Inspired photography. As a very amateur photographer, I’m constantly researching and looking for ideas and techniques that will give me some inspiration into what I enjoy photographing the most, and perhaps what I might be good at, or have a natural eye to see.
To expand upon my knowledge, I’m often reviewing online magazines and Facebook groups to see what others have accomplished with their camera equipment and creative minds combined. I then like to attempt to learn the techniques or even adopt some of their ‘shooting styles’ to improve on my own work.
The one thing I found difficult to keep track of was all the different ideas that I like. Different night sky photos, wildlife photos, scenery, and into the creative aspects of photography like light painting, long exposures, and more. I’d take screen shots of certain things I want to reproduce, save images and collect web site bookmarks. Stuff was soon “everywhere” and hard to keep track of – and equally difficult to keep track of my progress.
My regular blog readers will know that I use Evernote and have promoted its power to keep track of pretty much everything (click here for my other articles). I use it to save money on gasoline, track my Overland Jeep service records, my upgrades and modifications, I record and document my trips with quick notes in preparation for posting blog posts here and so much more. It only made sense to use it for keeping track of some ideas and my progress in photography too. It’ll be inspired photography with Evernote.
First thing is you’ll need Evernote. To get signed up for Evernote now, just click here – if you sign up through this link, we both get a month of premium features – all free.
Once you’re running with Evernote, just start ‘clipping’ images that inspire you, or that are images you want to try to reproduce. You can clip the images, bookmark web sites and even save full “how-to” articles. Save them in an ideas notebook if you wish, but I typically save them in a ‘catch-all’ notebook and organize with tags. In my case, I use ‘photo-ideas’ and then create a shortcut to searching for that tag through all my notebooks. Sometimes I’ll save photo ideas and tips in various notebooks that might be specific to something- the Jeep, a travel location, wildlife, work, etc., – using the tag “photo-ideas” on all those images let’s me pull together those ideas in one common ‘search’ to make certain I don’t forget something.
So now, you’re saving and clipping photos and ideas to your own Evernote notebooks.
What is next? Well, you can simply review your saved items once in a while and work on things as you get opportunity.
But, why not use Evernote’s “reminders” feature to help you out?
Do you have some photography ideas to reproduce that you can only do while on vacation at the beach?
Or during a special event like the next meteor shower?
Or a friend’s wedding?
Set yourself reminders and you’ll know when to work on that special photo and the technique you want to attempt to recreate.
The beauty of all this is how simple it is – and simple is easy on the mind. You’re no longer stressing over the small stuff like this, and forgetting about ideas that inspire you too!
But wait, that’s not all you can do!
Make things even easier on your learning process by documenting what you’ve been up to in your attempts and duplicating your favorite photographers creations.
Evernote is, after-all, a note taking application.
So get making some notes. Below, you’ll see a photo that I took – I’ve saved it in with a photo of another light painting artist whose work has inspired me to get into some basics of light painting photography. This was a first attempt, and I’ve made some notes of my exposure time, aperture and ISO settings. After looking at my finished work and analyzing the details, I’ve left myself some notes to “try next time” and see how that changes my final result.
Hopefully you have some ideas of how you expand upon your use of Evernote to improve your photography skills. You’ll see a lot of things that inspire you and having an easy way to keep track of those inspirations is always helpful in the learning process.
If you’re not an Evernote user, be sure to download it from the link here. We both get a month of premium service free and the basics of Evernote (everything I’ve shown here) remain free and usable across your computer, your tablet and smart phone.
Some of the photos shown in my Evernote screen shots above are not mine and I have not looked into licensing of these photos for use in this article. I’ve chosen to ‘pixelate’ those images for the purpose of posting this article, and they are not like that in my personal notebooks.
I’ve enjoyed seeing your progression in photography even in the short time since I stumbled across your facebook page. Keep up the good work.
Good idea about using evernote too,certainly beats my hodge podge of scribbled notes, sketches, schematics, apps, cell phone notes, calendar reminders, napkins, google maps….. all of which I’ve lost at some point or another.
Thanks, Llisa! Appreciate the comments on my photography – it’s an interesting and challenging process, and photographers such as yourself are always offering up some inspiration for me.