you know, been happening, which have made it hard sometimes to focus and, uh, and, you know, get done what I wanted to get done. So this week, uh, my daughter was, uh, she's three. She was playing in my office here. And, uh, I ha I use a canon 70 d for a video stuff because it has fantastic, uh, auto focus for four video. Uh, so she was here in my office and she was playing with the camera behind me and dropped it.
Raymond: 01:36 And, uh, the microphone port now no longer works, which is fine as a, uh, you know, as a, as a photography camera, if you're just taking pictures with the camera, that works just fine. It looks fantastic. But since I use it for video, I need that microphone port and now it is dead to me. So that was an annoyance. So I had to, uh, get ready to sell it as well as buy a new camera. So I had to and to, you know, splurge, which I really wasn't looking forward to or anticipating, uh, on a, a new Fuji [inaudible] t now shoot Fuji if you've been listening for a while, you know that I shoot Fuji and that the x t three is a one step up. It's, it's their newest camera. So I, uh, I went ahead and picked that up. Uh, and I got to take it to an engagement session this last weekend in Michigan.
Raymond: 02:29 Uh, and it worked. It worked well. You know, it's funny though, uh, every time you go to get a new camera, you get excited for the possibilities, right? Everything that you'll now be able to do that you weren't able to do before and you feel like it just going to completely transform your shooting experience. But in reality, and it really doesn't, everybody talks about the, uh, the, the performance on [inaudible] compared to the expo two, which is what I have and how much faster it is. And was it faster? I Dunno, maybe, maybe I'm just not in situations where I need like lightening fast, autofocus, you know, I'm usually just taking portraits of people who are standing still in front of my camera. So auto focus, while important, definitely on a wedding day and I, I see its importance. Maybe I just didn't really get a, a real feel for, for, uh, how it works, uh, in this new camera to the best of its abilities.
Raymond: 03:30 So, uh, but it was good. I mean, the engagement session turned out fine and it was beautiful. It was a sunset and, uh, engagement session on a, uh, on a pier on the west side of Michigan. So we got the, the sun going over or going down over the water, which was, which was absolutely beautiful. So there was that. Um, uh, our oldest, uh, son brought home lice from school. So, you know, I contemplated just, uh, shaving off my head or shaving off all my hair off my head because I don't want to deal with that. Um, my wife, uh, starts a new job she wants, she just started a new job this week. Um, and on top of that, I've been really excited to, to, to get out some, uh, I've had some new ideas for content. Uh, some, some, I think some really awesome content for you all as listeners.
Raymond: 04:23 Uh, and I'm going to get into that in a little bit, uh, but I'm really excited to, to share. But I found that the very recently I've been, uh, falling just completely head over heels in love for a film. Like never before, honestly. Uh, so I've been shooting film for for several years. I mean, not like religiously, right. I don't shoot, you know, a roll a week or anything like that, but I definitely, I definitely, I'd probably shoot like five rolls of film a year. So not a ton, but definitely enough to understand how from works. Um, but in the past a few months, there's just been something that was just, you know, ignited within me and now it's all that I can think about. It's all that I want to do. So I've got a new film camera, I bought a new medium format film camera, I bought 30 rolls of film.
Raymond: 05:19 Uh, now I need the, you know, the equipment to actually develop my film. But I've actually challenged myself, uh, cause all the supplies to develop your own film are probably, it's the initial cost that's always, you know, the most expensive, but it's probably gonna cost about $250, uh, to get started. Uh, but I've, uh, I've challenged myself that I will not buy the, um, uh, the all the equipment needed to develop film unless I can earn that, uh, unless I can earn the money, uh, extra through my photography business. So with me being able to think about film nonstop, I actually haven't had much time to shoot any film recently. So it just one of those things. But, uh, you know, as I was going through it, all of this with the, with the cameras and, and, and the lice and, you know, my wife's starting a new job and trying to book some more sessions for the business.
