The second week of February is when we struggle most to keep going with our new years resolutions. Completing a 365 project (photo a day) was at the top of the list for many photographers. So I wanted to provide some inspiration and motivational tips to help keep you going strong!

5 Ways to Practice Photography At Home In The Cold Winter Months

1. Carry Your Camera with You Everywhere: Get a light and a comfortable strap to carry your camera around with you everywhere. You don’t need to feel any pressure towards taking photos. Just carry it for now if you wish to become more comfortable with having a camera on you.

2. Review Old Photographs: Look through your images of the past year or so and pick out your favorites. Take note of why you love them and focus on going deeper with that in future sessions.

3. Do an Hourly Challenge: There’s a saying “No matter where you are, there is always a great photo within 5 steps of you” Set a timer on your phone to go off every hour for a whole day and whenever it goes off, find that great photo wherever you are.

4. Try Something New: If you need inspiration but don’t want to look through a thousand photos on Instagram, you can use Lightroom presets on your own work to see different possibilities. You can download my most popular 52 Lightroom Presets for free, below!

5. Start a Long Term Photo Project: Your photography will get proportionally better to how much work you put into it. Create a long-term project as a form of accountability and motivation to keep shooting.

Resources:

• Join the Beginner Photography Podcast Daily Photo Challenge Group

• Download 52 FREE Lightroom Presets
  

Standout Quotes: 

• "When you have your camera on you, you're going to take a photo" - [Raymond]

• "We all kind of have a style inside of us" - [Raymond]

• "Everybody is at a different stage in their photography journey and therefore the photos that you take today should be better than the ones you took yesterday" - [Raymond]

• "No matter where you are, what you're doing, there's always a great photo within 5 steps of you" - [Raymond]

• "As a photographer, you have to make whatever situation that you're in, work for you, so problem-solving is an incredibly important skill to have" - [Raymond]

• "If you can take poor situations and turn them into great photos... your skills as a photographer are going to skyrocket" - [Raymond]

• "Make no mistake, Preset is not a one-click solution, it takes work" - [Raymond]

• "Your photos will get proportionately better to how much you work on them" - [Raymond]

Key Takeaways:

• Raymond shares that he wants these exercises to be easy.

• Carry your camera with you everywhere: The best way to go about this is to use small a camera with a strap.

• Addressing the problem of feeling self-conscious taking pictures in public, a strategy is recommended: Get a camera strap and wear your camera all day, everyday, for the next 30 days and feel no pressure towards taking any picture at all.

• Review old photographs: This helps you recognize your style. Go through the photos from the last year or so, pick a handful of your favorites, ask yourself what you like about these photos, take note of those things, then do something with them to help you always remember them.

• Your ability as a photographer comes down to your ability to problem-solve. 

• The Hourly Challenge: Set a timer, for every hour throughout the day or within a period, at each hour stop whatever you're doing, look around you, and find that great photo that's within 5 steps of you. The purpose of this is to train your brain on how to find a great photo.

• Try something new: Raymond shares that he does this with his editing, using presets.

• Start a long term project: The more often you shoot, the better you will have to get.

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, it is only intended as a reference.

Raymond Hatfield (00:00):

Welcome to the Beginner Photography Podcast. Today, I'm going to share five practical tips to practicing photography at home. Let's get into it.

Intro (00:11):

Welcome to the beginner photography podcast, a weekly podcast, for those who believe that moments matter most. And that a beautiful photo is more than just a sum of its settings. A show for those who want to do more with the gear, they have to take better photos today, and now your host Raymond Hatfields.

Raymond Hatfield (00:29):

Welcome. Welcome. Welcome back. My photo friends. Welcome back to this episode of the beginner photography podcast as always. I'm your host, Raymond Hatfield, and it is cold here in Indianapolis. It's getting cold. I think we're in the negatives this week, which is no fun. And sometimes that can be a hindrance to your photography by trying to learn by trying to grow. I know that for me personally when it comes to shooting, I like to be out. I like to do it when something is going on, you know, some sort of event or we're going somewhere. And unfortunately in these colder months and due to this pandemic, we're not going as many places. And there's just not as many things to do. So that means that we are staying at home. So I already take less photos when I'm home as it is, and then put the cold weather on top of that.

