Dear friend,

If you’re feeling a bit lost with your photography or life– here are some heart-to-heart advice:

1. Why is photography useful?

I think one of the best benefits of photography:

Using photography as a tool to appreciate your life more, and to find more joy in the small things of your everyday life.

For example, I’ve been making a lot of photo diaries — and while they aren’t probably the world’s ‘best’ photos– they are personally meaningful to me.

Looking at my personal diary photos, I re-live the good moments of my day-to-day life. Snapshots of me with Cindy, photos of my food, or my environment.

2. Why I love photography

I think true joy in life is a combination of adventures, achievement, reflection, and appreciation.

Photography helps me appreciate the things I have done, the things I have experienced, and helps me do it in an artistic way.

3. Life without photography would be a mistake.

The problem that a lot of us as photographers face is:

1. We don’t shoot enough personal photos of our everyday life.
2. We don’t photograph enough pictures of our loved ones.
3. We take our photography too seriously — we forget to just enjoy the process and joy of photography; shooting like a child.
4. We don’t review our old photos enough.
5. We care more about the likes we get from our photos, rather than the aesthetic joy our photos bring ourselves
6. We care too much about what others think of our photos, rather than what we think of our own photos.
7. We use ‘likes’ as a measure whether our photos are any good or not.

4. You can photograph anything.

Nothing is too small to photograph.

Find beauty in the small and ordinary. Nothing is too ordinary or ‘normal’ to photograph.

Don’t get ‘suckered by the exotic’ — or thinking that you can only make good photos while traveling. Instead, realize that you can make personally meaningful photos of your everyday life — right now, today, and forever.

5. Photograph your own life

Photograph your loved ones, photograph selfies of yourself, shoot your food, shoot your home, photograph moments which put a smile on your face.

The formula:

Photograph what is personally-meaningful to you, and review the photos, and re-live that joy afterwards.

Smile,
ERIC

---

PHOTOGRAPHY THERAPY

How to find more joy in your life with photography:

• Photo Therapy
• Photography Therapy
• 5 Photography Therapy Assignments
• Why Photography is the Ultimate Form of Self-Therapy
• How to Use Photography as Self-Therapy
• Street Photography is Self-Therapy
• How to Conquer Depression With Photography
• 3 PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS FOR STREET PHOTOGRAPHY