Raymond: 06:23 Uh, I've been thinking a lot about that struggle of time and we always are wishing that we, that we had more time. But you know, when you think about it, it just, it just simply, it just simply not possible. And when you think about it even more, we have the exact same amount of time in the same hours in a day as, you know, Jeff Bezos or Beyonce, you know, and these people can, can achieve amazing things in their life. So I've been trying to kind of figure out how to better control time and maximize time, uh, the time that we do have to make it work better for us. And I get, you know, uh, the struggles of, of feeling like you can't practice of, of having a lot on your plate. I mean, honestly, if, if you gotta be there for your family and you're busy at work, I get it. I am, I'm, I'm right there with you. And these feelings can lead to feelings of, of guilt that, you know, you have this nice camera but you don't know how to use it or, or lead to feelings of resentment towards other photographers whose photos you love because you're not there yet. But right now I want you to ask yourself just one question and that is, is photography important to you?
Raymond: 08:00 if I think that if something is truly important to you, then there has to be, uh, some level of sacrifice to getting where you want to be. Um, but this episode isn't just about, you know, cutting everything out of your life just so that you can take some pretty photos. There's going to be some real actionable information here that you will be able to use and hopefully regained some time. But the first thing that we need to fundamentally understand is that, uh, well, you know, the way that we're going about it right now is just wishing that we had a spare, you know, four hours, like a block of four hours to just go out and practice everything that you want to practice. And that is just, that's what is just simply near impossible, especially with a full time job and a family, you know, and these other responsibilities that you have.
Raymond: 09:02 But so this is the core fundamental thing that we need to realize is that we, we simply do waste time and we have time gaps throughout the day. These time gaps are, you know, your lunch break, waiting for an appointment, a while, dinner's cooking, uh, in, in the train or on the train or in an Uber, right? We might have five, 10 minute gaps throughout the day. And these may seem like small, you know, you sit down and like, oh, you know, can you wait for 10 minutes? Okay, yeah. So then you just sit down and your weight. And then what ends up happening is that we just, you know, scroll through Facebook or whatever. Um, so these 10 minute blocks, it just cause they feel small, but over the course of a year, they total up to more than 48 hours. So there's a lot of room there.
Raymond: 09:54 And these are the things that I'm trying to, uh, really expand upon. Uh, using these short chunks of time to, uh, better utilize, uh, uh, better, um, learn and better utilize my time essentially than that. You know, but I want you to know this one thing about photography. So I'm sure that, you know, you're feeling like, oh, you know, what is Raymond going to cut out? Now we've got to be diligent. This is going to be a lot of work. But I want you to know this one thing about photography and, uh, photography is very, very, very much like, you know, riding a bike. Once you gain a certain level of proficiency, it becomes almost effortless to maintain that knowledge. You know, once you learn how to ride a bike and you know, hold yourself up, then, you know, 10 years from now you can, you can do it again because you understand the mechanics.
Raymond: 10:49 Maybe you can't go, you know, get in the Tour de France, but, uh, you can't, you have a level of competency that lets you go out and leisurely ride a bike. And it's the same thing with photography. It's that initial time that you put in that is gonna going to, uh, uh, take up the majority of, of, of the, of the free time that you do have. So while you may listen to this and think, I can't do all of these things, like I said earlier, if something is important to you, there really has to be at least some level of sacrifice. And the thing with photography is it'll be temporary because you just need to get to that level of competency before you can, um, uh, before you can maintain your knowledge. So do these things until you feel comfortable behind the camera. Like you know, you have to grasp it.
Raymond: 11:53 Okay. And you may be asking yourself, how will you know if you have grasped it? How will you know if you are comfortable behind the camera? And the honest answer is you just will. And I can only, you know, equate this to like driving a car. And at first you're nervous because you're behind the wheel of this, you know, 4,000 pound speeding death trap. But you know, you find yourself a year later where a driver in front of you slams on the brakes a bit too hard and you have to swerve and get out of the way. But then you realize after the fact that you actually checked your mirrors before swerving and then you just know that you got it at that point. At some point you have that level of competency and you've now practice it enough to where, um, you got it. But there isn't a definitive moment, you know, you will find yourself in situations that you previously thought that were difficult.
