One question pops up time and time again when people first consider moving to manual mode, which is:

"How on earth do I keep up with changing my settings when shooting in manual mode, and my kids are running about all over the place?!" 

I hear ya! 

It is a little bit more tricky to be sure, so in this post I'm going to give you a few tips that will hopefully help make the process of keeping up when shooting in manual mode just that little bit easier. 

In my free Facebook Group the other day, someone asked a question that I know pretty much everyone thinks when they are first starting out (myself included!) which was:

“Why do I need to worry about getting the exposure right in camera, when I can fix it in Lightroom / Photoshop / Post Processing?"

Such a great question! And it's true, with digital photography, we are very lucky to be able to fix a vast amount of mistakes in editing software, and exposure is definitley one of them.  

But there are few reasons why you will want to at least attempt to get exposure as close as possible to being correct in camera, and that my friends, is what we are going to go over today! 

Hey fellow Lightroom users!

As you are no doubt already aware, in order to use a photo for something we can't do from within Lightroom, such as sending to your favourite print lab, or maybe making a copy to post on your blog, we need to EXPORT it from Lightroom. 

Although it's pretty darn quick to export photos from Lightroom anyway, we can speed up this process even more by creating our own export presets, and that's what I'm going to show you how to do today! 

Hands up if you'e ever thought to yourself.....

"oh, well, that person shoots with a professional grade camera, that means I need to invest in gear to get good photos"  

or

"Well, this photographer I met in the park only shoots in AUTO so I don't need to bother to learn manual mode" 

or even

"I can learn this all by searching Google - it knows everything"   (😉)

Did you put your hand up? Yes? Well, don't worry, a few years ago I would have been right along with you!

That's why today we’re talking about all the myths that people believe about learning photography - and why you should ignore them! 

Welcome back for another creative challenge! If you are new to the blog, every month for 2017 I will be posting a creative exercise / mini photography project for you to do.  So if you like the idea of a monthly flex of your photography muscles, come back at the first Tuesday of every month for your assignment.  You can of course do these at ANY time, so at the bottom of this post you will find links to the previous challenges too!

For this month's creativity exercise, we are going on a Scavenger Hunt!

Yes, it's time for me to share my photography journey with you!

I realised that I have all these wonderful guests on the blog, sharing their stories, and I've never really shared mine.  So, I've taken the exact same questions I ask everyone else, and answered them!

Yep, I sat there and spoke to myself.

It was worryingly pleasant.

The headline says it all! Today, I wanted to show you 12 Lightroom before and after examples of images that have been edited exclusively with LIghtroom.

Why?

Because one common  misconception about Lightroom is that it is mainly for image management, or for making simple editing adjustments like exposure and white balance, but that you really need something like Photoshop to edit your images creatively.

Nothing could be further from the truth! 

Once you get to know what can be done in Lightroom. you will be amazed at just how much you can do in this program. So, yes image management is a HUGE benefit to using Lightroom, but don't make the mistake of thinking that is ALL it can do. 

I know that for many of you, your number one enemy in your photography journey is not having enough time!  I can totally relate to that, as I sometimes feel like I am trying to cram 50 hours worth of chores into one day.   I have spoken before about how I try to manage the time I do have for photography more effectively, so today I'm going to tell you about how Lightroom has also been a key part of helping me get more done, in less time. 

Welcome back for another creative challenge! If you are new to the blog, every month for 2017 I will be posting a creative exercise / mini photography project for you to do.  So if you like the idea of a monthly flex of your photography muscles, come back at the first Tuesday of every month for your assignment.  You can of course do these at ANY time, so at the bottom of this post you will find links to the previous challenges too!

For this month's creativity exercise, we are going to switch gears a little bit (again! I like to mix it up 😄) and consider how we can document our lives, or the lives of the people we love, through photography. 

Once again, it's a simple idea:  we are going to do this using a "currently" list.  It's such a wonderful way to document what your life looks like right NOW,  and not only that, but it will get your creative juices flowing as you need to decide how to capture these thoughts, feelings and actions.  So, it's documentary, but with a creative twist! 

