After the birth of his child, Simon Ringsmuth discovered the power of photography when a friend shared a photo he took of Simons child. Determined to learn photography Simon started a website where he uploads photos weekly and shares what he learned and documents his progression.

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• How Simon got started in photography

• What Simon struggled with most when he first started shooting and how he overcame it.

• What has been Simons main source of photography education

• Why Simon started the website

• How to protect yourself from burn out when committing to a long term project

• How to set your own goals

• Some common info that Simon found to not be helpful when learning photography

• What Simon was surprised to learn after shooting for the past 7 years

Resources:

• https://www.weeklyfifty.com/

• Register for the free live webinar “The 3 Secrets to Capturing Better Moments With The Camera Gear You Already Have!”
  

Did you enjoy this episode? Check out more recent interviews with other great guests!

Full Episode Transcription:

Disclaimer: The transcript was transcribed electronically by Temi.com and may contain errors that do not reflect accurately what the speaker said. Because of this, please do not quote this automated transcript.

Raymond Hatfield: 00:00:00 Simon Ringsmuth. I'm very excited to be here with you today as somebody who is doing a weekly 50 photo project. This is a very, it's a large undertaking. This isn't something that you just decided to do on a whim or maybe it is something that you decided to do on a whim. We'll get into that. But this is something that takes tenacity. This is something that takes time and dedication to do. And this is something that I personally struggle with, you know, all of those things. So today we're definitely going to be talking a lot about all of those issues, how to keep up with something like this as well as the challenges. But before we do, can you let me know how you even got started in photography in the first place?

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:00:40 Thank you for asking. I mean, it's a great question. So like a lot of photographers that I talk with, my start begins with my kids. And back in 2000 when was my oldest son born? I always have to think of. So back in 2000 I know in 2011, my son was born in July and my wife and I at the time, we had a Panasonic Z S seven and it, I thought it was like a really good camera. This is a little pocket camera with a zoom lens like people used to have back in the day. And we, we thought that like we spent like $200 on this pocket camera. We thought this is a professional grade camera. It's go dial the change from like a to P and, M, this must be awesome. And our photos of our son were just not that great and we couldn't figure out why.

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:01:31 And this was mobile phones. Like the iPhone was invented in 2007 so people had phone cameras but they weren't that great. And I, I thought, well maybe it's me, I'm not doing something right. But we, we didn't really understand what was going on. And then in the spring of 2012, my buddy Kevin came over and he had a Nikon D 200 with a 50 millimeter lens and he took one picture of my son who was just like learning to walk. So he was doing what they called cruising, you know, or they're like walking along the edge of the furniture holding their hands on the couch cushions. So my son was cruising along the edge of the table in our living room. This coffee table, and Kevin just takes a picture of this D 200 and the DC wonders, not a fancy camera.

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:02:21 It was made in like 2006. It's 10 megapixels. It has nothing in terms of modern features. But that one picture I kid you not, Raymond was like an epiphany where Kevin with just a single frame. He showed me what he got. I put on my computer and I was completely blown away. Like, how did you do that? What magic did you do to make that like in Lord of the rings, there's a line where a Gandel there in the mines of Moria. Again, it was like, what devil is this? And I was like, what have you done? How did you make this picture? I want more. And and he was like, prime lens dude. It's all, it is just a F 1.8 aperture. I was like, what is an aperture? I don't even mean these words. Yeah. So I spent the afternoon with Kevin and he showed me a little bit of his camera and I told him, I was like, we gotta get one of these cameras.

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:03:19 So we, we got a same thing. We got a Nikon D 200 and before my son turned one. So it was probably like may of that year we had our own D 200 and I was like, this is the, this is it. We have hit the big time. We got a D 250 millimeter lens. This is, I'm a professional photographer now. I know everything about photos. And immediately like the, the quality was insane. From Paki camera to a 50 millimeter prime lens on an actual APSC sensor. Yes. I didn't know what any of that meant. I just knew that I could make that dial go to 1.8 and my pictures were amazing. Magic happened. I did a magic happen. And so I, I took tons of pictures of my kid and and I would go out and like take pictures of flowers and stuff like everyone else would do.

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:04:13 And then I, I, I realized though that I wanted to hold myself accountable for taking more pictures. And I, I noticed that I took hundreds and hundreds of pictures, right? My son was born and then it kinda kind of levels off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I thought, well, I need to hold myself accountable. Maybe I'll join like a photo group on flicker or something. I didn't know what, and I went to this this, this sounds really cheesy when I, when I tell this story, but at work I work in a college campus and they did, one of these motivational speakers comes in and they're like far into the crowd off. Now you can achieve your dreams, you can do anything. And for some reason when I left that, that session, I thought, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to do a website and I'm gonna do one photo per week.

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:05:05 I'm gonna call it weekly 50, because I have a 50 millimeter lens. That was the only camera, the only lens I had. So that week in, in like February or March of 2013 I went online, I bought weekly fifty.com the domain name and set up a WordPress site. Exactly. And I started doing one photo a week and that was in the spring of 2013 and we're now in the spring of 2020 and I still do it every week. I post a photo and originally it was just, and even today it still is just for me. I do it to hold myself accountable to make sure I'm using my camera so it doesn't just sit on the shelf. Now I've got two kids and they're turning, one's turning nine and the other, the other six. And I still take pictures of my kids, but I want to grow beyond that. Yeah. And continually use my gear to make photos and learn from that. And I've, I've tried daily projects and it doesn't work for me. I always drop off after a couple of weeks, but that's how I got started in weekly 50. And then since then that site has had, well, okay. So that's the answer to your question. I don't want to get too far ahead. That's my very long answer to your question.