Raymond: 12:48 But now you can clearly think your way through it. Now it may take two months for someone else and I could take two years for you. And it is impossible to give you that timeline simply because of outside factors that will determine how hard you are able to pursue photography. Now, photography, um, is broken up into several different segments, right? There's, there's hobbyists, there's amateurs, and there are professionals. Now Hobbyists and people who want to remain hobbyists can be more relaxed with their time. They, they are doing this out purely for leisure. And therefore, you know, you may still be excited about something and you may want to really learn it, but you don't have to be as diligent with your time as somebody who say wants to start a business one day and actually make money with their camera. So, uh, before we, you know, get too deep into this kind of philosophical stuff, uh, let's just go ahead and get on into the, uh, more step by step process.
Raymond: 13:58 Um, so I've kind of broken it down into, uh, seven different steps to regain more time throughout your life. So step number one is just to simply get set up for this. And by get set up, I mean, um, don't, uh, get lost in Youtube. That is the first place where a lot of people go, uh, to learn photography because generally photographers are very visual learners and, uh, so youtube is just, uh, it just makes sense and when you go, you can easily, easily, easily get lost. Um, and I have found a, as of you know, later than it should've been, but, uh, as of you know, the past few months instead of for me, instead of going to youtube and instead investing in some sort of course or program that tackles a very specific need that I have, I, uh, am able to learn that thing much quicker and much more efficiently.
Raymond: 15:00 I don't feel as lost, right? So I would recommend getting the creative live, uh, or just signing up for creative live because cause creative live is just a fantastic place to start because for one they have a huge range of um, different tutorials, different courses that can help you from everything from like, you know, Photoshop one-on-one to, you know, how to create a business and thrive. And what's better is that they have an app and then app on your phone can be used to replace, you know, whatever other social media you're using. And now you can fill those time gaps with some education. Now if generally these courses do, do cost money, um, but within the app you can actually watch one lesson free every single day. So again, if you're focusing on one thing, say, uh, you know, if, if you're focusing on, you know, this is more of an advanced topic, but like composites, like composite photography and Photoshop.
Raymond: 16:08 Now every time you have a time gap, you know, at least once a day you can go through and watch a lesson absolutely for free. So that is going to be a much better use of your time. Then, um, you know, just mindlessly scrolling through Facebook and I do this, I do this all the time. Um, so I, I still definitely have this problem and I need to get better on, on working on these things as well. But one of my favorite apps as of recently, um, to learn is actually been through the, uh, Google app. So Google has, uh, has a dedicated app. And I remember when it first launched, I thought, well, what's the point? It's just gonna be a search bar that makes no sense. Um, why not just use, you know, safari or chrome or whatever is built into your phone.
Raymond: 16:54 Um, but I downloaded the Google app and found very quickly that it's so much more than that. You almost have like your own feed of, of, of news and blog articles based on the things that you're searching for. So if you are searching for photography tutorials, if you are searching for how back button focus works, if you're searching for a, you know, uh, how different apertures affect your photo, Google's going to understand that you are interested in photography and that you're trying to learn more about photography and will then there start showing you more articles related to photography. And I can tell you that I've learned a lot of things that I didn't know about, um, photography through just kind of stumbling upon these reads. So it's a fantastic source just to be able to more passively, uh, find information because these short blogs or articles perfectly fit in these, you know, five, 10 minutes time gaps.
Raymond: 17:54 So there is, there's number one, okay. Number two. Number two is to stop doing something else. So stop doing something else right? At the end of the day, if you feel like, oh, I just didn't have enough time today, I wish that I could've gotten more done, then your time is filled with, you know, with things. And that is where, uh, you know, you can, you can obviously the desire to have more time comes from, but if we actually take an objective look at the amount of time that we have spent throughout the day, some of it, uh, I would say the majority of the time that can be regained is simply through, you know, binge-watching and mindlessly scrolling. These are definitely the two biggest ones. And I don't mean to say this, you know, to be, um, accusatory because I'm super guilty of this. I am, and I've just realized that like these are the two areas of my life to where if I, if I just, you know, if I just cut out TV, I could probably save, you know, two hours a day, one hour for big brother and then you know, another hour for, for dodger games.
