5 Healthy Habits For Photographers + A Print Giveaway! - ISSUE 32
Photography self help & a chance to win some LL prints!
GIVEAWAY TIME…AGAIN!?!
So the last giveaway was so much fun I thought why not do it again!?!
I have recently ticked over the 1K mark on this newsletter! Now this publication is not about the numbers like other platforms I create content for - YouTube I’m looking your way - but it’s still worth celebrating the fact that over one thousand photogs from all over the world are reading these little notes every Friday.
I feel super stoked about that and I wanna pop everyone in the running to win one of two print giveaways! This one is super easy, as all you have to do is be subscribed to this here newsletter, which you can do via the button below if you haven’t already!
I will then use one of those nifty apps to randomly choose 2 winners. The winners will each receive 1 Lucy Lumen print from my shop, free of charge! I will take care of the shipping and get it sent off to you ASAP where ever you are in the world.
You can choose from anything that is currently available on the shop so if you wanna start browsing now feel free to do so via the button below. Winner will be drawn on Thursday 16th of March and emailed directly to be notified so keep an eye on your inboxes. Good luck guys!
5 Healthy Habits For Photographers
So sometimes we get into a funk and forget the tools and habits that can aid us in staying creative, successful or even just enjoying our hobby and love for photography.
I have had to remind myself of a few of these lately in order to stay on track and not let life get in the way of shooting for fun or working on that next project. So I thought why not share them with you all for issue 32. Whether you need them now or at another point - you can always come back to this issue
Let’s get into it!
1. Scheduling time for photography
Lately it feels like time is everyone’s biggest barrier to, well, everything! I get messages everyday on IG saying how time poor people are leading them to neglect their cameras, not start that YouTube channel they have been thinking about or let a project sit around unfinished for way too long!
My solution is this…Schedule it in to your week or month and make it a non negotiable. Even if it’s just one Saturday for the whole month that you block out and tell your family or work or whoever, I am unavailable on this date. Period!
That is your day or your afternoon to just do your thing - work on your zine, go take photos, finish that photobook or get in the darkroom. You choose.
You will find that when you have scheduled this time in, written it down or put it in your google calendar, told people it’s happening etc. it will then set the expectation that that is what you will do on that day. Otherwise you will likely continue letting this creative “you” time fall by the wayside as something else will always pop up. Trust me on this one, I’m a fulltime mum and if I don’t plan out my month nothing will get done, no one will get any creative time and things will bloat and take twice as long as they need to!
Confession - I am a planning freak, ask Lux, he will tell you. But I promise you if you don’t have the time and you feel yourself using time as an excuse as to why you don’t pick up your camera, then try making the time. Let me know how you go.
2. Looking Back On Your Work
I am regularly updating my print shop and I don’t always have brand new bangers to pop on there. This forces me to go back and look through my archives to see what would be suitable to offer as prints.
Admittedly this isn’t something I would normally do, I’m actually quite bad at going back and reassessing my work and tend to go out in pursuit of new images instead. Having the print shop has changed this though and I enjoy going back on a roll of film that I shot a year ago and seeing where I was at with my compositions etc. It’s refreshing and you learn a lot!
So when was the last time you spent some quality time sifting through your own work to revaluate where you are at now? This exercise can also provide you with a steer in the right or next direction of where you want to go with your style or what themes are coming up that you want to explore more.
Plus, it’s fun to look back on past memories since that is kind of the point of photographs for most people I guess…I love looking back at all the different rubbish bins and chords laying on the ground that I have shot over the years. Lol.
3. Skip The Scroll
Social media. Everyone has a love hate relationship with it these days and rightly so.
From both a creator and a consumer point of view I mostly lean more towards loving the platforms than hating them but I do dislike how much time on spend on platforms like IG.
Whether you have this problem or not I think it’s good to take some time away from the internet in general and get outside - which is also the perfect opp to go take some photos too - win win!
I sometimes reach for my phone when I have a spare ten minutes or in the evenings after a long day and just start scrolling away without even really paying attention. I like to ask myself - Is this really serving me right now? What could I do instead that will feed my mind and creativity and maybe even inspire me more than this?
Replacing the scroll or the YT with a book or a pen and paper to make a list or flesh out an idea that has been brewing, will likely nourish you a whole lot more than your iPhone will.
Obviously all these platforms are inspirational and offer so much value but it’s just so easy to be on them 24/7 and forget about the power of tangible things like books that you can really sink your teeth into and allow more quiet in your mind - which generally leads to more ideas I find!
4. Get Outside Of Your Comfort Zone
When was the last time you did something really scary or different for you as a photographer?
If the answer is hard to think of then it means you need to shake things up a little. This doesn’t have to be HUGE it can be submitting some work, entering a competition or maybe just shooting something totally different to what you normally would.
I have been on a discomfort rampage lately picking up paid gigs, shooting products and submitting my work to various places, pitching articles to publications and just generally going all out in trying to make things happen for myself. I am a bit of a all or nothing type person though so don’t feel like you need to do all of that.
Perhaps a small thing to start with that doesn’t totally throw you will be more ideal. If you aren’t the slightest bit interested in putting yourself out there in these ways - which is fine - then maybe you get outside of your comfort zone in your own photography practice.
Try a new style, go on a local photo walk, try a new camera/film stock or join a challenge and ask a friend to participate with you. Just think about what kind of makes you a little uneasy or a bit scared, within reason, and lean into that a bit more.
Getting uncomfy is often where we learn the most, win or fail. I have had many blunders along the way, most of which are either on camera or in writing and I’m still standing baby!!! Get outta that comfy seat and go get it!
5. Printing Your Work
I feel like this is something that photographers are always saying so I feel like a broken record here - but honestly it is SO important!
I am actually not that great at this so I’m adding it in as a self reminder. I printed some work recently for an upcoming exhibition and the prints weren’t the highest quality of all time but it still felt amazing to see them and hold them. Putting them altogether and seeing them, like actually seeing them made such a difference in curating the work as well.
This can be just little work prints you keep for yourself or maybe even get some postcards printed off Matt Murray style so you can share them with your friends and family.
I have been looking at putting together some postcard packs for sale recently as a way to launch my new website so stay tuned for that.
Bottom line is if you never see your work off the screen then it’s hard to fully appreciate it. When I look at photo books I really savior every inch of the image right up to the corners and it feels more still and real and like, well, a photograph!
So there you go, some healthy habits to ponder and put into place to help the pos vibes flow!
If you do love this kind of photography self help, advice, mindset, creativity pondering type of thing then I highly recommend you pick up my 101 Creative Strategies Guide for more tips and prompts.
Don’t forget to subscribe to this newsletter for more weekly LL thoughts and sometimes interviews with other creatives and also to be in the running to win some LL prints of your very own! Thank you for reading and I’ll see you next week my friends. Love Lucy xx
So inspirational, thank you! I really do need to get out there more, and jump into photographing people... I get so nervous! Also, making prints really is something I've been talking about for forever, but STILL haven't done. Great read!
I think reviewing your past work is so important. So many times I find great images I had initially rejected. Hidden treasure I call it!