Raymond Hatfield: 00:06:24 Well that's good. That's good. That's good that to stop there because I actually had questions along the way and kind of you were kind of going along that timeline, which is great. And I think, you know, as you said, so many I know so many personally as well as so many listeners don't pick up that camera until they have a child and they realize, Oh, now I have something worth photographing. I want it, you know, so you have that camera. It wasn't until your buddy was at Kevin who came over. Kevin, Kevin came over and I took that one photo that you thought, Oh my gosh, magic has just happened. So you went out, you bought this D 200, you bought this 50 mil 1.8, that nifty 50. When you first started, what was it that you struggled with most?

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:07:13 I, I knew that there was letters on the camera that did things, but I, I didn't know how to make my camera do things that I, I thought it could do. And so I knew that you can put it in letter a mode and that then if you went in letter a, you could make it go all the way to 1.8. But what about letter S? What does S mean? What does M mean? And M was like, I don't want to go there because that's really complicated. You gotta be like real professional. I didn't understand how to use, again, I didn't know like why, why doesn't everyone have a 50 millimeter lens? 50 millimeter ads is perfect. Well, no, it's actually not. There's a lot of lenses you can, you can get. So I think when I first got that, that initial camera and lens, I think I suddenly saw like how much I didn't know.

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:08:15 And I didn't know how much I didn't know until I made that first jump. And, and I remember sitting there with, with the D 200 going through every option and every button trying to figure out what does this do? I know it's here somewhere. This is here for a reason, but I don't understand it. And it was really frustrating for me. And over time I've, I've learned to figure that stuff out and I've learned a lot more about all this since then. But that was really difficult for me. At first. I felt like I, I felt like there was a, I was in a desert and there's an Oasis and I just can't quite drink from it yet because I don't know how to there and I can see it, but I don't know what to do with my camera. Why is it not making the picture is that we went out to do my, my buddy Ryan was like, you should try panning. And I'm like, Oh, well if panning, I'm all for it. And he showed me some pictures where he he took a pictures of his son riding a bike and the background's all blurry, but his son is crystal clear. And so we went out, my wife and I went out with our son and we were like trying to take some panning pictures and nothing was working. I was like, so frustrated. Why, why isn't this working? My camera's at 1.8. That's what you should do, right?

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:09:35 That's not at all what you do for panning. I didn't know that. I didn't know how to control ISO to get the why. When is it appropriate to shoot at higher ISO? I, I just, I didn't understand how much I didn't know until I really got that taste with that initial camera acquisition.

Raymond Hatfield: 00:09:52 So then for you, did your education purely come from a guessing check or was there other, you know, was it tutorials? Was it books? What was your main source of photography education?

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:10:04 That's a good question. I started reading a lot of online stuff. A lot of, like, if I just start rattling off some names, some, some YouTubers. I remember I went to Ken Rockwell's site because he's done a brilliant job of SEO of like building his site up. Some people like them, some don't. Well, I started with his and I started with Jared Poland, that YouTube guy Mike Brown and other utuber and I watched a lot of YouTube videos and then I would try and replicate what I read and what I saw. And I also started going to the Reddit photography forum and reading posts there. And I never had formal training in any of this, but the, I realized that making myself use my camera was the eye. So I don't want to say like, you shouldn't get a photography education.

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:11:01 I wish I had got a photography education. I play guitar now and I played since I was in high school. I wish I had taken lessons cause I'd be way better than I am now. But because I had, I was married working full time. My wife, my wife works full time. We had kids. I'd never got a form of photography education. So a lot of it was like trial and error. And continually using my camera. And the weekly 50 project has been the constant throughout all of this that has forced me to continually use that camera to try new things. And it's sort of like my platform to share my stuff. So we're, let's say I take a picture of the neighbor's dog or something. What do I do with that? And like I posted Instagram or I could just post it to, well, I could to Instagram and weekly 50, and on weekly 50, I get to write a little bit about it and explain a little audio clip about it. So that's, that was like one of the ways in which I grew the most was simply by having this website as a way of holding myself accountable for doing continually learning.

Raymond Hatfield: 00:12:12 Yeah. I'm excited to dive into the whole a website aspect of things because it in some way of X kinda like a journal, you know? Yeah, definitely. But what I find interesting or that I want to know last year, no, I take that back two years ago, two years ago, I started doing a, I don't know if you've heard of the app called one second a day.

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:12:34 I have, yeah. My brother Tom Tom for listening. Tom uses that app and he is, he has encouraged me to try it as well. And one of these years I will, but

Raymond Hatfield: 00:12:45 It's, it's fun. It's, it's fun. It's, it's fun. I mean there's not really much to it. It's, it's fun to look back on. Right. But I find when it comes to photography, very rarely do I look back on my photos. Every once in a while I'll find an old photo on my hard drive and think to myself, Oh wow. Like I remember that day. Yeah. Wow. I can really tell that, you know, my skills have have grown since then, but when I watched one second a day, which I do more often, I'm more critical of these things. So how often, I know that you're documenting your photos every week, but is there a review process where you go back in time and you look at those photos to see where you're at now?

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:13:28 That's yes and no. It's not what I'd say a formal process, but what I find myself doing more than I thought I would is revisiting themes. So one of the photos that I took what years and years ago was a photo, a photo of some tiny yellow flowers Crocus's coming up in our front yard. And I like I did back then F 1.8, dial it up as far as you can. And this one flower was in focus and the rest were not. And I was like, this was a professional photo look at me. And then I, I, I find myself revisiting compositions like that and taking the idea, the initial idea and seeing like, what else can I do with that? And I, over the years I posted a couple similar photos where it's the same idea, even the same flower.

