 How's it, how's it guys? Welcome back to the channel. It is awesome to see you again. At some point, you are going to want to take your photographs to the next level and you think about investing in your photography. And this is what we're going to be talking about today. It's the best way to get the most bang for your buck. At some point, you will have thought, something is holding me back in my photography. And often the thoughts turn to maybe it's the lens that I need or, you know, a new camera possibly. And of course, the real issue with this is that some of these things cost, well, they cost a lot. And for a lot of photographers, they are radically beyond their means. But there is a way, there is a far cheaper way of being able to improve your photography without throwing thousands of dollars at new equipment. The first investment is what it's in books and books aren't just expensive monographs of photographers who you must treat with reverence and, you know, and be very careful with because they have what they have a inherent value to them. I'm talking about cheap books like this, right? This is the photographic guide to composition guidelines for total image control through effective design. Now, that's not going to fly off the shelves, I feel, but that's the point. This book on Amazon cost me, you know, maybe maybe 10 quid, if that something like that. And the beauty of these things is a that, you know, then, you know, conflicts with them and they've got, you know, ideas for creating depth in your photographs that they have, you know, examples of things like distortion. Now, this are these, this are, that's my son, Afghanistan is coming through. These are great because you can actually sit with them and you can digest them at your leisure. And that's different to a YouTube video. This is that's different from me talking you through a process, because you have to kind of go at my speed or the speed that a photographer or whoever is is showing you something goes at. But those books, you know, here's another one, so Bailey's masterclass, which is, you know, it doesn't even matter if you don't like David Bailey, it's just, you know, there's full of example, here we go, portraits and posing expression. And what I really love about these kind of things, as you know, I said about going at your own speed is that you can dip in and out of them. You can dip in and out and find things that you want to try out. And the photographers, especially in the Bailey's masterclass book, they talk a little bit about their, their, you know, their process, their thought process behind the image that they've usually used chosen to, you know, to use to illustrate the point. And these are fantastic insights. And I think that's something that people often overlook these days is listening to the insights of the photographer who is sharing the tutorial or something, you know, similar, regular views of the channel will know that I am a big fan of a huge number of photographers. And I was lucky in so much as I got introduced to a lot of photographers by being at art school, and then also meeting in real life and being friends with a great number of people who were deeply interested in photography. But if you are not around those kind of people, if you are new to photography, then it's very difficult to find photographers whom you can be inspired by. And, you know, and maybe so we'll go to Instagram or you go to Facebook or stuff. And that's okay. But what happens is that you are going to see a lot of samey things, you're not going to broaden your horizons too much beyond pretty much what the algorithm wants to show you. And the wider that your inspiration pool is, then the more that you can create images that are unique to you, because you have a bigger collection of images to draw from in terms of inspiration. So the best way to find photographers whose work might excite you might interest you is to, you know, take books like this. This is quite heavy. So this is Vanity Fair portraits is a collection of books. And again, it didn't cost me very much. You can pick up a lot of these books, secondhand for, you know, like $10 or something. And within this book, there are collections of photographers who have taken portraits for Vanity Fair over the year. So this isn't any leap of its. I believe I stand to be corrected. If it's not, then I will eat my hat. But it is any leap of its because, you know, you get to recognize people stars. So, you know, you've probably heard of any leap of its. And that's, you know, perfectly fine. But here are, you know, there's a lovely portrait. There we got this, this young lady. Yeah, by Bruce Weber. And so what you can see is that you are seeing photographs by people whom you may never have heard of before. So here's a guy called Michelle Comte. And I'm so right if I'm assuming of Gina Davis. Now that's a wonderful photograph of Gina Davis, because it's very reminiscent of Marilyn Monroe and all the things. And I'll see if I can't find a picture of that and put it up on screen because it's beautiful. So if you were doing some fashiony kind of things, then you go, Oh, I can use that as an inspiration. So these are great ways to be introduced to photographers whose work are, you know, whose work are again, I'm doing it. What is this work? I think sort of say whose work is really wonderful to look at because it's different from what you see today. That I think is the biggest thing with these is that so much of this is coming from a period, especially with, with, always with, you know, Vanity Fair, from some of some back in their, in their heyday when Edward Steichen, I think it was, was in charge of their work. And that's, that's wonderful. So, you know, if you're stuck looking for some people, you know, go and find one person, go down the rabbit hole of taking a name and then following it, see where it goes. If you put off and the name of photographer whom you are familiar with into Google, it will give you a list of other names that the people, you know, people search for. So go and try these out. You know, they're, they're wonderful little rabbit holes that you can fall down. I love, love doing it. And that brings us on to very neatly the idea of workshops, you know, physical workshops where you go and you, you, a photographer shows you how to do X1 and Z things. Now back in the day, there were workshops by the greats of photography. I remember seeing an advert in a collection of Aputure magazines. Aputure was a, a magazine from like the early 1950s, somewhere around there. But there was an advert for a workshop, a weekend workshop and in Aspen or somewhere like that. And it was Ansel Adams, Minor White, Imogen Cunningham. I think Dorothy Lang was in there. A Robert Capper was on there, but his name had been crossed out. So I think maybe he pulled out a lot of it. But can you imagine going to a workshop of that caliber of those kind of photographers, even if you've never heard of these photographers, trust me, they are some big names. They are some important