Raymond: 19:03 Cause just cause they start so late. Otherwise, if dodger game started earlier in the day, then I'd be watching TV for four hours a day, that's for sure. But I gotta get some sleep at some point. So, um, I want to give you a fun little exercise. My wife doesn't think it was a fun exercise, but I think it's a fun exercise. If you have an iPhone, you can go into your settings and you can search for your screen time. So screen time tells you how long your screen has been on, uh, uh, during the day. And it'll also give you a breakdown of what apps are most used. And I'm willing to bet that you are on your phone for more than three hours a day. Now. Sure. You know, a phone can be a productive tool, right? I get that. Um, with phone calls, important emails, but surely not every moment. It's been diligently, um, you know, making progress on something. And I'm going to share with you my, uh, my screen time right now. So, uh, well my screen time is a little skewed because I had to use gps in my car when I was going up to Michigan and that was a three and a half hour drive. So, um, it says that my, uh, daily screen time on average is two hours and 50 minutes per day.
Raymond: 20:26 So it says that in the past seven days, I've spent four and a half hours on Facebook. Uh, obviously three and a half hours using, um, uh, maps. I was a, I spent two hours in the, uh, in the, uh, audible app, uh, two hours using my Google app, an hour and a half, uh, using, uh, you know, text 55 minutes on Youtube and then 40 minutes listening to a podcast. Uh, it would be a lot more, uh, on that podcast app. But, uh, I found a really good, I started listening to Pat Flynn's, um, newest book and that in audible on the way up to Michigan. So anyway, as you can see right there, I spent four and a half hours on Facebook just in the last seven days alone, right there. Even if I cut that in half, that's an extra, you know, more than two hours throughout the week.
Raymond: 21:20 So I think just being aware of where your time is going, uh, has really helped me kind of, um, being more, um, be, you know, just, just be more and be more aware when I'm actually like on Facebook. So, uh, if you are like me, you know, maybe on your lunch break, instead of us just scrolling through Facebook using that time to, you know, either listen to other podcasts about photography, a watch, you know, you're free lesson on creative live or, or read those photography blogs in the, in the Google app. Those are, those are things that have a have helped me. But once you, you have to stop doing something to be able to replace that time with something else that you do want to do. All right. Number three is don't overwhelm yourself. Pick one thing and then stick to it. When you're brand new to photography, you have one goal and that is to learn photography.
Raymond: 22:26 But learn photography is not a goal. It's just too broad and you can't learn everything about photography. Learn photography. It might be a lifetime goal cause it can never be achievable. But um, learn photography is not a good short term goal for beginners. Something like learn how to use a aperture or learn how to, you know, get out of focus backgrounds. That is a goal. That is a goal. So pick one and stick with it. So this typically leads, and this is what I love about photography, is that once you learn one thing, it typically leads to other things and the next obsession as well. So, uh, sticking to one thing is really going to help you stay focused and not, you know, what good is, you know, saving two hours a week by not being on Facebook and then just feeling like you've wasted it because you haven't learned anything extra cause you're just trying to learn everything.
Raymond: 23:25 Once you stop overwhelming yourself, narrow down to just one thing and then focus on it, you're gonna feel a lot better about learning photography. So remember how I mentioned that new content that I have, uh, in the, in the, in the beginning and the intro there. Well, uh, I want to share that with you now. If you are brand new, I have a brand new free ebook that you can actually download called picture perfect camera settings. So picture perfect camera settings is a, again, a free ebook that walks you through just how to get started with your camera settings in any situation. Uh, so from photographing your kids to shooting a wedding, uh, I actually share photos in the ebook and the settings that I used, uh, and, and, and share recommended starting points with those examples, uh, so that you can get set up and then make adjustments as needed.