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:14:23 And if I look right here, I can see out my window where I took these flower, these five pictures. But I just like a month ago, I took another photo, yellow Crocus coming up out of the ground. And it was way different and in my opinion, way better than that one I took years ago. But it was absolutely inspired by that one years ago. And I could tell, and I can explain clearly what I've learned since then and my compositional choices that I made now versus back then and how I edited. So I shoot a lot in raw now, whereas before it was JPEG. And so like, why do I shoot in raw? What advantage does that give me when I'm editing? What editing choices do I make? And so there's a lot of, of reflection that goes into when I'm taking photos now, simply because there's been this buildup over time.

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:15:12 And if it was just my kids and my family, so a lot of people take photos of the people in their lives as do I. And I think that's great. But I don't engage in the same sort of creative reflection with those photos as I do with my weekly 50 photos. So I, when I look back, like when you said you'd go back to your hard drive and you see like an old photo and you think that's really cool, I do that too. But I find that with my weekly 50 photos, that's where I grow creatively the most because I, I start to think, well, what did I, what choices did I make here? And then how can I expand on those choices here? Whereas with my kids, I'm usually like trying to just catch them in a moment of whatever they happen to be doing, but there's not a lot of like create a compositional thought that goes into those compared to my weekly 50 photos.

Raymond Hatfield: 00:16:00 Yeah. I feel like with kids, whenever I'm photographing my kids and I go through the call, the images, as long as it's like in focus and you'll be like, they have a funny face. Like that's it. I'm going to keep the photo. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Whereas I will go through a million photos of a wedding and think to myself like these are all garbage, even if even if they're good from a compositional standpoint or something like that. So yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm with you there. I'm with you there. Yeah.

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:16:27 And you, you shoot weddings and it's, it's been interesting how, when, when we started this, when, when I rewind the clock to 2012 when we got that D 200, I had no ambitions of doing anything professionally at all. But what I found is that weekly 50 made me a better photographer so that when I had the opportunity to do more professional work, I knew what I was talking about more. And I knew what I knew how to control my camera to get what I wanted of those pictures. So just last a month or two and that was like three weeks ago I did a senior high school senior photo session and because of weekly 50 those photos were better and I knew more and I've done a lot of of I you'd say professional to me it's like a side gig. Cause I, I'm my full time job is at Oklahoma state university and I make a little bit of side income doing family high school photo, like senior photos, child photos. I'd make a little bit of side income each year doing that. So it's not a profession, but when I do those photos for clients it is absolutely 100% better because of my continual practice through weekly 50 Raymond Hatfield: 00:17:48 I love how this passion project is

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:17:50 Turning into something that is lending its skills into more of a professional sense. That's, yeah, that's very exciting. That must feel awesome when you're in that situation and you're, you're, you think to yourself like, Oh I remember taking a photo that was similar to this. This is how I can make it better. Is that the feeling that you get? Yeah, it absolutely is. And I, it's been interesting to see this, this project. And so I like to kind of step back a little bit. I know there's a lot of photographers who do some type of photo project like a three 65 project, like one photo a day for a year or the one second a day. And I think if you have a project that works for you, then absolutely do it. There's no no one on the internet can tell you that your project is not valid.

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:18:40 For me personally, this weekly 50 project has been the one thing that has worked more than anything else, but it may or may not work for anyone else. For me doing this weekly 50 has it is led to a lot of these things because of that reflection element. Because I'm constantly going back and thinking like, what did I do here? How can I, how can I take this type of photo in a similar way? Or how can I put something into practice? So we were at every, every summer we go to this Lake in Kansas with my family and we were there this summer and I brought a, a tripod and a little cable release and I had my Fuji X 100 F, which is in my opinion, like one of the greatest cameras of all time. Had that camera with me.

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:19:30 And I use that as a, as a way to experiment with things that I had read about like long exposure photography where I'm doing 15 minute exposures as the sun has gone down, what does that look like? And because I had weekly 50 as my, as my reason to do that, then it gave me like, it helped me learn more about what it means to do a long exposure. And I'd read all this stuff and now I thought, well I can, I can practice this and then I can share that on weekly 50 even if someone reads it. I've now done this little mini project of long exposure, experimenting, photography and I have a platform to share it on and I could put it on Instagram and I do put on Instagram, but for some reason it feels a little more personal to do it on a website, my own website.

Raymond Hatfield: 00:20:24 Yeah, I bet that it would feel like a lot less comparison like, like you're not also looking at other people's photos as you're uploading your own photos.

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:20:33 That is, that's exactly right. I don't compare it. I'm only comparing it to myself and if other people want to share their photos, they're welcome to in the comments. But yeah, it's, it's like running cross country. My, my wife ran cross country in high school and she would say, the only person you're really competing against is yourself because you're trying to get your next personal best or personal record and that's when I'm on Instagram. I'm just scrolling through and I'm like, like you said before, man, my photos are junk. Yeah. Look at all these other pictures. Everyone's sharing, everyone's having a great time, everyone's going exotic places. My photo is just lost in the shuffle, but when I put on weekly 50, it's just me and other people can look at them if they want to and hopefully they get something out of it. But I, I do it for me and, and that's, that's my way of keeping that spirit alive, I guess, where I don't have to compare it to anyone else. So it's, it's a really gratifying feeling.

Raymond Hatfield: 00:21:31 Yeah. I think obviously finding the right reason to do it is going to be very important to the longevity of a, of a project like this. And what's something like weekly 50, where for you, you, you kinda knew, at least from the sounds of it, you knew that it didn't have an end date, that this was going to be something that continued on and continued on. Yeah, me as well as more than 200 others. In the beginner photography podcast, there is a Facebook group. We're all doing a daily photo challenge right now, but when you do a three 65, I have found that now I'm not consciously looking forward to day three, 66 or whatever it is this year. But in my head I'm thinking to myself like on that day I'm going to have to ask myself that question. Am I going to continue with this or am I done? Did I complete the challenge? And I've already felt burnout. Like really? Okay. I mean, at times, especially now when it's like, well, we're home and I think it's just cause I'm not pushing myself as far as I need to. So with you having a project that doesn't have an end date for doing this for now, more than seven years, how do you protect yourself from burnout?

