I’m excited to announce that I just wrote and published a brand new Kindle ebook called Creative Photography Techniques - 20 Simple Tips for Stronger Images. In this guide, I present 20 simple tips that help instill some focused creativity into your photography. They’re designed to get you thinking actively about your photography, because making powerful images should never be a passive activity.

 

The 20 tips are all short, concise and easy to remember, and yet they clearly outline a few necessary elements that are needed to produce a great image. They’re not meant to be hard set rules, they’re meant as ideas to help inspire and jump start your own creativity.

 

Many of the tips I present in this eBook can be found on my blog, but here you get them all in one place. No need to go digging through the archive. It’s like your own personal creative guidebook that you can take with you and reference anytime you wish.

 

The best part- it only costs 99 cents. That's pretty much free. I’ve priced it as low as the Kindle store will allow, because I want you to have these tips. If you’ve been getting these newsletters for awhile, then you know how much effort I put into passing on my knowledge and insight in order to help you become a better photographer. I wrote this simple guide because I believe that knowing these techniques can help you get there.

 

So pick up a copy of Creative Photography Techniques today. You can read it on any device. Also, do me a favor: Please consider leaving a review on the Amazon product page, “Like” the page, and share the link with your other photographer friends on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. I would really appreciate if you would help me promote this guide, so if you find my tips useful, give me a minute to leave a few words and stars.

 

While we’re on the subject of eBooks, I want to give you some extremely valuable knowledge about the software I use to write them. I use a program called Scrivener. It’s the best writing program around. Period. Unlike programs like Word, where you have to write everything in a linear fashion or create new documents for each chapter or concept, Scrivener is designed to let you write the way YOU want to write. 

 

In addition to a full featured writing platform, Scrivener also gives you a corkboard where you can jot down ideas onto virtual index cards, move them around and insert new ideas as they come to you. Each card is tied to a single text document that can be edit and ordered in any way within the project. Prefer to outline instead? Scrivener’s got that too.

 

Scrivener also lets you import photos, reference documents, assign keywords, notes and export your project into any number of formats, including Word documents, RTF files, and even ebook, ePub and Kindle formats. There’s even a tutorial right on the site that shows you how to get your ebook up onto the Kindle Store. Seriously. Once I was done writing, all it took was a few clicks and my ebook was ready to upload to Amazon.

 

There are so many reasons why Scrivener is such an awesome program, it’s a complete writing studio. You really should just check it out for yourself. Go look at the demos or try it out for 30 days. I’m using it right now, in fact. I use it for writing books, blog posts, newsletters, pretty much everything. If you write, you should definitely get Scrivener. The end.

 

 

As you may know, I wrote over 100 articles during my 2 year stint as Senior Contributor to The Photoletariat Blog. It’s always fun to go back and look through the archive, and there are tons of relevant posts to look through. Here’s one that I particularly liked called Left Brain vs. Right Brain- Creativity vs. Technique in Photography. Check it out, and look through my post archive to see some of my other articles.

 

 

If you’re like, me, you shoot tons of photos during the summer, and then throw them into an unsorted folder on your computer until such time when you can come back and edit them. I know, not always the best way, the really pile up, but that’s how it goes sometimes when you’re busy.

 

What this means is that when you finally do get back to your editing tasks, you need to be efficient so that you don’t get completely bogged down. How do you gain this kind of necessary efficiency? The best way is either through a book or a video training course. 

 

You can see a list of books that I recommend here. For video training, I’d look to two different sits: Steele Training and Kelby Training. Steele Training is great for total beginners, and if you only want to do a one time course, you can check out his Lightroom Made Easy online video course. Right now it’s 15% off if you click through this link to the course.

 

Kelby Training is a full photography education website with courses by a large number of established working pros. There are a few different Lightroom courses available, and you can either sign up monthly or get a yearly subscription. You can get $10 off an annual subscription with coupon code KTCJQ12.

 

Finally, if you don’t have Lightroom yet, B&H Photo is running a limited time offer right now. Buy Adobe Lightroom 4 and you’ll get a free Kelby Training Adobe Lightroom 4 Crash Course DVD. I don’t know long this offer will last, I was told that it would only go until Tuesday of this week, but it’s still up today, so if you need to buy Lightroom, I’d jump now before this deal ends.

 

 

If you don’t know already, I teach online photography courses at The Compelling Image. Currently, I have three courses running, which you can see on my instructor page. Although my August sessions have already started, you can still sign up and get into the course by September 3. 

 

The Compelling Image features interactive online photography instruction. In addition to the lesson material that I’ve written for each of my courses, you are given assignments, which I personally critique. The format also allows you to ask questions and start discussions with me, as well as any other students in the course.

 

Check out the site and consider signing up for a course. If you’re not satisfied, they offer a full money back 100% guarantee for the first two weeks of any course.

 

 

Finally, want some inspiration? Check out this year’s National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest Winners. There really are some amazing shots in this collection. Definitely enough to get your creative juices flowing with ideas and motivation!

 

 

As always, thanks for reading, Enjoy the posts below and have a great week! Also, be sure and share this newsletter with your friends. 

 

 

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