Learning photography is so much fun, but it can also be hard work! There is so much to learn and take on board, that it can feel a little overwhelming. 

In this post, I'm going to give you just seven quick tips that you can take action on TODAY that will help give you better photos. So, for each tip, you also have an action item - there's no sitting around being an armchair photographer here 😀

Ready? Let's get stuck in!

We all know that learning a new piece of software can be daunting - this is especially true when we're talking about Lightroom, which has so many modules, panels, buttons and options that you might not even know where to start! 

It has taken me quite a few years to figure out Lightroom, and right at the beginning I really wish I had someone leading me through the process step by step - it would have saved me so much time and allowed me to concentrate on getting good  images, rather than sorting out my mess! 

Welcome back for another creative challenge! If you are new to the blog, every month for 2017 I will be posting a creative exercise for you to do.  So if you like the idea of a monthly flex of your photography muscles, come back at the first Tuesday of every month for your assignment.  You can of course do these at ANY time, so at the bottom of this post you will find links to the previous challenges too!

This particular exercise is absolutely wonderful for those times when you are feeling a bit creatively blocked or stuck in a rut - you know those times when you just aren’t feeling motivated to pick up your camera, and when you do you feel like everything you take looks blah and boring. 

The reason we are having this creativity exercise this month is this is because that is EXACTLY how I have been feeling of late! 

Photography has been a major part of my life for a long time now, and between writing blog posts, doing live streams in the Facebook group, answering questions, recording lessons and creating courses on the subject, I feel like the actual part of taking the photos is something that I have fallen out of doing!  I know that this feeling is pretty common with professional photographers, because their creativity in essence becomes their job, which in and itself can get repetitive. However, it can - nay, it WILL - happen to everyone, regardless of whether you are a hobbyist or a seasoned pro. 

So, for this exercise, we are going to be limiting ourselves with how we shoot (because believe or not limitations HELP your creativity!) but only with regard to location and time.

Today we are going to go right back to the very beginning for any brand new photographers out there, and lay open the foundations of capturing an image - exposure.

We’ll look at what exposure is, what the three elements are that allow us to control it, and finally how they all work together in something called the Exposure Triangle.  

This is literally Step 1 in learning photography (and in fact is the very first lesson in my Auto to Awesome course!) but although it's fundamental, it can be anything but easy to grasp! So it might take a few read throughs before it starts to make much sense if this is your first time learning about it, but don't worry, it does get easier as you move on 😃

So without further ado, let's get crackin'!

Welcome back for another creative challenge! If you are new to the blog, every month for 2017 I will be posting a creative exercise for you to do.  So if you like the idea of a monthly flex of your photography muscles, come back at the first Tuesday of every month for your assignment.  You can of course do these at ANY time, so at the bottom of this post you will find links to the previous challenges too!

For this month's exercise, we are going to use an often overlooked composition tool - framing. 

Framing your subject is ja really powerful way to bring your viewers attention to what’s important in your image, while also bringing an extra element of interest, so it's a great composition tool to be able to pull out of your back pocket. 

The good news is it’s not hard to do, it's only a question of being able to see the possibilities around you when shooting - and that's what this creative exercise will help you do! 

When I ask members of my Facebook group what their biggest struggle with photography is, the same thing comes up time and time again: lack of time.

I completely understand that it can sometimes be hard to find time to physically practise photography on a consistent basis - in fact, as I write this, I don't think I have picked up my camera for at least a couple of weeks either 😀.  If you are anything like me, you will probably also find  that the only time you really get to yourself is after the kids have gone to bed, which maybe isn't the time we want to whip the camera out and start taking photos!

The good news is you can still improve your photography skills without necessarily needing to have a camera in your hand. So if you find yourself with only a few minutes to spare during the day, or find that you get get most of your "free" time when everyone else is sound asleep, here are some other ways you can improve your skills without even needing to take a photo.