Raymond Hatfield (01:26):

And you know, my, my, my inspiration and my drive to take photos goes down pretty much to zero during this time of the year. So I thought, you know what? I I have I have to get myself out of this funk and I have to start producing photos. For many reasons, one is just to, you know, stay active, to continue to do it. And to obviously I love photography. I love it. I love it. I love it. I love what it provides, but you know, sometimes getting in that in that mode is hard. It's like, it's like working out, you know, you don't ever want to go work out, but you, you love the, the you know, the, not the side effects, but you love the results that you get. You know, and, and as I was saying this time of year, I find that with photography, I don't always want to pick up my camera because I'm not feeling inspired.

Raymond Hatfield (02:16):

But when I look back at the photos, I'm always happy that I did it. So again, today, I want to share five practical tips on how you can practice photography at home with, you know, next to nothing. Th th there's no requirements for this. So just in case, you're feeling a little, you know, eh, about photography right now I want to help you with that. You know, another thing is I, I was looking back to this time last year and last year we started the daily photo challenge for the beginning of photography podcast. And about this time, you know, mid February people start dropping off. It's the it's the excitement that we get from this new year's resolution or this new idea, this new project that we're going to take on because in the beginning, inspiration is always who, you know, it's easy. It's wonderful. That's why everybody gets excited too. And I'm going back to this, you know, workout example, again, everybody gets excited to work out, but then when it comes time to actually doing it, that excitement is, is just not as powerful, you know? So it it becomes the same with photography. And this is that time of the year where I think now more than ever, we need to push ourselves last year. I interviewed Ashley Marston, who She,

Raymond Hatfield (03:32):

Among many things, she documents her family's life. And she's been doing a daily photo challenge for, I believe, seven years now. And, you know, one of the things that really struck me from her is that she said that,

Raymond Hatfield (03:45):

You know, starting a, you know, a three 65 project or a daily photo challenge is the worst January is the worst time to do that. Because as I'm saying here, you know, as, as I'm discovering, it's very cold and, you know, you just don't feel inspired to go out and do that. And yet many of us take this time a year to do that anyway, as if we're just setting ourselves up for failure. So again, I thought that I would compile this list of things that I'm going to be doing, and share it with you in the hopes that you can take some of this and implement it into your own photography and weather, this cold weather storm. So that when we get out on the other side here in the spring it's just a whole lot easier to get out, to shoot and enjoy yourself and capture great photos. So that is what we are going to do today. Okay. Let's get into these tips right here. So number one, the, the one, I guess this isn't the one thing, but this is, this is probably going to be the hardest thing for so many of you. And it is also one of the most powerful, so tip number one is to carry your camera with you everywhere. Yes. Everywhere.

Raymond Hatfield (05:06):

So last year when I started doing the daily photo challenge, you know, one thing that I love is that I shoot all of my professional work on Fuji cameras and they are nice small compact cameras. They don't take up a lot of space. They're definitely much smaller than the DSLR, which, which can be kind of difficult to carry around with you sometimes. And when you, you know, when you bring it out, it feels like an occasion. Like you're gonna, you know, you're going to photograph these things. And many times photographers have a backpack or a messenger bag or something of the sort to be able to carry around their cameras. So this isn't very easy to, to turn into a daily practice. You don't want to, especially if you're at home, you're not going to walk around the house with a backpack on with your camera and lenses, so that when the opportunity you're going to take off the backpack, open it up, grab the camera, take out the lens caps or the body caps, find a lens, put it on, take out the lens cap, get your settings ready, and then go ahead and shoot, you know, why you're just not going to do that.

Raymond Hatfield (06:12):

It's just not feasible to do that. Long-Term and what I want for this is for these exercises to be easy. So now you may be thinking, but you're asking me to carry a camera around with me everywhere. Like, how is that easy? So again, last year when I started doing the daily photo challenge, and I wish that I wish that I prepared and I brought this over to my desk so that if you're watching here on YouTube, then you could see it. But last year I bought myself a a new camera strap. I wanted something that was, that looked good. That was small. That I could easily take off of the camera because not always do I want a camera strap on the camera. And I found something from peak design. It's called there, there leash, neck strap, camera strap.

