 How's it? How's it? We've all been there with our photography that you are trying to take a photograph just willing it to happen and the more that you will it to happen the less it doesn't. This is the law of reversed effort at work and it's why your photography doesn't flow and grow in and is a relaxing experience like you want it to be. The best example of reversed effort is probably you know trying to fall asleep. We've all been there you're tossing and you're turning just it does not happen and the more that you will yourself to sleep the more it well it doesn't doesn't until you find yourself it's like four o'clock in the morning you're like ah it was Aldous Huxley who came up with this idea of reversed effort when he said that the more that you try with conscious will to do something the less likely you are to succeed and this manifests itself in our photography time and time again in my own case like when I used to take portraits in the studio even though you know I kind of knew more way around a camera and and there was nothing that I had to kind of worry too much about from a technical standpoint often it just wasn't gelling I just it wasn't going but I knew I wanted that photograph and the problem is that I was kind of trying to cling on to it trying to grab the idea too hard when instead I should have just committed myself to the process to surrender myself to photography the way that you can do this is actually remarkably simple and and I owe a debt to a lady called Mel Robbins I think she's her name is who has this audio book a series of books about a process that she calls the five four three two one process and I was listening to this and I thought this is I think what a great idea to use in photography how to get back in touch with that creative spirit that dwells inside us but often that we're sabotaging on the way out because we're putting loads of roadblocks in the way so simply summed up basically what she's suggesting is every time that you want to do something and you dwell on it for too long your mind will say no and in photography's case you will sit there looking at a picture they're quite like to look at that and you will go ah okay well one of my options to photograph this what lenses can I use what exposures can I you know employ will it be colour will it be black and white you know so we've kind of gone from being enthralled about the system or about the about the image or the subject that we see in front of us and have now started dwelling upon the technicalities of things so that created spark is you know split it away so instead of doing all this the next time you're out photographing and I would encourage you to do this as a session that's separate from maybe working on a specific thing or task this is all about the flow of creativity of unclogging that that journey within you to allow you to express yourself you know freely without inhibition is to simply see something that interests you go five four three two one shoot it the committee is in the word shoot as I could say you must take a you know composed photograph and stuff but just that's the whole point throw technicalities throw all the rules or anything like that to the wind go with your instinct just take the camera and shoot don't ask questions of yourself don't allow yourself become mired in what's right or what's wrong just go with your gut instinct now of course you're not going to get amazing photographs every single time I mean that would be foolish to even think that way but what you are going to do is you are going to start learning to trust your gut and of course the more that you are you know kind of comfortable and and sort of untuned with the technical aspect of the compositional aspects all there's other bits the more that that becomes second nature now if you are sort of sitting here thinking oh do you know Alex um I how do I set the exposures but what about this and what about that okay the whole point here is just to go with it so in regards to your exposures you can either set your camera to pee pee for professional right there's nothing wrong with it don't just use it okay in this case we are just kind of worrying more about the visual interpretation of a scene rather than more technical bits right or you if you're feeling daring you could dip your toe into the sunny f16 rule now a short couple of you guys are going out with what is this sunny f60 I've not heard of this thing what is this this is actually one of the it is a hard and fast rule in photography there aren't very many of them but this is one of them so basically on a sunny day that's clear blue sky when the sun is at the highest in the sky at f16 your shutter speed will be the same as the ISO of the film so if your film is 100 ISO then a correct exposure at midday on a clear blue day sky right with proper sun it is going to be f16 at a hundredth of a second if you have 3200 ISO film or you've camera set to that then your shutter speed will be 3200 it's as simple as that and then of course you branch off into the various ideas later on so cloudy day bfa you know etc etc and rather get too much into it here if you want to explore that I'm going to be touching on it in an episode of the five minute photo school soon if anybody in the comments wants to sort of expand on the sunny f16 rule please feel free to I love the exchange of information because don't forget that we are all on different parts in our photography and we you know the more that we can share our knowledge our combined knowledge then the the richer the experience in the community will be for everybody anyway back to the five four three two one right and so yeah when you're out there just photograph just choose a lens you know if you have a prime lens that's cool if you have a zoom lens try and just keep it to one uh you know one focal length don't zoom around I mean tape it and tape up the barrel if you want you know so you can't actually move it uh you know try this right the whole point of this process is to get you creative is to get you to trust that instinct inside of you now first that instinct is going to lead you somewhat astray and that's okay right the point is to go and look through all your resulting images and go okay that didn't work that didn't work that didn't work that that's got some that's got some promise I like this and that's really kind of what we're looking to do here is to to get you reconnected with being relaxed about taking photographs to commit yourself to that process of photography where you are not worrying about all the other things that are contributing to you not having a great image if at this point you're thinking all of this sounds like a bit of gobbledygook kind of mindfulness hui right think about when you either listen to you know great photographers or anybody who's a master of a skill and they tell you that they don't really think about it too much that a great pianist isn't thinking about the individual notes about how they are playing they are relaxed when they are playing you yourself do this without knowing about it you ride a bicycle now you don't think about riding a bicycle you get on it and you just ride it if you were to write an instruction manual on how to ride a bike it would be pages and pages and pages of instructions but you've learned to trust your instincts with us so that's I again if you're thinking that this is maybe not for you give it a whirl you're going to fall off the bike one or two times but eventually you're going to find that this makes your photography so much stronger and will be a skill that will pay dividends for you down the line for years to come so remember when you were out there next time you see a photograph five four three two one and just shoot it you're going to end up with lots of pictures you think of mistakes when you do this exercise but rather than throw them away which would be a huge mistake follow the advice in this video here thank you ever so much for watching and I'll see you again soon