Pixiq

Today there are many ways to learn or improve your photography.  Blogs, forums, magazines, seminars, classes and more.  All of these combined help to make us better at what we love, but how do you know the information we view is correct or usable today?  The best way is to make sure you're getting your information from those who are actually making a living as working photographers.  

Making a living in a creative field is not easy and maintaing those careers through good and bad times shows what you're made of and how you can adapt to change.  The only that is curtain in photography is change.  Photography will continue to evolve and change and we need all the knowledge from the past and today to navigate success as photographers.  

The vidoe's I put on Youtue are a way to introduce people to photography and give them a taste of what I've learned in my career and what I love.  If I couldn't make a career from photography, I'd still continue to shoot because I love it.  In the future I hope I can share new ways to explore and use photography around the world.  Until then look forward to me sharing what I know here.

At the start of my career I learned to use one light so I could learn first how to see light and create multiple looks with a single source.  This sparked creating the video "Ten Ways to Use One Light Source and today much of the work I do is created using the methods I show here.  To view the youtube clip go to:  Ten Ways_Youtube Clip

I worked at a photo assistant to many of the photographers I admired and because of that I was working in different situations all the time.  Some days would be in studio and other days were spent working on location on a beach, in a home or flying off to some exotic location.  All of this helped in creating Ten Ways to Work with Natual Light and today I shoot assignments in studio and on location.  One of my last advertising assignments for Wells Fargo called for me to shoot in studio, in an outside location and in an indoor location.  Learning to see light on location is one of the many benefits I gained from assisting and helped in putting this video together to share.  The youtube clip is Natural Light_YouTube.  

Photography is not only about light and gear but more of what you do with the gear and how you use the light.  All of this comes from learning how to find your voice as a photographer.  I believe at the start of all our career's we just want to have the best camera's, lights, etc and it's easy to get caught up in the gear, but the gear won't get you the job.  Its your talent that gets you the job and creates a long lasting career.  I just spoke to a large audience of photographers and after I finished the two hour presentation i took questions.  Many of the questions were related to the gear I used, but the magic doesn't come from the gear.  The magic comes from you and you discovering what makes you special.  Self discover in photography can open to door to changing a 20k a year photographer to a 500k per year photographer.  Clients are looking for your point of view on life, seen throught the eyes of your camera.  They don't really care about what camera you use as they may have the same camera.   Spend time learning all you can about your craft of photography but also spend time learning how to become more creative. 

The following are my must have books for photographers:

# 1:  How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

# 2:  Selling the Invisible by Harry Beckwith

#3:  The Alchemist

None of these books are photo books but once you read the first one you'll learn why these books are so important to creating a lifelong career in photography.

Always Dream Big

Matthew Jordan Smith

website:   www.MatthewJordanSmith.com

Educational Videos:  www.Gallery.MatthewJordanSmith.com