Raymond Hatfield (07:02):

I believe that it is the leash designed from her leash from peak design, I believe is what it is. And it goes around, you know, your neck, it's very easily adjustable and it can come off on and off your camera very quick. And at the same time, it's very secure. So I bought this because I want to take my camera with me everywhere, everywhere. So many times, you know, do we go out and, you know, you'll just have so many times we'll go out and we'll just like, see something, you know, and think to ourselves, Oh, that's nice. That's real nice. You know, that's really pretty. I wish I had my camera with me. That happened to me all the time. You know, and maybe it's not like big things. It's not like, Whoa. Like, look at that sunset every single day. Maybe it's just, you're out, you know, shopping and you're with the kids.

Raymond Hatfield (07:52):

And, you know, in my situation, maybe the kids see a new box of cereal and it just that excitement in their eyes like, Whoa, that looks good. You know, and being able to grab that in a photo is, is what I strive for. Those are the things that I know that my family is going to want to remember most later in life. So being able to carry a camera around with you everywhere is going to help you achieve that. Now, when I brought this up last year in the daily photo challenge group, so many people were like, don't you get, looks like what happens? You know, when you pull up the camera and take somebody's photo to, you know, do they look at you weird? And to that point, it's, it's difficult to bring your camera into public places in the beginning, because it feels like your invading somebody else's privacy.

Raymond Hatfield (08:46):

You know, if, if you were out of the store and you saw somebody take a photo of you, it would feel very, very weird. Now that's not, that's not what you want. Right. That's not what you want. You're not going to just be taking photos of random strangers, you know, unless you do maybe street photography or something like that, but that that's different. Like that's, that's where you have to shoot and you have to take your camera out in public. But there's still that worry that many people have. I would challenge you, right? Here's, here's how we make this easy for the next 30 days. I want you to get a camera strap. And if you already have one, awesome, get it, and then wear your camera all day, every day for the next 30 days. And I don't want you to feel any pressure towards taking a single photo, no pressure, because when we go out and you know, we have this camera on us and we see something beautiful, but maybe there's other people around.

Raymond Hatfield (09:47):

And we feel a little bit self-conscious when we go to take that photo. Now we have extra elements on top of us, right? People are, maybe I'm telling you this doesn't happen. People don't just stare at you whenever you bring up a camera, but that that's how that's how you might feel right now. So I guess I'm addressing that, right? When you feel this anxiety of bringing out your camera in public, and then when you go to take that photo, it's, it's just, it's just an extra layer of something that, you know, now you're not focused on the photo that you're taking and being able to shoot it with intention. So therefore the way that we get rid of that is just by making the camera part of your everyday life everyday life. And again, if it's just on you, you're going to feel it.

Raymond Hatfield (10:32):

If it's, if it's on you, you're going to have it. If something interesting happens and you will be surprised, I guarantee you that within the next 30 days, the types of photos that you will be capturing. Cause it's not just going to be the same old things. It's going to be really interesting things, you know, especially this time of year, you're going to be walking out to your car and you're going to see you know, I don't know, just a pattern of snow on your car and you're going to thank yourself. Wow. That looks really interesting. Hey, wait, I got a camera. I'm just going to see if I can take a photo of this real quick. You know, I'm in my driveway, you're going to take a photo and then, you know, that's gotta be it. You're going to put the camera off to the side, not even gonna look at the photo.

Raymond Hatfield (11:11):

And then you're just going to go on about your day. And then at the end of the day, when you plug your memory camera into your computer and you have, you know, 10, 11, 12 photos from the day, you're going to realize, Oh wow, these photos are so much better than what I would get, just, you know, with my cell phone. And then that is going to start to build confidence. And then with that confidence, you're just going to continue to do it more often and you are going to grow from it. But again, if you feel self-conscious about it, then just, just wear it. Don't take a single photo. If you're really worried about it, take the camera batteries out of it. I don't know why you would do that, but actually I do know why the other day I was thinking, I forget where I was, but what was I doing?