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:22:45 So the number one way in which I, I, and at burnout is real. I have, I have felt burnt out before. And that's been my main issue with, with shorter interval photo projects. Like a photo a day a while ago on Facebook's, there was this theme going around where like for one week post a black and white photo and I did for two days and I was like, Oh no, I forgot on the third day. And then I get these guilt feelings like I forgot a day, I'm no good anymore. Yeah, I know. So for me the saving grace with weekly 50 has been, I don't take a photo every week. I post a photo every week and that has made all the difference because I can go, I I, I might take in one day, like five or six interesting photos.

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:23:38 So let's say I drive to, my family is in Nebraska. So let's say I'll drive to Nebraska and I'll take the back highways like highway 15 third, Kansas and I'll stop half a dozen times along the way to take photos of windmills or whatever. And so in one day I've just amassed like five or six potential photos for weekly 50. I scheduled those on the website. So now I've got a month and a half of photos that are already scheduled out. So now I don't have to think about it and it, it, it removes all of that stress of having to do that project. So I, I haven't felt any sort of obligation to my photo project in a long time because it's just there. It's like low, low grade background hum. And yesterday it was nice out. We're stuck inside like everyone knows right now and it was nice day.

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:24:29 So I went up and I, I got I, I have a set of closeup filters that let you do like fake macro photography. So I took some macro photos of buds coming off of plants and like flowers and stuff and I didn't felt pressure. Like I need to take these photos because I need a photo for tomorrow's website posting. I was just like, you know, I'm gonna take these photos cause it's a cool photo. You take, put them on weekly 50, and they're going to go live in like two months. And knowing that I've got this huge cushion has made all the difference because it, it removes all that, that feeling of obligation. It doesn't become a burden. It's not a stressor. And when when you look down and you think, well, gosh, two months, that's, that's a long time. Like I can't wait that long to I want people to see my photo now.

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:25:24 I've learned that it does happen the two months we'll get here. I just need to be patient. And one cool thing is I don't even know what gets published anymore. Every Wednesday something gets caught. I that's exactly what happened. I woke up this morning and or yesterday morning because today's Thursday and I get, I have email notifications when my blog publish this. Every Wednesday I posted a picture and I look at it and I'm like, Oh yeah, I remember taking that photo. That was a cool photo. But it's, it's a surprise to myself even and the fact that I can schedule them so far in advance takes care of so many things about the, the issues that I personally had have had with photo projects. It's been a huge blessing to be able to have that instead of the, the Instagram where if I post a photo on Instagram, I'm checking back three minutes later.

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:26:20 How many likes does it have? Does it have any comments? I'm checking back like an hour later. Well then a day goes by and it's done. You'll never get anything after a day. And I find myself, when I'm on Instagram, I'm more stressed because I'm comparing all my photos and I'm no good and look what everyone else is doing and I didn't get enough likes and it's just not a, Instagram is great people. I'm not ragging on it. But for me doing it on the weekly 50 website has just made a huge difference.

Raymond Hatfield: 00:26:53 I can see that. There's, there's, there's, there's been a big shift obviously just in the way that we as humans have been sharing photos. You know, for years it went from, you know, you'd have to wait several days to get your photos to developed. And then I remember, I mean, I wasn't around I think before one hour photo option, but growing up I remember, so like how I can not believe that we have to wait a full hour for these photos. Like I cannot wait to see them. And now, you know, over the, you know span of history in a relatively short timeline that will never be an issue again. You know, we can take a photo and have it shared to literally millions of people in the matter of seconds. Yeah. But being able to kind of take that step back and reflect on our own photos like you're saying here is something that I think personally gets missed a lot and that I've been trying to do more of this year in 2020 doing less Instagram, which I didn't think was possible cause I really am not bad active on Instagram as it is.

Raymond Hatfield: 00:28:00 It's funny, I was actually looking at my my, my recommended photos on Instagram the other day and it was nothing but like, Leica m6 and then like a Subaru, STI and then like, like the slices of pizza being pulled apart. There was like, Ooh, cheese. And I was like, none of these photos are, you know, nothing here is like artistic. These are just somehow Instagram knows exactly what I'm interested in and it showed those photos. But when it's, when I look at my photos and when I'm trying to figure out how I can incorporate ways to do what you have done essentially and slowed down with my photography and appreciate it more, I'm struggling with that. I'm struggling with that. Yeah. So the way that you're sharing, you know, how it has worked for you is really exciting to me. And this is one place where I think that a lot of new photographers kind of get stuck. Right? It's like you have to share to Instagram, you have to share to tick tock you got to share to all these places. So back in 2013 we'll go way back to then. Right. There's, there's a lot of conflicting information given to new photographers. What was some of that common info that you were being taught that maybe you didn't find helpful?

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:29:14 So I think I didn't know what to focus on. I, I felt like there was a lot of information and a lot of recommendations coming at me and you need to have your, your gear isn't good enough or your lens isn't good enough. You need this lens, you need this lens. And I remember I, I got my 50 mil and I was like, this is this perfect lens. And then I started reading people on online forums where we're talking about how 35 if you're on an APS, see size sensor 35 is really what you want. So I actually bought a 35 and now I have two lenses and I've got to decide which one do I want to use. And now we're adding layers of, of burden onto what's supposed to be just a fun hobby. So now I'm like, I want to go take a picture, do I take the 35 or the 50?

