Subscribe
Back in 1991, my boss and mentor laughed at my photos and told me they were horrible. If you've ever gotten a negative comment or a disappointing response on a photo you're proud of, then you know how fast your confidence can be crushed. What I learned over the next 35 years changed the way I judge my own ability... and it may change the way you judge yours too.
Understand when and why to use the tools you already know.
Learn the basics without getting overwhelmed by settings and rules.
Make better decisions about light, composition, settings, and timing.
Build the confidence to trust your choices and create with intention.
Practice what you learn through: projects, live workshops, honest feedback, and a supportive community.
270,000 Photographers Taught • 37 Years Experience • 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee
For a long time, I think a lot of us have treated the creative eye like talent. You either have it... Or you don’t. Some people can walk into an ordinary location and see an amazing image. But, the rest of us might walk right past it… am I right? And when you see someone creating images you wish you could create, it’s easy to think: “They just have an eye for this.” But I don’t believe that anymore. Because I wasn’t born seeing images the way I see them today. I had to learn how to see them.
Back in 1991, I was proud of my photos. I was learning. Experimenting. Trying to figure this whole photography thing out. And then my confidence was crushed by one person. Because when you create something, there’s a little piece of you in it. You saw something. You made choices. You pressed the shutter thinking... “Yeah. I like that.” And then someone tears it apart. Not in a way that helps you improve. They just make you feel like maybe you’re not very good at this. And those moments can stick with you. You start second-guessing yourself. Maybe I don’t have the talent. Maybe I don’t have the creative eye everyone else has. Maybe other people can see things I can’t. But I kept going. And I’m glad I did because photography has changed my life. So, when I look at those early images now and compare them to what I create today, I can see something I couldn’t see back then. The biggest change wasn’t my camera. It wasn’t a better lens. It wasn’t Photoshop. I changed. More specifically... I trained my brain to see things I hadn’t noticed before.
And that’s what I want you to understand. You’re not born with a creative eye. You train it. Think about learning to drive. When you first started, you had to think about everything. Speed. Brakes. Traffic. Where your hands were. Where the car was in the lane. There was a lot going on. But after enough repetition, your brain started processing those things without you having to think about every one of them. Seeing images works much the same way. At first, you may walk into a scene and just see... A waterfall. A tree. A bird. A mountain. A person. But as you train your eye, you start seeing more. You notice where the light is falling. You realize the scene in front of you is boring. So, you move twenty feet to the right and everything clicks. You notice the relationship between colors. Shapes. Lines. Texture. You begin asking: What caught my attention? What is this image about? What belongs? What doesn’t? Where should the viewer look first? And the more you make those decisions... The better you get at seeing the possibilities before you ever press the shutter. That’s the difference between taking an image and creating one. And it doesn’t happen because you memorize 100 composition rules. It happens because you start paying attention to the decisions behind the image. You create something. You look at the result. You ask yourself what worked. What didn’t. What could I have changed? And then you go out and do it again. Over and over. That feedback starts training your brain. And little by little, things you had to force yourself to notice start becoming things you see without thinking about them. That’s what happened to me. Not overnight. Not because someone handed me a camera and I had some magical gift. I trained my eye for years. And I’m still training it. Because there’s always something else to see. So if you look at your images today and they’re not where you want them to be... Don’t look at someone else’s work and decide they were born with something you weren’t. I started with many of the same doubts you might be having right now. And in time I learned to see the image that I had envisioned, before I pressed the shutter. The difference between then and now isn’t talent. It’s the decisions I made. The mistakes I made. The Experiments. The Feedback. And the Practice. And little by little, all of that helped me see and create the images I’m proud of today. So the next time you raise your camera... Don’t ask yourself whether you have a creative eye. Ask yourself: What am I seeing that I didn’t notice before?
So, learning to see changes what you notice before you press the shutter. But seeing the possibilities is only part of creating the image you have in mind. There’s another part of photography I had to rethink completely, even in a course that’s been watched more than a million times. Watch this video next, and I’ll show you what I got wrong.
