Do better with less.

Imagine this:

 You have a Ferrari sitting the drive way. As you walk out the door, a guy in a red Chevy Tahoe pulls up. "Hey, Betcha I can take you in that fancy car". As you think to yourself, "this guy's crazy" he takes it one step further. "I'll put $500 on it."

Fast forward an hour and you're driving home wondering how an old beat up Tahoe managed to make your bankroll just that much lighter. Ferrari vs. Tahoe and the Tahoe won? It's simple. He knew what he was doing, you didn't. I left out the part that you've only ever driven a manual transmission once. Of course you lost. You didn't know how to really, really drive. You just thought you could win on the pure fact that you had the Ferrari.

This applies to photography. If you don't know the basics, you'll never win. A real artist would be able to make something beautiful with the iPhone in their pocket. They aren't relying on fancy zoom lenses or crazy photoshop techniques.

Too often do we forget this. The thought of the day was to push myself beyond this. Go deeper and find things with less help from technology. I took a camera and one 50mm 1.4 prime lens (yes, I had to walk to zoom) on a walk and here are just a few things I saw. Everything is SOOC. No editing. I definitely learned a lot and I'm glad I took the time to at least try to grow. After all, showing up is half the battle.

Using the sun for rim light

Texture

Positive-Negative Usage 

Leading lines 

Golden Ratio 

Bokeh

Color creating focus

1 point perspective