There are many resources on the internet that help new and experienced photographers alike to learn more about their craft. These range from websites, to blogs, to iPhone apps, and to online training services. While some of these resources do cost money, many of them are relatively inexpensive, or even free. And the simple truth is that the cost may have no bearing on the quality. Some of the most expensive resources aren’t as well produced or as useful as some others that are free.

Because I spend so much time in my car, my favorite class of learning resource is the Podcast. If you aren’t familiar with podcasts you owe it to yourself to check them out. Basically podcasts are audio or video files that are released in a series of episodes similar to syndicated radio or TV programming. They are generally (always?) free and they often command huge audiences.

Over the last several years I have been a regular listener of many photography related podcasts. As I mentioned above these are great resources for learning about technology, art, business, marketing, and just about any other aspect of photography you could think of.

These shows come and go, so the list of podcasts is always changing, but here is my current list of favorites. Most of these are weekly, but some are produced biweekly, monthly, or even randomly:

1. This Week in Photography – Audio
2. PhotoNetCast – Audio
3. Camera Dojo – Audio
4. The Pro Photography Show – Audio
5. The Digital Story – Audio
6. The Image Doctors (Nikonians) – Audio
7. LightSource – Audio
8. Exif and Beyond – Audio
9. Photoshop User TV (NAPP) – Video
10. D-Town TV (NAPP) – Video

NOTE – I shoot Canon but the Nikonians are still very interesting. They do occasionally talk about very specific Nikon topics, but most of their shows contain broadly photography related information and even the Nikon stuff can generally be applied to everyone else…

All of these shows have their own website, to which I have linked above, but they can also be subscribed to in an RSS reader or in iTunes. There are many other photography podcasts out there in addition to these. A quick search of Podcast Alley, iTunes, or even Google will surely help you find more if this list doesn’t have enough good stuff for you!

I’d love to know about any other really great podcasts that I should be listening to. What are your favorite shows? Please drop me a comment down below to let me know what you’re listening to.

NOTE – on the surface this post is about sport, but that’s really not the focus at all.  Please stick with me and let me know what you think…

I’m in the middle of watching a rerun of the UFC 101 and I can’t help but think that these guys are insane.  While that’s probably obvious to many of us that would never dream of getting ourselves into that kind of situation, I’m not referring to the most obvious case to prove my point…

I’ve watched the first two bouts so far and in both case the losing fighters obviously came in with a fight strategy or a mental map on how they wanted to see the fight go.  And in both cases the fight went completely the other way, yet the fighters kept going with their original strategy.  The result, after a series of take downs in both fights, was the being awarded an easy decision that any judge would give them simply for being the perceived aggressor.

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
– often attributed to Albert Einstein

In the first fight I might concede that the fighter didn’t have much control over his fate and he simply got overpowered.  But he also didn’t try to do anything different and he allowed the judges to make the easy decision.  He needed to try to do something different to really show the judges that he deserved to win.  But he didn’t.

In the second fight the loser, a man that many might describe as the better fighter, came in with a strategy that it would be a stand-up fight and he fought tooth and nail to keep himself from being taken to the ground.  Except that he was taken to the ground repeatedly.  He didn’t sustain a lot of damage, but he was on the bottom and therefore was the perceived loser. He even had an opportunity about half-way through the final round to take the upper position and potentially inflict some damage on his opponent.  Instead of taking that advantage, he stood up.  And then got taken down again.

Both fighters lost because they didn’t change their strategies even after repeatedly being shown that they weren’t working.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m all for repeating things until you can’t learn any more.  Many of the major advances of our civilization have come about from people trying things over and over until they got it right.  But sometimes you only have so much time to change course, and if you act too slowly then you lose it all.

These fighters were both insane by the most common of definitions.  But of course many we know it was true because they were in the fight in the first place!

What can you learn from this that you can apply to your day to day life??

I get asked all the time to recommend some good books for new photographers wanting to learn how to be a better shooter. This is very easy for me to do since I have literally read dozens of photography books over the last couple of years. In my mind there is no doubt that every beginner photographer (and even some that are more seasoned in the craft) should read two books: “The Digital Photography Book” by Scott Kelby and “Understanding Exposure” by Bryan Peterson.

“The Digital Photography Book” is a very quick and easy read. It is written in a very simplistic format with the idea being that if you were to ask the author how to make a particular shot in a given situation, he would tell how to do it in a simple and straightforward answer. Not a ton of theory, just a simple “do it like this” kind of answer. This book is actually the first in a series of three books (the 3rd is coming out soon), each of which continues from where the previous one left off and gets progressively more advanced. Kelby is a prolific author and the reason fo his huge success is that his books are very easy to read while still being extremely useful. This is a must read for all new photographers.

“Understanding Exposure” is a classic. It’s actually somewhat out of date since it was written before digital cameras were common, and therefore makes very little reference to ISO, but that hardly matters given the rest of the content. It is an excellent guide to getting the right exposure using the basic creative controls within the camera, while also discussing creativity and composition. Almost everyone that reads this book immediately feels that they have become a better photographer. It’s as simple as that. Read it.