Raymond Hatfield (11:57):

I was taking a photo of, I don't remember what I was taking a photo, but I remember that feeling in my head. Like, what if somebody asked me if I just took a photo of them and then they want to see the back of the camera? You know what I mean? And then I have to like, prove it to them again, something that would never happen unless you're photographing, you know, high security areas or, you know, some sensitive information, something that's not going to happen. And I still remember thinking that and I thought, well, how would I, how would I eliminate that feeling? And it would just simply be take the batteries out of the camera, but then of course you can photograph anything. So forget that. I just said anything about taking batteries out of your camera. That's a terrible idea. Walk around with the batteries and a memory card in your camera, but you know, it's 100% your choice.

Raymond Hatfield (12:40):

If you don't want to turn it on, don't turn it on until you feel comfortable. And another thing is if you're just walking around the house, I mean, I can't tell you how many times a day my kids do something interesting, or, you know, with their art or just the way that maybe light comes in a window, you would be surprised at how many times, if you had a camera on you, you would think to yourself, Oh, you know what, I'm going to take a photo of this real quick. Whereas before, you know, either wouldn't or it would just be too much of a hassle to go get your camera and photograph it. When you have your camera on you, you're going to take the photo. So again, I re just like, just carry. I really hope that that helped kind of eliminate some of that stress for you, because I know that if you do carry a camera with you everywhere for the next 30 days, you are going to start taking better photos right away, right away.

Raymond Hatfield (13:32):

So that's tip number one, carrier camera with you everywhere. Okay. Tip number two, how you can practice photography at home and become a better photographer. And that is to review your old photographs. Old photographs are, you know, you've heard me say this a hundred times, everybody's at a different stage in their photography journey. And therefore the photos that you take today should be better than the ones that you took yesterday and should be better than the photos that you took a week ago, a month ago, a year ago. But we all kind of have a, a style inside of us. And sometimes it's, it's, it's difficult to find. Sometimes it's not very apparent. Sometimes we are projecting a style that we want to produce, but isn't inherently us. So we feel like we don't have a style, but it's not until you look at a collection of your images or look back on your images that you'll realize, Oh my goodness, here.

Raymond Hatfield (14:33):

It is like, I, I see that, you know, maybe the way that I you know, frame people in my shot is always on the lower right of the image. You know, that just means that's something that I, you know, didn't notice or realize until I did this exercise. And I went back and I looked at a lot of my images. I just naturally kind of do that. And then the more that you do this, you're going to recognize a style. So what I want you to do for this exercise specifically, I'm going to give you some very actionable ideas right here, depending on how you organize your photos. I just use the photos app on my, on my Mac. But I also upload photos to Google photos, which does a really good job of, of, of categorizing images and, you know, displaying them by date. But also, you know, you can kind of manipulate things as far as events or time goes, things like that. It makes sometimes it's easier than, than the photos app on my Mac, but regardless of whatever way you are storing your photos cataloging your photos, what you need to do here is you need to go through the photos from the last, you know, year or so, and then just pick out a handful of your favorites. It doesn't have to be a hundred as long as it's, you know, More than five,

Raymond Hatfield (15:58):

I guess. I don't know. I mean, you could still learn a lot about yourself from five photos, but as long as you take a good, a good handful of photos, I want you to look at those photos your favorite photos of the year, your favorite photos that you took over the past year, and look at those photos really objectively and ask yourself, why do you like these photos? What is it about these photos that you Like? And then take

Raymond Hatfield (16:22):

Note of what that is again when it came, some of it is just going to be a habit that you have, you know, like I said, the way that I frame my images bottom, right. You know, especially with the big landscape, small, small couple type photo. But when it comes to things like, Like portraits, I like having like

Raymond Hatfield (16:42):

Camera up a little bit higher, so that, and then keeping the face down and having the couple look up more with their eyes rather than there, rather than their heads. That gives me the ability to compose the shot a little bit differently where the horizon is above their heads. I don't know. These are just things that, like, I find that I like, but that I found kind of on accident, you know, I've been taking a lot of portraits of my, my couples at engagement sessions and I wasn't doing anything on purpose. And I would just shooting, you know, 10, 15, 20 photos right there. And I was just moving the camera around and it wasn't until I got back and looked at the images that I thought, wow, this one really stands out. You Know, why does it stand out?

