Getting ready for the photography to come

Being in good physical shape is a usually overlooked skill in a photographer, especially those who do most of their work outdoors.

The 3-month-long road trip across Norway I embarked on last year definitely took a toll on me, as I went from walking / running more than 10 miles a day to sitting in a car most of the time.

Even though I do a lot of road side photography, being in good shape means more stamina and mental clarity. Something I've clearly been lacking during the last few weeks.

This is hard to measure objectively, but I have noticed that I tend to make better images while on some training program, or immediately after. When I let myself go for a bit, the quality of my work eventually follows by going down.

While this winter hasn't brought as much snow as I was hoping for here in Indiana, I've been working hard on other aspects of my photography (like my contact sheets and my upcoming book "Memorias na néboa"). And that includes getting my body ready.

It's been just a few weeks of training; outside and, when the weather is too nasty, on the treadmill facing an empty wall. As weird as it might sound, I'm convinced those hours spent staring at nothing in the garage will translate into good images in the months to come.

Remember: photography is something you have to do every day, and that doesn't always means taking pictures.

How to afford new cameras and lenses

I still remember the moment I threw that last cigarette butt on the ground. It’s been almost 5 years since I quit smoking.

Health had always been a concern, but at the time, all I could think about was all the money I was going to save by quitting -money I was planning to spend on new cameras and lenses, of course. It was an exciting plan and it helped me quit.

Indeed, I was spending a lot of money on tobacco. It was hard to see on a daily basis, it was “just” $5 a day. But I did the math, and turned out to be more $2,000 a year. Or, the way I started to see it, a new A7iii every year.

Humans are terrible at understanding things that are far away in time. That’s why most services today are based on subscriptions: it’s just X a month!. These little things add up, though, and quite fast. Translating the annual cost into photography gear helps me see the big picture.

These are other ways I stopped wasting my money:

• I don’t drink alcohol anymore. I used to, at least one beer a day, and probably a glass of wine afterwards. Definitely more on the weekends. This amounted to even more money than smoking: 500 rolls of HP5 a year.

• Starbucks must miss me. I used to go there on a daily basis, spending at least a couple of good ND filters a month, or a new RX100vii a year.

• The brewery¹ we had downstairs in Portland? We used to go there at least once a week, and going through the charges of 2017, I see we spent a Hasselblad 500cm with 80mm lens on that one place in just 10 months. Today, I go out less often -and yes, the pandemic has helped quite a bit here- and save a lot of money.

• My phone (an iPhone 7 Plus) is 4 years old. I used to switch to a new phone every year, which cost me a round-trip to Iceland every 12 months.

A beer here. A coffee there. A dinner out. A new gadget. Nothing big, just little treats. But these small things add up and were making a dent on my savings.

Most people think that the key to save money is to make more, when it’s much easier -and faster- to lower your expenses and live below your means. And the good thing is, this doesn’t have to involve big changes, but we can do it by changing small bad habits we do on a daily basis.

Just by not smoking, not drinking alcohol, making coffee at home instead of getting it to go, cooking at home more often, and not buying a new phone every year, I’m saving a lot of money. Money I can invest on things like camera gear or a trip somewhere to make images. Translating those saving into specific things you can do with that money -like buying photography gear- can help.

Big change is always about the little things.

1: The brewery closed its doors just a few months after we left Portland. Apparently, they couldn’t afford rent anymore. Coincidence? Or did our departure have something to do? I will never know.

Nutrition and Exercise for Photographers: my simple approach

We, outdoor photographers, need to be able to deal with the heat and the cold, the sun and the snow, standing up at the same spot for hours waiting for that shot, or hiking for miles looking for an image.

If we can go further, stay out for longer, deal with uncomfortable situations better, and remain focused on the goal, our chances to make a good image increase exponentially. 

For the last few years, but especially in this very challenging 2020, I’ve been experimenting with different approaches to nutrition, exercise and lifestyle in general that are making me stronger, and in the process, helping me grow as a photographer.