Raymond: 24:19 And the Ebook is, again, it's completely free and if you're interested in it, you can download it just by heading over to beginner photography, podcast.com and then heading over to the resource tab at the top of the page. So here we are at number four and number four is, um, is just simply preplan preplanned, meaning that, uh, you have now gone through and you have audited your time and you have found spaces where you can either where you have either utilized those time gaps or you've cut down in other areas to be able to, um, have more time for you to use on photography, right? So you're learning as much as you can and you focused on one thing. You didn't overwhelm yourself. You are focusing on how to get out of focus backgrounds, right? But now the time has come to actually go out, you know, and shoot, and this is where pre plan comes in.
Raymond: 25:20 Cause after learning you should really make yourself an action plan of what it is that you need to do to really feel like you understand. Uh, and, and, and did you grasp that concept? Right? And you can, you can read every blog post, watch every youtube video, but if you actually, if you don't actually get out and spend time behind the camera, not really gonna be that, um, successful, it's not really going to help as much as it would, um, by, I got off topic there by, by simply just going out and doing that thing. So figuring out what it is that you need in order to, uh, be proficient in that, in whatever it is that you're trying to learn. So, you know, ask yourself, do you need a morning sunrise? Do you need someone just to be in front of your camera? Do you need a fast moving object?
Raymond: 26:19 You know, these are the things that you should figure out now so that when you do take the time to actually go out and shoot and be behind the camera, then you are going to be ready to snag this shot. Um, and just just be set up for it. You know, I've found that me as a, as a photographer, it's very hard for me to just go out and just like leisurely shoot. I can't just go out and say, oh, that's a nice thing. And then take a photo of it. I really have to have some sort of game plan in my head to be able to capture the photos to capture photos that I will be, uh, um, you know, happy with. Uh, so, so pre planning for me has been one of the biggest ones for sure. Now number five is to give yourself a time limit.
Raymond: 27:06 There is a lot to learn, you know, with photography you could listen to, you know, every podcast nonstop. You could watch educational courses, you could watch youtube videos, you can read blog posts all day long and still feel like you haven't got anything done. Now, if you take, you know, the hour before bed where you're usually watching the news, which somehow feels important but actually never leaves you feeling good or inspired or, or like, you know, you took anything away from it and then you use that time instead to educate yourself when the hour is up, just stop. Just stop. The key here is to, you know, obviously you're focused on one thing, how to, um, get out of focus backgrounds. You've now spent an hour watching videos on how to get out of focus backgrounds. Now stop and then really take that time to reflect on that information that you have learned.
Raymond: 28:12 Learn from it. It's a homebrewer reference right there. Speaking words. You're going to get out and brew anyway. That hour that you spend, you know, learning that one topic, it can be so much more powerful than three hours of just trying to consume it all. And I think the reason why we spend three hours trying to consume it all is because we always feel like there's one tip, one trick, one little hack that we are, you know, that we don't, that we're missing and that if we just watch one more video, we're gonna, we're gonna finally get it if we're going to finally understand it, but that's not how this works. I mean, maybe for some things, but for photography, really the education comes from putting in the time behind the camera. So spend as little time as you can learning and spend as much time as you can doing.
Raymond: 29:05 But since obviously learning, you're probably going to have more access to in your time gaps then then just utilize that time as much as you can. Okay. Number six is learn to delegate tasks or think of how you can speed up other tasks. So, um, for the past probably six months or so, uh, we started doing, uh, grocery pickup at our, at our local store. So, uh, we can, there's an app that we can download. We go online. Um, we order all of our food, like all the groceries that we're going to eat that week through this app. And then through this app, uh, they put all the groceries together, you know, the people at the store and then go ahead and put everything in a cart and bag it up for us. And then, um, when we arrived at the store, we just call a number and they come on to the car and then they loaded in the car.