names in photography. And there are workshops similar to this that you can find. Now, admittedly, a lot of them, especially with the big names are online things. So you can't get the real benefit of a one to one in person workshop, which is speak to the photographer, speak to them and find out why they are taking the photographs. Do just slavishly copy the, you know, what is they're doing? Because often of these workshops, you know, they'll say, well, here's a model, here's a thing, right? And this is the setting. So go and shoot what I see. Ask them, spend time talking to them rather than taking photographs. So, you know, what motivates you to do this? Why is, why this particular spot and not the spot over there? And that's such a great way of really getting the most benefit for these workshops. Because some of these workshops can obviously cost you a fair amount of money, but they are an investment that is going to reap benefits for the rest of your photographic journey, unlike a lens or a camera. Up until this point, we have talked about famous photographers, you know, photographers from history and, you know, who've been of anti-fair and things like that, that, you know, people would kind of know, but what about the hidden gems? The gems that are less obvious, that they're flying under the radar? Well, you know, there are places like Behance and whatnot in the modern world, where you can go and look at photography and get inspiration from there. You know, these are people who are creating work that goes beyond, I think, the Instagram-y kind of world of things. And it's a great place to find inspiration. And then back in the very internet days when I have you, there were these books called the Creative Talent Source Book, so like this. So this is a book called The Alternative Pick. He said throwing it up, so it's completely out of focus. So these are books that would be sent off or, you know, art buyers and, you know, creative directors when I have you, they would buy and they would be flicking through them. And when you, when I show you some of these images, you will think, that's exactly the 90s. I'm just going to flick through to the photography part. And what, so basically, it's just a little source book, there we go, of images that photographers have paid money to put in there and, you know, to flick through. So these are a lovely little time capsule of the kind of photography that was being created. And maybe I can get some better pictures. Look at this. Just throwing things all over the place. You know, these are images that were being created at the time when I was learning photography. And the names of the photographers have slipped away. I think they're, you flick through the occasion, there's one name you can, oh, I recognize that name. But for the most part, they were just working photographers who were creating work. And this was their best work that they had paid money to put into here. So it is different. And it's completely outside of what is, let's say, the norm today. Now again, these creative talent source books, the alternative pick, whatever, you can get them on Amazon, they're not particularly expensive. In fact, they're not even expensive. They're, you know, the couple, a couple of coffees would cover the cost of that book. And again, it's something that you can pick up, you can flick through at your leisure and sit and digest the images and hopefully get some more inspiration. So these are all great ideas. I think they're wonderful ways of investing in yourself that are going to pay dividends far down the road that are not costing you a huge amount of money. Because let's face it, you know that it's photography is an expensive hobby, but it doesn't need to be. So we talked about workshops, about physical workshops. And I mentioned briefly about a lot of online things. And, and it reminds me of a thing that I heard recently, which I'm going to ask you to help me with because you've watched the video for this long. So I think you may know, right, is in researching a lot of things about, you know, how to improve your photography and educational science. I came across a correspondence course called The Famous Photographers, which I believe was in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, where you set away and you got a binder of, of, of, well, lessons, essentially, from, and I can't believe it's like, like Irvin Penn, Richard Averton, you know, all the greats and I'm sure there were names that did escape me. And, and I can't seem to find much information about this online. So if you seem to remember, there was a, you know, these, these correspondence work, please let me know, because I would be fascinated to see it. And what was even better is that you got to create images based around the, the, what was it, what was it called, the, you know, the lessons. And then there was in the back and they would actually, you know, they would have a look at them and go, you know, come back to Richard Averton says, this is crap. And wait, wait to burst your bubble on that. Look at that. I got a letter for Richard Averton. You know, but those things. So in the modern world, these do exist. They're obviously, you know, you can go online, the masters of photography, they have a, I think they're kind of a similar modern day equivalent. So they talk about Albert Watson, they talk about John Mayovitz and they, you know, all sorts of people. And they, and they talk you through their processes. And again, this comes back to the idea with, with the workshops is what, what insights you can get from listening to people, you're going to find far more that's going to improve your, your photographs by listening to these people. And I put a link in the description box below about the masters of photography, because I think out of everything that I've seen over the last few years, this probably gets the closest to really getting under the skin that the processes of listening to a photographer talk, understanding why they photograph the way that they do. And then they also talk about the technical hurdles, the technical challenges. And, and, and they also remind you that they face quite often the same challenges that you and I do. You know, they're not sure about their work, they're not, you know, convinced about this, that, or the next thing, or they, they, you know, they, they have issues with people liking their photography, or, you know, all the, basically they, it boils down to, do you know, they're like you and I. So anyway, so there's a link in the description box below, go and check them out. Throughout all of this, I haven't really mentioned a traditional photographic education, because I think for most people, especially in the modern world, that is, it is beyond most people's, you know, ability to, to, to get. But if you are interested in about the sort of things that photo school should have taught me, check out this video over here where I go into depth about my experiences. Thank you ever so much for watching and I will see you again soon.