Raymond Hatfield (17:23):

What is it about this photo that stands out, that the photo that I took literally three seconds before this one doesn't stand out. And sometimes it's just the way that you compose your photo. Sometimes it's just having simple backgrounds, you know, I don't know, like, these are the things that you got to find, but you're not going to oftentimes realize that until you can look at a sample of your images, a good sample of images. So again, get a handful of photos, Your favorite photos ask yourself, why do you like these photos take note? And then

Raymond Hatfield (18:00):

Once you do that, once you've done that exercise, obviously, as I said, you know, take note, I want you to write them down. I want you to going forward, focus on those things and see if you can enhance those details that you liked most about those photos. But then after that, I want you to do something with those Photos. I don't want

Raymond Hatfield (18:18):

You to just close the window on your computer and go on and have a nice day. I want you to do something with those photos. So whether it be print up some four by sixes and just kind of put them around the house somewhere, or if you have a larger collection of images that you'd like throughout the year, creating some sort of photo book, you know, I use Lightroom and blurb to make my family yearbooks, which if you're watching on YouTube is, Oh, well actually it's the next shelf up anyway. I create a family yearbook every year, A year. And again it's just

Raymond Hatfield (18:49):

My favorite photos and it's photos that tell a story for our family, right? So sometimes not, everything's going to be a great photo. Sometimes it's just a screenshot of a text that maybe my wife sent me, or, you know, wherever That were at the doctor and the kids are, I don't know, getting a shot,

Raymond Hatfield (19:08):

Not crying. I dunno, like, I'll take a photo of that. Maybe it's not a great photo, but it's something that I'm going to want to remember as a family. It was kind of a milestone for our family. But those are the things that you're going to want to remember. And I want you to do something with those photos rather than just letting it live on a hard drive, because if it lives on a hard drive, it Doesn't live at all. So that's tip number two.

Raymond Hatfield (19:33):

Number one, carry your camera with you everywhere to remember to review your old photographs. And now

Raymond Hatfield (19:40):

We're going to get on to tip number three here, which we're going to get back into a shooting here. This is really the first one where we're talking directly about shooting, And that is, I want you to do an hourly challenge.

Raymond Hatfield (19:58):

So this is something that I created and I sent out to email subscribers of the beginner photography podcast. And I get responses back quite often saying how helpful this exercise is. So I'm going to share it with you right now, because I don't think that I've shared it on the podcast before. Now. I don't remember who the photographer who said this was but the, the, the, the quote is something to the effect of no matter where you are, what you're doing, there's always a great photo within five Steps of you. And really, I mean, this is, this is, this is

Raymond Hatfield (20:38):

The challenge right here. You know, your, your ability as a photographer comes down to your ability to problem solve, because oftentimes we don't have perfect conditions. Oftentimes, you know, we don't get what we want in a photo you know, location, the weather, the, you know, close the expression. I don't know, you know, whatever it is, we don't always get what we want when it comes to capturing the photo. So we, as photographers need to problem solve. Could you imagine if I showed up to a wedding and was like, Oh guys, I'm so sorry. The weather is not good. It's it's kind of raining outside. So therefore I just can't, I can't take any photos today. Sorry about that. And then I would just turn around and go home. Like you can't do that. You cannot do that as a photographer, you have to make whatever situation that you're in work for you.

Raymond Hatfield (21:32):

So problem solving is an incredibly important skill to have. So this idea that no matter where you are, there's always a great photo within five steps of you. It is my hope that it will really challenge you to try your hardest and really create something a great within five steps of wherever you are. And to step this up, to make this challenge real, what you need to do to make this work is just set a timer on your phone or your watch for every hour throughout the day. You know, it doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to be every hour throughout the day. Maybe, you know, maybe 6:00 AM 7:00 AM eight. So from like six to, I don't know, four it's 10 hours right there, 10 hours, you set a timer on your phone every hour that timer's going to go off, and I want you to stop what ever you're doing unless you're driving, of course, stop whatever you're doing.