Raymond: 30:01 Fantastic. And then we leave. Like we're done. We're good. We're done grocery shopping and it has saved us not only a good amount of money from only buying what we need because we not, you know, walking through every aisle thinking, Ooh, Macadamia nut brownies. That sounds delicious. You know, when we shouldn't be eating macadamia nut brownies. But it also saves more than an hour every single week from actual shopping. And you may be thinking, how the hell do you spend an hour at the grocery store shopping? And the answer is children that, that's simply it. It's still [inaudible]. They, you know, they want to look at things. They are always walking around. Um, you know, and it, it just takes time. So that right there by doing online pickup saves us 52 hours per year. That's an extra, you know, two and a half days. That is fantastic right there. Fantastic. So now that's one area of your life where you could delegate tasks, right?
Raymond: 31:06 Because I find that it is, once you come up with a meal plan, it's much easier to just shop for the ingredients in the app. It might take, you know, 12 minutes to do a week's worth of grocery shopping for us. And then while we're already out, we just stop and pick up groceries. So it's, it's, it's great. So we figured out how to delegate that task for us. And then the next thing is how to speed up other tasks. And, uh, I found that, um, you know, making meals is a huge, it takes a lot of time and I understand because, you know, we gotta eat, we're humans, you know, we want to eat good food and we got to spend time to make good food. Otherwise, you know, we would all just be eating microwave dinners, you know, three meals a day, every single day.
Raymond: 31:54 That's not good. That's unhealthy. So, um, I found that meal prepping has also saved us a good amount of time. This is sped up, um, other, you know, another task that we do because we know that we're going to have to eat every single day, multiple times a day. And that time, you know, from thinking to yourself, hmm, what is it that I want to eat? Let me go and see what we have. And then trying to Frankenstein something together and then, you know, cooking it and then putting it on the plate. Obviously you got to eat it and then cleaning it all up can take a good amount of time. Honestly, you know, more than an hour a day, uh, just in cooking. So what we decided to do is just to meal prep all of our lunches and dinners the Sunday before the week starts. Now it takes about three hours.
Raymond: 32:44 It does take, you know, a good amount of time, but three hours on a Sunday and you get all of your food ready for the entire week as opposed to every day, you know, deciding what to eat, seeing if you have anything cooking and then cleaning it all up has been a real, a real time saver. That's four extra hours per week that you can spend. You know, now at, you know, dinner time, you have something that you can just throw in the oven and then when it's done, you know, eat it while you're waiting for to cook. There's a time gap. There's where you can learn. There's where you can go in your back yard and do is where you can practice. You know, if you're not stuck, you know, uh, in front of the stove or whatever, cooking a meal, then you have that time to take your camera and you know, you don't have to create massive photo shoots, just go out into your backyard.
Raymond: 33:41 I think that a backyard is a great place to learn photography, so, so now you have that time to do that. Okay. We have made it to number seven in this seven step series. So let's go ahead and recap real quick what we have learned. Number one, get set up. Find Out, you know, make a decision on what it is that you want to learn and how you want to learn and then, uh, be prepared so that when these time gaps arise, you can take advantage of them. Stop doing something else. You know, I shared that I spent almost, almost five hours in the past seven days on Facebook. Uh, I know that I can stop doing a lot of that and I can cut that down a considerable amount and then that frees me up to do more things. Uh, in photography. Number three is don't overwhelm yourself.
Raymond: 34:40 Pick a topic, stick to it. Quote Unquote. Learn photography is not a goal. Something like, learn how to, uh, use aperture is a better goal. Number Four, pre plan. Get Ready, uh, for your shoot so that when the time comes, you're not wasting time and wishing that you could have identity differently or better. Number five, give yourself a time limit. If you cut down the amount of time that you can learn per day, you are going to maximize that time. You're really gonna take that time seriously. And then when you do that, when you take in less information, you have more brain capacity to be able to expand on those ideas and uh, let them ferment. As I say, number six is delegate tasks or think of ways that you can speed up other tasks that you do every single day. That's where I shared, uh, you know, using grocery pickup, which is free by the way.