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:30:06 Maybe take them both. But now I got to switch between the lenses. Maybe you need another camera. So then I got to, at the fall 2013 I got a D 7,100 and I thought, well, this is it. This is like the, I don't need any more cameras. I got two cameras, two lenses. And pretty soon I found myself getting an 85 1.8. So I have three prime lenses. Then I got a D seven 50, like the gear kept on coming. And so I, I think I listened to too much to the chatter about gear and it's your, your gear isn't good enough and you need this mirrorless camera now because DSLRs are dead and you need this. And he did this. And, and I, you know, I, I've, I like to say that weekly 50 or having photography has been a good hobby for me because it's all paid for itself.

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:31:00 I'm doing weekly 50. There's every week I write several paragraphs. And so that writing actually landed me a job@adigitalphotographyschool.com and I've been a contributor there for many years now and I was able to use weekly 50 as a way of demonstrating my writing skills. And so I've been writing columns for that plus work on the side, doing high school and senior and, and family photos. So I've gotten this side income and it keeps getting put back into photo stuff. So I've gotten more lenses and more, more stuff over the years, but I, I didn't understand how that can become too big of a focus and it really did. I went through this period where I was like, I need, I need this and I need this and I just go online. Like I'm going gonna read reviews of, of these cameras that I can't afford and, and I'm an, I'm a Nikon guy, but everyone's going to Sony.

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:32:01 Maybe, maybe I'm doing it all wrong. Or now Canon's coming out with their mirrorless line and like, Oh my goodness, I did everything wrong. Cut through all that. And at the end of the day, if you're taking photos that you like, then who cares? Yeah. You, if you're happy with it, then do it. And re coming to that realization that it isn't about what people on the internet think because they don't even know me. It's about what works for me as a photographer. That's what, that's kind of the key. And weekly 50 has been the way that I have. It's like my constant, if you, if anyone out there is a fan of the show lost there's one part where they Desmond has a constant weekly 50 is like my constant that it's always there kind of reminding me that you can take it slow, take it easy, you don't need fancy gear and just take photos that you like. And it's been really good and really freeing to have that. So I know that's kind of a long answer to was probably a simple question, but

Raymond Hatfield: 00:33:06 No, no, no. First of all, I just want to say that I think that was the first last reference and I greatly appreciate it. That was fantastic. We missed too many of those. The show is, it's, it's right at that age to where people don't really talk about that often, but it's, it's still very well known. So I appreciate that. That was good. That was great. Good. No, and I, I love that answer. You know, thinking about switching systems podcasts, listeners know that I switched years ago from Canon actually strictly to Fuji. And I struggled with that as well because technically I'm downgrading, right? My sensor size is crop sensor camera. Never exactly know. I remember the struggle that I had before I, before I hit that pay with PayPal button wondering what am I doing? Like am I still even a professional if I'm not shooting on a, on a, on a full full frame. Yeah. You know, it was these ridiculous things and like you said, I mean I think ultimately it came down to if you can produce images that you're happy with, who cares? And ultimately I think that Fuji does that better for me than, than what Canon does. So you know, there's pros and cons, but in this case, I don't see the con as a con at all.

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:34:18 Yeah. You're gaining a lot in some ways by switching to Fuji and that's it. It lets you make the images you want to make and if someone else has a different camera, then that works for them. And so, exactly, exactly. I'm all about that. People ask me every couple of times a year friends or family will, will email me and they'll say what camera should I, I'm always like, what do you want to take? What pictures are you trying to take? Travel, get yourself a micro four thirds kids, get yourself a [inaudible] or, or a Sony RX 100 Mark seven or something. But it's always starts with what pictures do you want to take? Maybe your mobile phone is what you wanted, what you want to use. And for, for me, the big difference in getting that, that initial rush, when you get that camera, you're like, everything is beautiful.

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:35:17 Look, there's a pen on my desk, I'm gonna take a photo of it. Look, there's a cup. Then a week or two later, like, ah, I don't have any ideas getting over. That was almost entirely due to having that weekly 50 as the reason. And of course, like my kids are the reason that I do so much in life and my wife, but, and so I take pictures of them, but I really want it to continue to learn and grow and that's what the, the website made possible. And I, I wouldn't be where I am today without it, without that constant background hum of having this continual project. And I, you know, I, I, I don't know. I don't like to make recommendations about anything, even movies cause I never know, especially on camera systems because I don't want to be responsible if you don't like your camera. But it's, if someone out there is wondering like, how can I grow as a photographer, especially I'm stuck in inside right now. How can I look? What can I do? That'd be my recommendation is take on some sort of photo project that, that doesn't demand a sacrifice of your time or doesn't demand, doesn't, doesn't make you feel bad if you don't hit the deadline. And something like a weekly photo project might just be what some listeners are looking for.

Raymond Hatfield: 00:36:44 Yeah. It's funny. I kind of wanted to actually circle back on that. We got off track there with lost and I was happy about it, but it reminded me that I have a question which was if you are scheduling out your posts, say two months in advance, you know, what is it that still driving you to continue to take photos if you don't have that pressure of needing to create something. Does that, does that question make sense?

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:37:11 Absolutely. Makes sense. Yes. there are some weeks where I don't take any weekly 50 photos and, and just like as a tangent the blog started as weekly 15. That was the only lens I had. I now have other lenses, other cameras and on any, any given photo might be taken with any given camera lens. So it's called weekly 50, but it's, it, it's whatever I happen to shoot with. So it's really been freeing for me to release myself from the bonds of the 50 millimeter focal length. But I still do the photos. I think it's almost like when you have a lot of food in your pantry, you still go grocery shopping. So you might have like, you open your pantry and you got a shelf and it's got like some macaroni and cheese. It's got some pasta sides. You got some, you got all these things, but you still have a shopping list.

