Hi ,
It appears that I’m a little behind with my newsletters. We seem to have skipped April. I was on vacation in California for the first part of the month, and then when I got back to Anchorage, the weather got pretty nice, so I started flying more taking long bike rides almost every single day. Suddenly, April turned into May, and well… here we are.
Aside from lots of cycling, a lot has happened in the past few weeks. During my last night of vacation, I woke up with a brand new idea in my head. I’d been trying to figure out how to translate my passion for photography and my inspirational, real-world teaching style in a more personal way, and also expand the kinds of ideas I have on my blog with greater depth.
Photography On The Brain
The result was my brand new Photography On The Brain Video Mentorship Series, which I launched on May 11, and have described to you in my previous couple of emails. I’m so excited about how it’s all come together, and from the overwhelmingly positive response I’ve gotten from those of you who have signed up for the series, it seems as if my idea was a good one. I’m
especially excited at the prospect of continuing these discussions and further exploring ideas about photography and creativity in our dedicated Flickr Group.
That said, the video lessons alone are pretty cool. They allow you to take advantage of my expertise, my down-to-earth way of teaching and my highly motivational personality when it comes to explaining this stuff and distilling it into a way that you can easily apply to your own image making.
Having resisted getting into video for so long, I have jumped in with both feet, and plan to expand my video offerings, both in the monthly series, and also on my blog and YouTube channel. I just purchased a new on-camera HDMI video monitor to help me with the filming, and also a new background, which will allow for cleaner presentation, and much more flexibility for the look and feel of my video lessons.
If you haven’t checked out my Photography On The Brain series yet, I wanted to let you know that I’ve extended the introductory deadline for two more days. You have until Wednesday night to get the course at the special discount price. I hope you'll join me on this really special
instructional journey.
Creative Tip - On Comparing Yourself to Others
With all the amazing imagery out there on the web, it’s inevitable that we would occasionally compare our own imagery to the work of other photographers. Sometimes, as we will all admit, this happens a little more often than “occasionally.”
It’s easy to see someone else’s amazing photo and envy the creative success, or even the number of likes and shares that they’ve gained. It’s easy, and perfectly natural, to get a little jealous about the perceived success that another photographer appears to have achieved, or how good they are at creating really good photographs, but there some very specific reasons why it’s not even worth going there:
Everyone has a different path, a unique personality, a unique set of talents, a unique circle of connections and a slightly different creative eye. No two photographer’s professional paths will every look the same, and for everything that someone else appears to have gained, you have no idea what they may have had to sacrifice in order to achieve that, knowingly or not.
It’s completely irrelevant how well someone else is doing. What matters is how you’re doing. Don’t worry about the other person, instead concentrate on putting your heart and soul into your own photography. Better yet, try and learn something from your competition. Do these things and I promise, your photography will continue to improve.
So when you see a killer shot that someone else took, don’t let it get you down, instead use it to help motivate you to strive for even more in your own creative life.
Essential Autofocus Tips for Shooting Sports and Action
I wrote this post last fall, but in case you missed it, I’m going to share it again. Autofocus is one of the things that we all struggle with, and even though cameras keep getting better, that doesn’t mean that nailing shots of movings subjects is always easy.
Read my post 10 Essential Autofocus Tips for Sports & Action Photography. Hopefully it will help you increase your percentage of getting sharp images, whether you’re shooting sports, adventure, wildlife, running children or any other subject that moves quickly.
My Recommendation for the Best Memory Card
There are a lot of cards on the market, but aside from a couple of Toshiba cards that I occasionally use, I’ve relied on SanDisk cards ever since I went digital. They’ve always preformed well and I don’t think I’ve ever had a card error with any of my SanDisk SD cards. I had a couple of errors with compact flash cards, but never with my SD cards. *Knocks on wood.*
I think the best card for performance and value are the Extreme PRO cards. The latest generation of UHS-1 cards are the 170 MB/s models, which are surprisingly affordable. Only 22 bucks for the 64GB cards.
At 170 MB/s, they're WAY faster than the previous 95 MB/s cards, which I’ve been using them with excellent results for the past few years. The newer one allow for much faster read and downward speeds.
If you’re looking for the very fastest UHS-II cards, which will give you the highest level performance in today’s top cameras, like the Fujifilm X-T3 and X-T2, then you should probably look at the Extreme PRO 300 MB/s cards. They’re definitely more expense, but if you shoot very fast action, or if you often shoot video and want maximum transfer rate from card to computer, then they’re worth getting.
I have some UHS-II cards, and they’re always the first card I reach for when using my X-T3. They’ve come down quite a bit in price, right now the 32GB cards are 67 bucks.
At this point, I don’t have any workshops planned for this year, but I’m working on getting some store events on the calendar, and of course, I’ll be shooting a handful of new video lessons and shorter tips videos in the next few months, so stay tuned!
And if you’ve already signed up for my Photography On The Brain series, then I want to thank you so much for giving me your support and for letting me play an even more important role in your photography journey.
Thanks for reading, . Enjoy my recent blog post and have a great of the month!
Best,
Dan
One of my favorite things about photography these days is the extremely wide range of creative looks I can achieve right inside the camera. Back when I was a strict RAW shooter, I captured everything flat and then spent time 
This past fall, October 4, to be exact, I passed my 22-year mark for being a professional photographer. When I look back on my long, adventurous journey as a full time working shooter, I see an enormous mix of learning, 
If you pay attention, you’ll find a multitude of patterns in nature. They exist on all levels, from intricate details that are only seen very close, to giant patterns that can only be seen when you pull your vantage point 
I’m a huge fan of Fujifilm’s awesome f/2 WR prime lens series. The XF35mm f/2, XF50mm f/2 and the incredible XF90mm f/2 are among my favorite and most used lenses, so I was very excited to hear last year that 
I’m excited to let you know that I’m the guest on this week’s FUJILOVE Podcast! During this episode, I talk with Zürich based street and documentary photographer Jens Krauer about, cameras, creativity, passion, the
power of still imagery, Fujifilm, shooting 
When I look through the camera and arrange my subject matter in the viewfinder, I usually try to keep things away from the edges. In fact, one of the most ingrained compositional guidelines I live by in my photography is 
Every time Fujifilm releases one of their “X-T” flagship cameras, they follow closely behind with the little brother/sister version. This time, the supremely powerful X-T3 has been followed with the X-T30, which by all means is
an amazing little camera. 
This past Saturday was a total bluebird day. We’re talking sunup to sundown, with not a single cloud in the sky. No haze, no moisture, none of those thin, whispy feathers that sometimes creep into the atmosphere during the
afternoon. 