Raymond: 35:40 And then it's crazy to me. It's free, so awesome. It is. It's one of the best. And then, uh, speed up other tasks is meal prepping throughout the week. And then those things save a lot of times. So, so now we have, let's just assume that we have saved ourselves two hours in a week and now we have a two hour block of time. And that's, that's the dream, right? You're like, Whoa, what am I going to do with this time? No, you don't want to say, Whoa, what am I going to do with this time? Hopefully you have preplanned and you know exactly what you want to do with that time. But one of the biggest hurdles that, um, a lot of people have to go through, and myself included, but I really wasn't aware of this until my wife made it, you know, very clear is that you need to eliminate guilt and guilt is, is, is a mindset guilt.
Raymond: 36:31 You know, while while all these tips will help you grow, you don't man, you know, you do need to spend time behind the camera. I've said that you just simply can't learn photography without spending time behind the camera. So, but again, I understand that, that, that guilty feeling of like, well, I've been gone all day. How can I spend more time away from the family just to do some, you know, just to take some pretty pictures. But I really think that, you know, sitting down and telling your spouse or your partner how important it is for you to learn photography from, from having a creative outlet or, or more, you know, to build the foundations of a business. Try to make a realistic time to shoot. You know, I just said that you have this two hour chunks. Let's just use one hour, maximize that time and schedule it immediately following work or even before work.
Raymond: 37:31 You know, maybe you want to get that sunrise shot, but if you do it, you know, on your way to work or on your way home from work, then that reduces the amount of time away from your family. And I know this, my, my wife has told me before that sometimes, you know, she won't go to yoga class or dinner with friends because she feels guilty that I'm home with the kids all day and then she comes home and then just leaves, you know. And while I appreciate her for thinking of me, it was also so, so, so important to focus on yourself, which has been the main theme of the podcast this year. So at some point you do have to work on eliminating that guilt that you have because that is the only way that you can grow. And if you can't get out and you know, put time in behind the camera, how far do you think you can really go?
Raymond: 38:24 You know, how you can, you know, uh, uh, doctors could watch every single, you know, uh, uh, not lab like procedure. They can watch every single procedure on video multiple times. But it's not until you actually do the thing that you, that you feel like you've learned it and that you've grasped how it works in photography is exactly the same. So if you have kids at home, you know, if you work a full time job, don't, you know, cut everything out just to pursue photography. What we're talking about here is imagine if you had an extra hour per week to go out and photograph an hour to go out and you know, go to a state park or photograph the kids or go downtown and practice street photography or set up a shoot with, with a friend or somebody who's willing to be in front of the camera.
Raymond: 39:22 Imagine what that would do for you one hour every single week. And I, I personally can cut out an hour, uh, just from being on, you know, Facebook, I could do that easily, easily and then no other time is taken away. You know, I didn't have to do anything else. It's possible. It may be hard, but it's possible. And again, if, if you, if something is really important to you, there is some level of sacrifice that has to be made in order to accomplish that. And I really think that if you tried hard, you could find that one hour per week to actually go out and shoot without interrupting almost any other area of your life. And when you do that, you're going to feel more fulfilled. You're going to be happier, you're going to obviously accelerate your learning, you're going to become a better photographer. Like that's the path to be able to do that.
Raymond: 40:24 So there you go. And Again, oh yeah, I was gonna, I was gonna wrap that up with vet that it's, it can be temporary. You know, if you, if you, because you just need that, that certain level of competency before you can just maintain the skill and the knowledge. Okay, so that is a, that is it. Those are my seven tips to um, gain more time in your life and use it to practice and learn photography. Again, I know that this is not easy, but it can be done, I promise you. So that is it for this week. I want you for real this week. I want you to get out. I want you to shoot, I want you to be safe. And most of all I want you to focus on yourself. All right? Until next week. I love you all.
Outro: 41:16 If you enjoy today's podcast, please leave us a review in iTunes or your favorite podcast player and continue the conversation with Raymond. And other listeners of the podcast by joining the beginner photography podcast Facebook group today. Thank you. We'll see you again next week.