In this video, I want to share some of those ideas and practices, because they might help you too.

How to make time for photography

One of the recurring themes in the messages I get from other photographers is about their struggle to find time for photography on a daily basis.

Today, we are so busy all the time! It's the busyness era. If you aren't doing something, you are falling behind. It's all about the hustle, right?

This is an issue I'm deeply interested in. Recently, I read the book related to this topic, Make Time, and in this video I share some of the key points from the book, along with some of my own, all applied to photography.

We'll see why we are so busy, why we need to make time for photography, the highlight of the day, and several tips to make time for photography.

Push your limits further away

A couple of years ago, the furthest I was able to run was around a hundred feet. On a good day, I might have been able to do a couple of push ups. A 5-mile hike felt like a huge achievement, deserving of a few beers and a week of rest.

Back then, those were my limits - I had never pushed my body to go beyond them. I thought running, push ups and long hikes were for somebody else, athletes, people who had had better luck than me in the DNA lottery. Nothing I could about it.

Thankfully, at some point I realized there was a lot I could do. I was never going to make it to the Olympics, but I wanted to see how far I'd be able to go.

Today, I know I can run 10 miles without much problem (I expect to run my first half-marathon this week). I know I can do 100 push ups every day... because I do them. After the Camino, I also know I can hike for 25 miles a day for a whole week.

Nothing impressive, but I'm very proud of my progression in the last couple of years. I'm in a much better shape now at 38 than when I was 20 - and I can't wait to see how much further I can go from here.

They say we are stronger than we think - we are. But we can get even stronger. Limits aren't fixed, they can be pushed further away, wherever you might be right now.

This can be applied to almost everything in our lives. There are so many limits we haven't tested yet - they can be pushed as well. This is how we grow.

The most important pieces of gear

Are your brain and your body.

Your body takes you and your camera to places where images live. Your brain finds them.

Take proper care of both and your photography will take care of itself.

Best books I've read lately

• On Writing, by Stephen King. The guy knows how to write, I couldn't put it down.
• On the shortness of life, by Seneca. 2,000 years later and the content of these three letters is still relevant. Beautiful written, too.
• Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius. I read it as part of my study of Stoicism. Incredibly deep and humbling thoughts from the most powerful man of his time.
• The obstacle is the way, by Ryan Holiday. A good introduction to Stoicism, and an easy read. I'm currently reading his The daily stoic.
• Atomic Habits, by James Clear. Tips and tricks on how to build good habits and get rid of the bad ones. His is one of the very few newsletters I subscribe to and look forward to reading.
• Buddha: a story of enlightenment, by Deepak Chopra. A book about spiritualism written by an alternative medicine advocate is probably the last thing I'd expect myself to fall in my hands. The story of Buddha is a beautiful one and this book does a terrific job. One of my favorite reads of the last few years, hands down.
• Goodbye, things, by Fumio Sasaki. Minimalism is all the rage nowadays and I'm all on board. This was one of the first books I've read on the topic and it's still my favorite.
• Come comida real, by Carlos Ríos. This one is in Spanish. Nutrition is another topic I've been exploring during the last few months and this book does a great job at explaining why most of the "food" you find in a grocery store isn't real food at all. It also shows the benefits of eating healthy and why you shouldn't be ashamed of it (I struggled with this!).
• 10% Happier, by Dan Harris. How the author got into meditation and how it's helped improving his day-to-day life. Meditation and mental health is yet another topic I'm interested in, and this book is unique in that shows a person's experience with the practice, instead of a boring manual of things you should and should not do.
• The art of creative thinking, by Rod Junkins. Stories and lessons from famous and not so famous artists. I think one should carve their own path and not necessarily repeat what others have done in the past, but I found plenty of inspiration in this book.

How losing weight has made me a better photographer

Let’s talk about health and how it relates to photography. I’ve lost quite a bit of weight in the last year and I believe that has made me a better photographer in many ways.