Raymond Hatfield (22:28):

And look around you, take note of what's going on and find that photo, find that great photo that is within five steps of you. This is going to the purpose of this is to train your brain what and how to find a great photo. Again, we're not always in great situations when it comes to the environment that we're in, but if we can, you know, if we can manufacture a great photo out of nothing, then you win as a photographer. Like you win you win. I oftentimes will try to challenge myself at an engagement session where now obviously with a wedding it's pretty high stakes. So I don't do this, but in an engagement session, I will try to find things like, like trash cans or, you know, dirty signs or you know, broken bricks. And I will seek out those locations because I want the couple to have a little bit of what is going on here, that feeling.

Raymond Hatfield (23:30):

And then when they see the photos like, Oh, this is why we're paying Raymond, because anybody could come up and take a, you know, an iPhone photo of you. But your job as a photographer is to capture photos that, you know, somebody with an iPhone isn't going to otherwise, they would just continue to use people who have iPhones at, you know, at weddings or an engagement session or something. So if you can take poor situations and you can turn them into great photos, not only are, you know, will, will, will they have more trust in you, but your skills as a photographer are going to skyrocket skyrocket. So that's it hourly challenge, tip number three, do an hourly challenge. So I, I really want to see these photos. Honestly, if you were in the beginning of photography podcast, Facebook group, and you do this hourly challenge police, please post those photos and tell us how it went.

Raymond Hatfield (24:27):

It's a lot of work, but you know, anything that you want in life, anything that is truly good, that you want is going to be a lot of work, you know, and this one is just, it's a day, it's 10 photos, you know, that's, you can make it happen if you really truly want it. All right. Step or tip, tip number four is that I want you to try something new. As I said, we're home kind of bored. We're doing the same things. We need to try something new to push our selves creatively. I know that for me, when it comes to, you know, stepping out of my comfort zone to doing things creatively, I really need external inspiration. I need to see examples. I need to see ideas from other places. And then I can put those together in my head and then make it work for me and my photography.

Raymond Hatfield (25:25):

Now, unfortunately, one of the places that we, we as photographers go to do this either Pinterest or Instagram, and then we look at other photographers work. Now this turns into either comparison or you know, we rather than looking for the inspiration, we just compare ourselves to these other photographers who are creating photos that we want to emulate. And it comes off as an invitation. So finding for me a way to inspire myself to do something different, as far as photography goes, without having to look at, you know, a wide range of photographers work is super important to me. And the way that I do that is honestly, it's within, it's within Lightroom it's with it's it's with my editing. So I will take photos that I'm working on. And every once in a while, if I'm just feeling kind of down, or I need just a shot of, of inspiration real quick to, you know, try something new, I will use my presets, right?

Raymond Hatfield (26:36):

Because some of these presets are all over the board. Some of these presets make my photos look very cool, very sky blue, extremely contrast it. Like you're looking at it through Rose colored glasses. There is just a huge range of looks that can be created from presets. And as many of you know, I offer 52 free Lightroom presets that you can download right now without, you know, spending any money. And if you're interested in those, you can find them at learn dot beginner, photography, podcast.com, that's L E a R N dot beginner, photography, podcast.com. You can download those presets and then there's even a video. I sh I walk you through, step-by-step on how to install them on your computer and even your mobile device. If you have a subscription to light room and edit like on your, on your iPad or your phone or something like that, I show you how to get those going there too.

Raymond Hatfield (27:35):

But taking a photo, you know, as, as time goes on, as a photographer, you kind of, it's very easy to get comfortable with the way that you shoot. It's very easy to not push yourself creatively and taking, and just seeing your work in a little bit of a different light to do something that you normally wouldn't do is such a great way for you to see what's possible and to get an idea of what else you can do. And I'll give you an example. One of the years ago, one of the first guests that I had on the show, his name was Louis Hermosillo. And he said something to the effect of like every photo that he shoots, his white balance is always 6,000 Kelvin. And that is a very, very warm image. And at nighttime it's, you know, it's almost orange.

Raymond Hatfield (28:29):

And I thought to myself like that doesn't make any sense to me. Like there's plenty of situations where 6,000 is not the right color temperature. And when I look at his work, I don't think to myself, wow, all these photos are way too warm. So that kind of gave me some confidence to try to warm up my images. Next time I went to go edit. So I kind of created this little, I took one of the presets that I enjoy using. Sometimes it was pretty contrast. And then I just boosted up the, the white balance as well. And suddenly those images, there was something just really unique about them that I would never have thought to do myself. And yet, now that I kind of put the constraints within a preset to make it happen, it happened and I was really liking the results.