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:38:10 So you still have to go shopping because you don't want to get to zero and you're not generally day to day, you're not like freaking out like, we're out of food. I need to go shopping now you, because you have that backlog of food in your pantry, but yet you still know that if you don't go shopping every week or two weeks or whatever your schedule is, that food's going to run out. And because you've built up that padding, you're okay. But you still need to be keeping that mind. Like it's, it's in there somewhere in the back of your mind. Like, you know, I, we, we do need to get peppers or whatever. So that's helped me when I'm just going on a walk with my wife and kids. I'll take the camera with me sometimes and I'll just kind of be on the lookout for a photo opportunity because that, that background there's a small voice in the background going, remember your weekly 50 photos.

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:39:12 Don't forget just a friendly reminder and there has been creative slumps where I don't, I'm not doing anything and I'm not, I don't feel like I'm growing at all as a photographer. And so what I do then is I just take crappy photos and I'm, I'll, I'll post them to the blog. In fact, the one that went live yesterday, this is April 2nd, the one that went live yesterday. I didn't even like that photo. It's a bad photo, but I took it because I wanted to continue to use my camera and so on the, on the, the explanation for the post, I explained why it's not really my favorite photo and why I took it anyway. And even when I'm in a creative slump, even just taking a couple of photos is often enough to kind of kickstart things a little bit and get me out of that.

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:40:02 Then I'm honest with myself, like I'm not chasing likes on Instagram and I'm not trying to be an influencer. I'm just doing this for myself and this is a crummy photo, but I know that, and I'm going to tell my listeners that on weekly 50 and, and my, my readers that and now and the sun's still comes up the next day. So that's, that's kind of how I, I deal with that and particularly taking a lot of photos at once. When I was a kid I, the TV show I watched, I was a kid, it was full house. Oh yes. And you remember that show too? Oh, of course. Yeah. Oh good. And I used to think, well, they must have have they must really be rigorous about this if they're recording an episode every single week and their Christmas episode, like how do they get people to show up to record an episode on Christmas?

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:40:55 It's Christmas day and they're all gathered around opening presents. How do they do that? And I had no idea that they just recorded a bunch and then scheduled them out back in like July right. It wasn't snowing, it's potato flakes or something. So that having that mindset has really, has really helped deal with that that issue of like, what do I do? And I feel like there's nothing to photograph or I feel like I just don't have any sort of creative spark. I don't take any photos for awhile or I take some crummy photos, but it's all part of that photographic journey that we're all on that really does have no end. But you know, what I loved most about the whole thing

Raymond Hatfield: 00:41:34 Is that obviously it sounds like you're doing it for you love photography, is that it comes down to, you know, you're doing this because you simply love photography. I also loved your your shopping analogy there. Like, so going to the grocery store, but I'm slightly worried that here in five or 10 years when everybody exclusively eats using Uber eats and nobody ever goes to the store anymore, that people are going to be wondering, what does that mean going back to this? Yeah. Well, why would you go to a store and get food? That's gross. No, that's funny. So but I, I do wanna talk a little bit about, because I just saw your 2019 wrap-up video. So obviously you've been doing this for years, but you posted a video on your YouTube where you did a 2019 wrap, a video where you talked kind of about your feelings of 2019 and going through this project, but then you talked about going forward into 2020 and that you want to explore more of what you can do with the gear that you have. You didn't know what that was going to look like, but you were going to make it happen. So how's that going so far?

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:42:36 You know, yesterday I was out with my D7100 and the same 50 millimeter lens that I got in 2012 and to this day that still is there. There is so much about that combination that you, you can do. And so I was taking pictures of my kids playing in the, in the yard. And I was, I was experimenting with aperture. So if I w if I go to one eight how's that gonna look versus 2.8 versus four. I was out taking macro photographies of flowers and I think it's going pretty well so far. I'm learning that I, there's a lot that I can do with what I have and I don't need anything fancy. In fact, going back to that very first lens, it's really been nice because I get to revisit some ideas that I had back then that I didn't know how to do.

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:43:35 And now I know how to do or at least know more about looking for where the light's coming from. Yeah. Or looking for what, like before I take this picture, what is my subject and do I have anything in the frame that's going to detract from my subject? What emotions am I trying to convey? And so with, with my 2020 eyes, looking back on my 2013 ideas, my photos from back then and literally the same gear I had finding creative new ways to use that. So it's, it's actually going pretty well. And it's interesting you bring up the YouTube thing. I started maybe two years ago going back to the entire archive of weekly 50 and putting every photo along with every audio commentary on YouTube, just as a way of getting it out to people because there's a lot of people who consume content on YouTube.

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:44:32 And I thought, well, if people want to see my photos there, I should make that available to them. And every week I, I have the same photo gets published on my website and on YouTube and there's no difference in the content, but it has been interesting to see a different audience, I guess on YouTube. And there's, there's people who comment every single week one guy in particular, D Welker do you if you're listing thank you for your comments. Whereas there's people in the blog who comments. So it's, it's, it's two different audiences, but it's been really neat to get things out. And full disclosure, I am not a successful YouTuber. In fact, you have to be, you have to have a 10 minute video to even be monetized on YouTube. Every one of my videos is like three minutes long, so I can't make money on YouTube. I think I have all of 120 subscribers, so I don't do it for the numbers. I just do it as another way to get photos out there to people. And it's the primary way is the website. And even on YouTube, there's a link every week that directs you back to my website. And websites are now in 2020. They're like snail mail. Nobody goes to websites.

Raymond Hatfield: 00:45:44 Oh no, that's not true at all. That is a unequivocally false. I, so many people go to websites. I don't know what you're talking about. I understand what you're talking about, about the fragmentation of content, certain videos, you know, I mean, there are you tubers who make a living strictly off YouTube and don't even have a website. So I get what you're saying there. Yeah. But people still definitely go to websites. And me personally, I've obviously, I've, I've checked out the YouTube, I've checked out the website. The website is a much more almost in the same sense that we were talking about Instagram earlier. When you go to Instagram, and I found this only from having kids and watching how they navigate through YouTube. When you go on YouTube, you almost are always looking for what's next. Like, Ooh, but like what's the next video?

