If you’re like me, you probably didn’t do much book shopping during the summer. However, winter reading season is not far off, so now is a great time to restock your bookshelf with resources that can help you ramp up your photography and digital imaging skills.

 

 

Right now, Peachpit Press is having a fall sale. By entering discount code FALLPHOTO in your shopping cart, you can save on every photography book, eBook and training video in their entire catalog. The discount gets you 35% off any single title and 40% off if you buy two or more titles. 

 

Peachpit publishes a huge number of titles by top photographers and authors such as Joe McNally, Tom Bol, Michael Clark, Nicole S. Young, Colby Brown, Scott Kelby, John Batdorff, David duChemin, Andrew Gibson, Chris Orwig and many more. In fact, many of the books that I recommend here on my blog are published by Peachpit, and when I look down my own bookshelf, I see an awful lot of Peachpit spines. With 348 books and videos in their photography catalog, there are enough choices for shooters of all levels and styles.

 

Whether you want to improve your lighting and flash skills, Lightroom, Aperture and Photoshop chops, business and marketing knowledge, compositional skills, or just get new ideas to inspire your portrait or landscape photography, Peachpit has you covered. Heck, with this kind of discount, go ahead and buy yourself an early Christmas present.

 

 

 

Emerging pro photographer Anne McKinnell released her brand new eBook last week, 8 Ways to Accelerate Your Photography. I’ve followed Anne and have watched Anne’s career progress during the past couple of years, and it’s been exciting to see her go from budding DSLR owner to having her photos published on magazine covers in only 48 months.

 

In her new book, Anne explores 8 fundamental areas of knowledge that are essential for today’s photographer and she shows you the quickest and most effective techniques that will help you speed up your learning curve. I like Anne’s writing style because she approaches the topics in an honest and genuine way. Having just spent an entire year on the road, traveling and photographing, this stuff is all very fresh in her mind, and she relays the information with such open enthusiasm that everyone can relate too.

 

If you’re a beginning photographer, I highly recommend this book. Not only will it save you time and mistakes along the way, it will show you what you need to know in order to get you on the right path with outdoor photography. Also, because I just really like Anne and I admire her excitement and her courage to strike out on her own. To me, that alone is worth a few bucks. After all, it might be you in a few months, and what goes out always comes back.

 

 

Back when I worked as a stock photo editor, I’d often get asked by photographers, “What should I photograph?” My answer was always, and continues to be: Shoot what you love. It will make you better.

 

Photographing subjects that fill your soul with excitement, no matter what they are, and no matter if you think they’re marketable, will draw you into the process and drive your creativity. You’ll come up with cool new ideas that you can try out later on “more marketable subjects.”

 

Here’s a photo of one of my favorite bad ass guitar slingers, Chris Duarte from Texas that I took a few years ago. I shot it because I love rock and roll, and I love photography. Even used black and white film, which I NEVER use in my photography business. I thought it would be a cool thing to shoot, and it was.

 

 

My advice today is to fall outside of your own style and stereotypes every once in awhile and shoot something totally different. Or as Pete Miller, who’s one of my readers, put so elegantly, “Shoot passionately, not fiscally.”

 

You’ll have fun. I promise.

 

 

I don’t usually give out assignments in my newsletters, but I just thought of a photo idea that could be really cool if done well. The image that popped into my mind revolves around an action shot that combines motion and falling leaves. This subject seems pretty wide open, but I’m thinking of something that’s shot with a slightly shutter speed that involves panning or shooting from behind, and that focuses on a subject right in the middle of fall.

 

Any ideas coming to you? If so, why not try and shoot something like this yourself and share it next Monday when I make the callout on my Facebook Page.

 

 

Fujifilm just released a firmware update for the X10 that offers two features. First, it brings the “Q-Menu,” which is found on some of the higher end Fuji X cameras. By pressing the RAW button, it opens up a master menu that lets you change various settings from one place, instead of having to dig into the other menus. 

 

The second feature is a new set of creative filters that are found under the Advanced shooting mode. The list of filters includes Toy Camera, Miniatures, Pop Color, High Key, Dynamic Tone and Partial Color, which lets you render black and white images with a single selected color that stands out.

Are these ground breaking? No. Are they fun? Sure! The firmware is free, you can get it here.

 

 

As always, be sure and share this newsletter with your other photographer friends.  Thanks for reading and have a great weekend! 

 

Dan