Raymond Hatfield (29:17):

So this is something, as I'm saying here, that you're going to push yourself out of your comfort zone to be able to find something that you normally wouldn't do. And that's where that power comes in, because that can also change the way that you actually photograph. You know, if you, if you find some preset where you just love the blues, and maybe it's a little bit more than it is you know, Royal blue or Navy or something like that, next time you go out to shoot, maybe you're going to include just a little bit more sky, or maybe you're going to go out of your way to look for a blue background so that your photos can have a little bit more of that feeling that you just love so much. And this is where shooting is going to be, you know, dictated by how you're going to edit the image. And then when you have those two things that work in combination is really when your skills, as a photographer are going to be solidified. That's where it's really going to grow from now, make no mistake. A preset is not a one-click solution. It takes work. And oftentimes I will, you know, load in a photo and I will click on one of my 52 presets. And I will say, this looks Horrible, but,

Raymond Hatfield (30:35):

And I make it work. Is there anything that I could do to this shot to be able to make it work? And sometimes it's just tweaking the, the color, maybe the highlights and, you know, say a bit of contrast. And then suddenly the photo is a lot closer to something resembling what I might deliver to a couple or, you know, a client or even just personal work. So again, presets are not a one-click solution, but they are a wonderful source of inspiration. So one last time, if you want to download my 52 free Lightroom presets, and again, I'll show you how to install them. You can do that by heading over to learn that beginner, photography, podcast.com. And I got the link in the show notes of this episode as well. And with that, we are to our last Tip. Number five, tip number five,

Raymond Hatfield (31:29):

Tip number five here. What could it possibly be? What could it be? Let's just go ahead and recap real quick. What we have done so far far though, the previous four tips. So tip number one was the carrier camera with you everywhere. Get yourself a strap, put it around you. You don't have to feel any sort of pressure to take photos, just start to carry it. Tip number two was to review old photos. When you can look at your past work and see something that you like, ask yourself why you like it, Take note, and then

Raymond Hatfield (32:00):

Go dive deeper into that going forward, and then do something with those photos, print them up, do something with them, display them somewhere. Tip number three was to do an hourly challenge. I want you to set a timer on your phone to go off every hour. And when that timer goes off, whatever you are doing, stop look around, you try to find an interesting photo And then take it tip number four

Raymond Hatfield (32:21):

Was to try something new, find a source of inspiration. And for me, as I said, that's by using new and interesting presets that I would never use on my photos to to, to just see things in a different light. So tip number five here is to start a long term project. When we have a longterm project, there is very little pressure to complete it right away. And maybe you've been in this situation before. This was me very early on in photography. I thought once I kind of understood once I understood how a camera worked and how, you know, settings affected an image. I had all these ideas for projects. You know, I want to photograph this, I want to photograph this. I wanna, you know, do that thing over there. I want to just create great photographs. And when I would get the chance to do something like that, I found that my photos are kind of, they just didn't live up to what I was hoping that they, what they would.

Raymond Hatfield (33:18):

And I think that that came down to, you know, two reasons. One, even though I felt like I knew my camera pretty well. I wasn't, I didn't, I wasn't, I didn't fully understand you know, how to properly use my camera. Could I take a photo? Yeah. But when it came time to, you know, capturing nuances of light or, you know, expression, was I good at those things? No. And therefore, you know, maybe I'd set up a time to create something and then it just wouldn't work out the way that I want it. Now, of course, the only way that you're going to get better as a photographer is to put in the work, your photos will get proportionally better to how much you work on it. So now the question is how can you work on your photography more? And for me, I think that it's, I think that it's a long-term project.

Raymond Hatfield (34:10):

And in my case here, it's not one that has, you know, I got a, I got a friend right now. Who's kind of going around the country and taking photos of muffler men. I wasn't aware of this. I had felt like I had never seen one, but apparently there's a lot of them lots of old muffler shops across the country. There's some like 40 foot statue of a mechanic or a lumberjack or just something crazy, you know? And that's his sort of long-term project, you know, going around and taking photos of these things. And for me, it's more of a habit thing that I want not so much of a achievement. I want the habit. So that is why this year and even last year doing a daily photo challenge was so, so, so important to my work as a photographer, because last year I'll tell you what, as a wedding photographer, I wasn't doing much, you know, shooting.

