This has been a challenging time for us all.

I could list all the reasons this year has been so painful… the devastating impact to so many small businesses, people who have lost a loved one to COVID-19, not being able to visit aging family members, tough decisions about putting kids in school, etc. but where do I stop? The list would get quite long.

Then add to this the terrible ways people are treating each other in the midst of this outrageously polarized political season. I am amazed and a bit heartbroken in seeing how people are treating each other. This has all made a bad situation worse, as if the pandemic alone was not bad enough.

And then there has been the unprecedented wildfires in Colorado, burning nearly half a million acres of my favorite place on Earth, in Rocky Mountain National Park.

And then there are friends who have been battling cancer, some having already lost their battle, plus a dear friend recently died unexpectedly in a car accident.

I must admit I have been struggling to deal with all this lately. In a sense, I guess I am suffering from 2020 depression. I find myself just emotionally depleted.

And then I remember all the truly beautiful friends in my life. I am so blessed.

And then I will never forget how so many people responded to help us and our small business through the GofundMe Small Business Relief Initiative and other ways they helped. This helped us survive this unexpected pandemic. It has all been so humbling. We still have some tough months ahead, but this GofundMe campaign and other generosity of friends and clients is proving to be a lifesaver for us.

Our Sanity Walks
Every morning, Gail and I go on a 3.5 mile walk which I have been calling my “sanity walk.” We usually walk through our neighborhood or on some of the nearby hiking trails in the hills near our home. While on our sanity walk, I will often photograph something that catches my eye, using my iPhone. The point isn’t to create some amazing photograph. It is more about simply appreciating the small things in life, the things I might be tempted to walk on past and just take for granted.

Gratitude
Anyway, on this day where “melancholy” perhaps best describes my feelings about 2020, I must remember to be thankful because in spite of all that has been hard, I have seen the beauty in the world around me and in the beauty of all of you. I will focus on the acts of kindness I have experienced from you and on the ways I can devote myself to acts of kindness for others.

We take so much for granted, even when we don’t mean to.

I think the key to a well-lived life is to focus on being grateful.

Recently on one of my sanity walks, I stopped looking at the “things” we walked past, and just looked up at the sky. I mean, how often do we give thanks for the sky? Sure we might notice a pretty sunrise or sunset, or maybe an interesting cloud formation, but what about the rest of the sky?

I just started thinking about the beautiful blue sky in the cool morning air. All I could see was the light blue, but beyond that, beyond my ability to see, is the expanse of the universe. That thin layer of atmosphere is what protects our planet from the harshness of space. It is what sustains our life. Yet another thing I normally just take for granted.

I guess I just felt like writing this, at a time when 2020 is getting me “down” and wanted to intentionally remember that this world is surrounding us all with so much to be grateful for. Don’t take ANY of it for granted.

Hug your family. Hug your friends. Go out and hug your neighbors (maybe a virtual hug for now). Hug your dog or cat. Go out and even hug a tree.

Go out for a walk and devote the entire walk to thinking about all the things you are grateful for. That is, if you can walk. Remember even the ability to walk is something to be grateful for. If you can’t walk, you still can find so much to be grateful for.

Once you LOSE one of those things you have taken for granted, you will be reminded once again, you have been blessed by so much more than you realized.

Just be grateful for it all.

Kevin Gourley

P.S. If the isolation of COVID-19 is getting you down, join our LifeInsights group! All are welcome and invited.

This long endurance test imposed on us by COVID-19 is making us all weary. Here I sit in my studio that once had a thriving business with all sorts of activities happening in here each week, and now it mostly sits as an empty space, void of activity for the past 6 months with no end in sight. Of course there is the stress of monthly payments of rent, utilities, phone, Internet, security monitoring, insurance for this space I am hardly using.

Our studio is technically open for business and we are carefully following CDC recommendations and protocols but the demand is just not there right now for studio photography. So we are just hanging on, and waiting for better times while picking up a little business here and there.

I will be forever grateful to all who extended helped us out with our GoFundMe Small Business Relief Initiative Campaign. Your help was a life-saver for our small business.

Even though this has had a hard impact on my studio photography business and in-person classes, it have not been sitting around idle, waiting for better days. I have been working hard, scrambling to add all-new online classes to replace our many in-person classes I used to teach at my studio.

In a sense, we are reinventing ourselves to adapt to the new normal, just as many other businesses have had to do, such as restaurants who have had to alter their services to focus on take-out orders or curbside pickup. (I haven’t figured out how to do curbside headshots, but maybe I need to!) People are giving good reviews of our new online classes and we will continue those.