Raymond Hatfield: 00:46:36 Like what's the better video that I'm going to find? African's recommendations on side. Exactly. Like, like look at all this opportunity right here. It could be an amazing video, I just have to find it. Whereas when you go to website, you're, you've, you definitely slow down because the content that is there in front of you is simply the content that is there in front of you. And that's what it is. So when we're looking at things artistically, I love to have as many barriers in front of me as possible to slow me down because we do live in a fast paced world, you know, that's, even though you can get the exact same thing from YouTube, it's an entirely different experience to to, to view it. So yeah, I don't shut down the website is what I'm saying.

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:47:17 Yeah. And, and I think if someone is out there thinking about their own photo project, I'm never going to say don't use Instagram, don't use Facebook or whatever the social platform is that you. But there's a lot to be said for having control over the top to bottom whole experience and any you go to Wix or Weebly or a WordPress, these are great platforms to start a website. And if you want a little more control, you pay a little money. But you don't even need to do or Squarespace. If you, I had a Squarespace site for awhile for my side gig it as my semi-professional stuff. But if, if you want that level of control and I really liked what you said about having barriers when it comes to creative outlets because I find the same thing to be true. Yeah.

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:48:12 Some, there's some tech sites that I follow and I'll go to YouTube and I'm always like, this video is pretty good, but that one might be better. Exactly. And so then if I go to the website of that content creator, I really do find myself engaging more richly with what they have to offer. And I think it's really important that we as consumers of creative art or consumers of art, that we find ways to slow down as we process the images and Instagram, it's great, but you scroll down, you scroll down, you scroll down, and you don't engage with the content typically for more than just a second or two, but on a website you can do that in a lot more thoughtful, richer way. So I absolutely think that if someone's trying to think about starting a project, I always recommend one a week, one photo a week, insert a website, not necessarily an Instagram account or a Facebook page. What, there's a lot to be said for just making a website and it really does make a difference.

Raymond Hatfield: 00:49:18 It's funny, I was actually watching a YouTube video this morning of Joe Greer. Are you, do you know who Joe Greer is?

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:49:24 I, you know, I've heard that name, but I don't know.

Raymond Hatfield: 00:49:27 He is a strictly a film shooter. His notoriety I guess started all on Instagram. He built a very large following just of his film photos. But I was listening to a talk that he had. It wasn't this, I listened to it this morning and he said that, you know, in the beginning brands would come to him and try to do some sort of collaboration purely based upon his following. And he thought to himself like, but if this goes away then so does, all of my work, you know, if Instagram has gone. So it was all of my work and all of my opportunities to make money, you know, and we have to go somewhere else and we have to do something else. So even though he had something that was very successful for him, he still did the exact same thing and started a website and even said that making photo books is like his dream. All that he wants to do is just make like shoot for himself and then just make those photo books. It's a great idea. I think that's just another one of those barriers. So for you doing a weekly project, is there, is there anything that you do after you post the photo? Is there, do you print books? Do you share your photos in any way to, you know, I don't know, keep them alive, if that makes sense. I,

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:50:40 We've got a couple hanging up in the house and one or two of them might've made their way into like a, a family photo album, but no, they pretty much stay on the website and I've been told like, some people will say every now and then like you kind of print this picture. And I guess it's just one of those things that I'll, I'll get around to it someday. I know. And I really should, I should, I should print more of this stuff. And my friend Shane he he has pictures that he is, he'll just wait until there's a sale on a canvas sprint and he'll just get that free 11 by 17 or whatever the sale happens to be. And I'll just get a picture made and I always think like it's gotta be really good if you're going to picture made. Well no,

Raymond Hatfield: 00:51:32 You were just saying about the whole website that you don't even like, I know, I know I have to print it. In fact, after this is over, I'm going to send you, I'm going to send you a YouTube video of how you can make, how you're going, how you are going to make a photo book in like 10 minutes or less and you're going to get a year's worth of photos printed. It's super easy. Good. I'm excited for you. I appreciate that. Thank you. There's something totally different about, you know, when, when a photo is printed. So,

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:52:00 You know, I we, we've made yearbooks where we just go through and take like five or 600 pictures from the year 2012 and 2013 and put them in a book. And when we have nieces and nephews over, they like looking through those photo books a lot more than they like to scroll through photos on the computer. And there's like the sense of, of, of, I don't know, it's like a tangible sense that you get looking for through physical photo books or physical prints of photos and you're holding something in your hands. And there's a lot to be said for that. And I don't know that I've ever thought about doing that with my weekly 50 photos, but I think I'm going to, so this is a good thing. It would, yeah. I've already got all the photos already there. So, and incidentally, I actually host my photos on flicker.

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:52:50 If you go to flicker, which flickers like the, the unsung hero of the modern photography, digital photography world, flicker has been there for so long and they're the, one of the biggest photo sharing sites, they're not as popular in like the, the, if you just ask someone what's a popular photo sharing site? Instagram has come, comes up other others come up. But flicker is huge. People don't realize how huge flicker is even today. So all my photos are actually on flicker and they're resolution on flicker. So on my website, when you see the photos, it's actually pulling them from flicker to embed them into the website. And if you want to see the full resolution version, you just click the photo and it takes you straight to flicker and you can see all of my weekly 50 photos right there and you just scroll through them.

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:53:43 You don't get all the commentary and everything else, but you get all the images. And so the reason I like that as you on on a website, it will typically show you it will give you like a lower resolution or a lower, a smaller size version of a photo to fit the dimensions of your screen. And you might have to like right click and say open image in new tab to see the full thing. But if you click through to the ones on weekly 50, it'll take you to flicker and you can download them, you can see them full resolution if you want to. So I've really appreciated that, that aspect of it, of using flicker as like the medium for storing and transferring the photos. And, and it's been a great thing.

