How to get my new eBook for free: "Long Exposure Photography"

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"Long Exposure Photography: How to make stunning images that defy time" is my upcoming new eBook. It will be released this Sunday, September 30th.

It will be a free eBook but only the current newsletter subscribers will get a copy, at least initially -it will be publicly available a few weeks later.

A good chance to join the newsletter club! Stay up to date with my work and receive free educational material like this one, for free.

And remember, you also get a free copy of "Examples of the PNW" when you sign up.

Join now and get your free copy on Sunday, September 30th!

Consistency: the gate to Greatness

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I don't know where I got this quote from. I even had to Google the name to confirm he was The Rock.

“Success isn’t always about greatness. It’s about consistency. Consistent hard work leads to success. Greatness will come.”
— Dwayne Johnson

I believe in this.

Don't sit and wait.

Study, improve, work, put yourself out there.

Little by little, every day, get closer to where you want to be.

Don't stop.

Nothing is guaranteed in this life, but consistency is our best shot at getting what we want.

YouTube: it's a full-time job

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I've been uploading 2 to 3 videos a week to my YouTube channel for the last couple of months.

It might not sound like much.

A family member was wondering about this recently, and they were surprised when I told them the amount of work involved in creating one of my videos.

Most of them are from the field. Going out already takes anywhere from a couple of hours -minimum- to a full day.

Then I work on the images. This means developing and scanning film -at least one hour per roll- plus post-processing for both analog and digital negatives.

Editing the video can take me several hours as well. More often than not, it's a whole day in front of the computer.

Lastly, I upload the video to YouTube -not an easy task when you are on the road-, create the thumbnails, and promote it everywhere.

It's a long process. One that takes hours and days to complete.

I love every bit of it.

Become a curator

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Ain't nobody got time for nothing nowadays.

You can see it on the road or at the grocery store.

Time is the asset of our days. It always has been.

In the past, there was no escape to a "let me show you the photo album from our last vacation". Today, you can simply leave a like on the FB post and swipe away. People aren't paying attention, though.

Curation is more important now than ever.

We need to respect our viewer's time. They will give us a few seconds -minutes if we are lucky- of their days in exchange for good content. We need to use that time wisely.

Give too much, even when it's awesome content, and they'll swipe away. Give too little and they'll forget about you.

Small doses, all the time.

Edit your videos. Keep clips short, between 5 and 10 seconds. Use good music. Show only the parts that contribute to the story.

Edit your images. Don't show 30 pictures of the same thing from different angles. Sit on them for a while before sharing them.

Discarding clips and images will hurt. Like a wound that is healing, this is good.

Knowing what to share and (even more importantly) what NOT to share is a skill in high-demand, a skill that may take time and effort to develop.

I'd say it is THE skill a photographer must have today.

DSLRs are the new film

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As it usually happens with big corporations, it's taking much longer than anticipated. It's happening nevertheless: there's no room for mirrors in the future of mainstream photography.

They were just a patch to solve a problem that doesn't even exist with today's technology. They are irrelevant and unnecessary.

And that makes them cool.

Just kidding. Kind of.

The reason why I shoot film is because it's the only way I can make images with a tool like the Bronica.

For the same reason, plenty of people will keep using their DSLRs because it will be the only way to get that experience. Mirrorless cameras are lighter and smaller, they bring a lot of advantages but they change the way we take photographs.

And of course, there are people who'll embrace the flaws of DSLRs, especially the early ones that came out years ago.

DSLRs are the new film. They are about to become a niche in photography, used by some only because of the unique experience (and probably look) you can achieve with them.

I'm excited about it.

Messing up (kind of) my first roll of Rollei Retro 400S

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A few days ago, I went out to shoot my first roll of Rollei Retro 400S. I made long exposure images and tested the dynamic range of the film.

And then, I broke the thermometer while I was developing it. I had to guess all the temperatures and some might have been off.

The images turned out just fine, though. I will have to give it another try, this time using a proper thermometer and not my finger.

Artist Interviews: Brendon Holt

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Artist Interviews: Brendon Holt

This is the first chapter of a new weekly series called *Artist Interviews*, where I interview a photographer with a body of work I admire.

Brendon is a photographer I've been following for quite a while on Instagram. He's got quite an impressive collection of images from the forests of the PNW, making photographing trees look easy (it's not!).

All the images in this post were made by Brendon Holt.

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