Also as an effort to help out others who have been feeling the financial crunch of this pandemic, all of our online group classes are set up where you can name your own price. We give a suggested price, but you can pay a little more to help us out, or pay a little less if you are financially struggling also. This plan has worked out very well.

Also our FREE Monday night LifeInsights group continues to meet, but we are doing so online via Zoom meetings.

Even though we are adapting, I still so much look forward to “normal” life again.

I guess I just want to say… “I miss you all.”

Here are a few photo memories of great experiences. My career has led me to meet to many truly wonderful people.

Kevin

Our photographs express our unique personal view of this world. Through our photographs, we are visual storytellers. We grasp fleeting moments in time, with images that help us remember special events, places, and people in our lives.

Because they tell our life story, our photographs have intrinsic value. We might even discover that some of our photographs are “priceless” to us, so it is worth spending a little time to learn how to take better photographs since we value them so much!

These days, most of us have cameras with us all the time, built into our smart phones. You can take a great photo with your phone, but there are some significant limitations with these devices. Of course, the best camera is the one you have with you at the time you need it, so that smart phone in your pocket or purse can really be handy at times.

If you have taken the next step into the wonderful world of photography, you may have bought a camera that has all kinds of wonderful features which will allow you to take a much better photograph. Some cameras have several automatic modes and other features you possibly find confusing or frustrating. You might occasionally get some really nice shots, yet other times, the camera doesn’t do what you want it to do and you are frustrated with the results. I wrote the book, “30 Practical Tips for Better Photographs” for you.

Lots of people think they just need to buy a better camera to take better photographs. Then they experience disappointment when the “better camera” isn’t taking better pictures. The real key to better photographs is to learn what YOU, as the photographer, need to DO to take better photos.

The camera is just a machine, getting smarter and smarter with each new product introduced, but it is STILL just a machine. No matter what camera you own, if you learn how to operate the “machine” better, you will get better results!

My book offers 30 practical tips to create consistently better images by showing you how to control the most important features of your camera. Put these recommendations into practice and you definitely will get better photographs!

I don’t want you to accidentally take a good photo every once in a while. My goal is to help you discover what you need to know to take great photographs consistently, not accidentally!

Whether you are using a digital SLR (DSLR), a mirrorless camera with interchangeable lenses (MILC), or a fancy point-and-shoot camera, this book will help! Sometimes I might mention Canon or Nikon or Sony specifically, but much of what I cover applies to other brands as well. Canon and Nikon and Sony make great cameras and they dominate the current photography market, but other camera brands such as Pentax, Olympus, Fujifilm, etc. are also good cameras. Don’t think you need to go out and buy a Canon, Nikon, or Sony if you currently have another brand.

I recently saw an ad online for a used camera and the ad said: “Takes great pictures.” That would be like posting an ad for a paint brush and saying: “Paints great paintings.” What matters more than how fancy your camera is, is how well you know how to use it.

I have taught photography workshops to beginner and advanced students for many years and I am well aware of the challenges photographers face that sometimes lead to disappointing results. My experience in teaching is what has led me to include the various chapters I included in my book. There is a lot more to photography that could take hundreds of books to cover, but I tried to distill it down to the most important things you need to learn to begin to master your camera.

I hope you’ll buy a copy! And also remember I reach a broad range of classes.

Happy Picture Taking!
Kevin Gourley

Readers are saying: “highly recommend” “many useful tips” “easy to read, learn and apply” “an excellent book for anyone wanting to improve” “very well written” “explains camera terms in a way that you understand” “a wonderful guide” “a great resource” “this book should always be in your camera bag“

I have loved photography for quite a long time, since my high school days over 40 years ago. I wholeheartedly dove into photography, learning everything I could, sharpening my camera skills, then learning B&W and Color darkroom techniques. I did my own film developing and printing. I did studio work, portraiture, landscapes, nature, really all aspects of photography, all while in my teen years. I even taught my first photography classes back then as well!

In a nostalgic way, I sort of miss those days when we created images on film and had to wait to see the results after the images were developed, and I miss the long hours spent in the darkroom. It was truly a different craft than what photographers do today. I miss it, but I’m not ready to go back to shooting with film. It is a bygone era, except for a few folks who are going “retro” and having fun with film, exploring the world I knew so well so many decades ago.

Looking back on all of my wonderful experiences with a camera in hand, I am grateful for the memories. I’ve included a few images, below, that I created wayyyyy back when I was a teen.

In whatever type of photography you pursue, I hope you find the part of it that you LOVE.

Kevin Gourley