Raymond Hatfield: 00:54:24 Yeah. I would imagine the amount of technical things that you have to go through to get something like this to work is is, is quite a bit. And I definitely, I definitely need to spend more time on flicker. I'm not sure why. I don't really, I it just, cause there's not as much discoverability as there is in something like a Instagram. I dunno. Anyway. Anyway, you've been very gracious with your time. I got one last question for you. Are you still up for it? I'm up for it. After seven years of shooting, what's something that you learned within that time that you think others would be surprised to hear?

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:55:04 I've learned that there, there's, the cliche is like gear doesn't matter. And and you you, you can take photos even if you have an old film camera with no autofocus and all that. I've, I've learned that inspiration takes work and yes, you can go and, and find a picture in your backyard. But if you really want to get a great picture of that photo, you got to practice it. And yeah, you know, you can put a filter on on your, you can take a photo with your camera and put, put some color filters on. But if you see a good picture on weekly 50, and you think like, wow, this is a really good picture. This guy knows what he's doing. I promise you there's a hundred a thousand photos that are not that great that I didn't put on weekly 50.

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:56:02 And the one I did put, if it's a, if, if you think it's a good photo, there's a lot of thought that went into that photo, even if it's just learning over time. So maybe I didn't study that composition for an entire hour, but if I took a photo that was that you thought was interesting and that I think is interesting, I'm drawing on seven years of experience and learning what didn't work to make that happen. So I think about, I used to have like a, a masthead at the top of the website and it was this photo of a, of a butterfly in the Dew and there was like this, the sun rays were coming in and it's one of the, my photos that I'm most proud of that took a ton of work. Even knowing what time of day to go out to get that photo and knowing the angle that I should shoot it at the, the correct aperture to, to get the image I was looking for.

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:56:57 And the, I think it would surprise people to know the amount of work, mental work and even some degree of post-processing that, that it takes to get those really good shots. And yes, you can, you can walk around your neighborhood and be inspired and I do that. But what you want to do is walk around your neighborhood a hundred times and be taking photos but then be comparing photos to your earlier photos, not to others on Instagram, but to your own past work and really make a conscious effort to learn and improve. And that's when I find that I am most inspired is when I've really put some work into it and it might not seem like it. And even if the end result isn't like framework it still takes a lot of effort to get these to look good. And so I, when I do photo sessions now where I'm taking photos of a high school senior or a family or something like that, I'm drawn on all this experience.

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:58:02 Just like when you shoot a wedding, you might make it look easy, but there's a ton going on. People are paying you because of what's going on in your mind because you know exactly where to stand and what focal length to use and what are the lights coming from and what if you, if you shoot it at four, that's going to be different than F two, eight or 1.4, whatever it is. And so all this work going on up here. So yeah, I think people will be surprised to know how much work actually goes on behind the scenes, particularly B between the ears. When you see a good photo on weekly 50 or or anywhere. So,

Raymond Hatfield: 00:58:37 Oh my gosh. Coming from your story of just thinking of that, seeing that first photo of your son just cruise along the couch like, Oh, this is magic. The camera doesn't have to hearing that aspect right there really ties this whole thing together. Thank you. Don't think that we could end this on a better note than that. That was fantastic.

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:58:56 Thank you. I'm glad to hear it. And that's what I discovered when Kevin shot that photo. It was not magic. There was no secret sauce. There was just Kevin, he knew what he was doing and he had a super basic camera. And if anyone out there is thinking about like, you know, maybe I should move up from my mobile phone. Go to go to a used camera site, go to eBay and gets, find something used. Don't spend more than a like two or $300 a used camera, use lens. And I promise you, you can make beautiful images with that, but it does take work and learn over time. Start shooting and just make yourself do it repeatedly. Don't let it sit in of yourself and you'll find yourself getting a lot better than you might realize. So it's not magic, it's just effort and knowing how it all works. Perfect.

Raymond Hatfield: 00:59:46 Simon, I have to thank you so much for sharing everything that you did today. Before I let you go, can you let the listeners know where they can learn more about you and follow you along online?

Simon Ringsmuth: 00:59:56 Sure. So my website is weeklyfifty.com. My YouTube channel is it's on the website from the, at the website. You can go to YouTube and I'm on Instagram and I post usually one a week, my weekly 50 photo. I'll just manually post that on Instagram when I see it on Wednesday morning. I'm not, I don't have a weekly 50 Facebook. I'm on Facebook, but I'm only, I'm not like friends with anyone. It's just like my actual friends and family. So you won't really find me on Facebook. And if you go to my actual personal website, SRingsmuth.com, that's my, you'll see stuff that's way out outdated. That's like my CV for my job. So I weekly 50 is probably the best place to go. And from there you can get to other places if they want to, if your listeners want.

Simon Ringsmuth: 01:00:40 And, and I would love to have any of your listeners as, as followers, but mostly I would love it if, if any of your listeners took on a similar type of growth project particularly a weekly photo one a week. And at first it's gonna seem so slow. Like I'm so inspired, I want to post photos every day, 10 a day, take it slow one a week cause you can't maintain this, this, like that initial rush. You can't maintain that over a year, two years, five years. You can maintain once a week, maybe once every two weeks. So set, set those reasonable goals and you will, you, not you but Raymond, his listeners will, you will absolutely learn and grow over time. And I think you'll be surprised at what you can come up with.

Raymond Hatfield: 01:01:24 Perfect. Perfect assignment. Again, then. Thank you so much for coming on. I really do appreciate it and I look forward to following along on more weekly 50, and I cannot wait to see you post the photo of the book photos. Alright. Alright. I will do it. Thank you Raymond. I appreciate it.