Raymond Hatfield (35:03):

So to be able to still get practice, to be able to still feel confident by the camera is really, really important. And doing a daily photo challenge was the way that I was able to do that. And I'm just, you know, taking photos of my kids. And as I said, you know, if we go shopping the photo of their face, or if I'm home all day, I'll try to come up with something. But the point is to manufacture a photo every single day, and then to hold myself accountable, I post it in the daily photo challenge, a beginner photography podcast, Facebook group, which again, I will, you can search Facebook for it, or I will or not, or, and I will post a link in the show notes as well for you to be able to find it. But the, the point of it is once again, the more often you shoot the better that you will have to get, you have to get better at something.

Raymond Hatfield (35:55):

The more that you do it, right. You're going to learn, you're going to become better. One of the great things about the daily photo challenge group is that our moderator Kim has made a bunch of weekly themes. So there's no pressure to actually create every single day if you don't want to, because lots of people, you know, want to focus on our weekly theme to give them a direction and then capture something based on that weekly theme. So here in February, she's got four pretty awesome themes. Pets. I don't have any pets. So I guess I'd probably take pictures of my kids love, right? It's February. It's a good idea. Love. We can all think of something that we love it. You know, this is, this is what I love about these themes is that it doesn't necessarily have to be, you know, you would think, Oh, it's Valentine's day, I'll take a photo of my wife.

Raymond Hatfield (36:48):

You don't have to do that. Part of photography is that you can kind of do whatever you want. And you know, me personally, in these colder months in these drier winter months, I love my humidifier. I love it, man. No bloody nose is no you know, scratchy throats when you wake up in the morning. It's wonderful. I love that thing. I love it. You know, how can you take a photo of, of, of that these don't have to be award-winning photos. These don't have to be photos that you know, you're going to post on your website or post on social media, you know, as, as a representation of who you are as a photographer, they're just to get you to think a little bit different and to put you in the practice of shooting. And that's what it is. So we've got love, right?

Raymond Hatfield (37:36):

That's a theme next week. It is brave. There's plenty of things that you can think of. That would be brave. And then the week after that, it's water, we have water. Everybody has water. We have to have water to survive, whether it's in a bottle or if you are fortunate enough to live in front of, you know, a beautiful, beautiful ocean or a Lake these are just, you know, where your mind goes right away, but what else could you do with water? You know, you know, what's water, frozen water is snow, and there's plenty of that around. You can do something with that. I could photograph my humidifier and how much I love it and how much it it, moistens the air making my life a whole lot easier and I can already feel it in the back of my throat after this this, this, this episode right here, that I'm going to get a lot of use out of it tonight.

Raymond Hatfield (38:27):

So those are my five tips. And again, if you do want to join the daily photo challenge you can do so by searching on for beginner, photography podcast, daily photo challenge. If you're in the beginner photography podcast, Facebook group I'll ask him to post a link for you. And then also it will be in the show notes as well, but just finding a, a habit to put yourself in that mood, to, to get yourself there and to hold yourself accountable is once again, going to really increase the likelihood of you being a comfortable and confident photographer. So that is it for this week. Those are my five tips. We'll go over them one more time. Tip number one, carry your camera everywhere. Tip number two, review some old photos, tip number three, do an hourly challenge. Tip number four, try something new and tip number five, start a longterm photo project.

Raymond Hatfield (39:18):

If you have a camera, even if you just have a cell phone, you can do all of these things. It doesn't require you to have any additional gear, nothing like that. It just is going to promote your growth. That's all that I want here. That is all that I want for you. My photo friends. All right. So that is it for this week until next week. I really want you to, to, to try some of these challenges, to do something new, to really push yourself in photography, because it's not until we push ourselves that we can really see how far we can go. So that is it again. See you next week. Love y'all.

Outtro (39:56):

Thank you for listening to the beginner photography podcast. If you enjoy the show, consider leaving a review in iTunes, keep shooting, and we'll see you next week.