How to Make Your Photographic Life Simpler and Easier for Yourself

A simple guide to simplify your shooting, processing, and sharing photographic workflow:

A thought—

It seems that we will always prefer things which simplify and make our lives easier, more productive, and more fun/meaningful.

As photographer-artists, we have a lot of superfluous stresses or distractions. Most of us have a “standalone”camera, and it seems that most of us wish we had more opportunities to make photos— yet, we make our photographic lives harder and more difficult for ourselves.

Don’t force yourself

Furthermore, we have strangely turned photography and art-production into this strange “duty”. We force ourselves to shoot everyday, always have our cameras with ourselves, etc. We impose all of these strange and arbitrary rules to ourselves in our photography.

But what if we took a different approach — and strove to make our photographic lives simpler and easier for ourselves?

1. Shoot with your phone

I’m currently shooting with the Xiaomi 9 SE (bought it for only $350) and it has been the best phone camera/phone hybrid so far.

I can confidently say now—

Phone cameras are 80% “good enough” for our photographic needs.

Of course owning a “standalone” digital camera will result in photos with higher dynamic range, but at this point — I don’t see a good reason to NOT shoot with your phone as a “daily shooter”.

2. Select your photos on your phone as small thumbnails

If you shoot photos on your phone, the easiest way to expedite your photographic workflow is this:

Don’t look at all your photos one-by-one (full screen). Instead, briefly glance through all your photos, THEN “favorite” the photos that look good as small thumbnails.

Judge your photos based on composition, tone, colors, and whether the photo “jumps out” at you.

3. Process your photos with the built-in editor

To simplify your photographic life, just use the built-in phone picture editor/filters/settings. This is far faster and simpler than using a “third party” application.

One of the big pluses about the Xiaomi phone: the built-in “auto beautify” filter works really well! And their built-in filters look great as well.