The Bucket List Mermaid

Be honest... Who else hates the camera gear rabbit hole? Good day Reader, The best camera for travel photography isn’t necessarily the newest, fanciest, or most expensive. It’s the one you’ll actually carry when you’re: 🥾 Hiking before sunrise🏙️ Exploring a new city🛶 Kayaking past glaciers🦅 Waiting for wildlife to finally do something interesting Because if a camera is too heavy, complicated, or precious to bring on your adventures, it isn’t the best travel camera for you. It’s expensive...

Hear ye, hear ye! I'm Giving Away Photography Visability Challenges! Heyyy Reader, Travel photographers are very good at taking beautiful photos…and then letting those photos collect digital dust on a hard drive. So, I created a 30-Day Visibility Challenge for Travel Photographers to help you share your work, strengthen your online presence, make meaningful connections, and create more opportunities without becoming a full-time servant to the algorithm. And I’m giving it away to subscribers!...

Let me hold your hand... Your subject’s well-being matters more than your shot Hello there Reader, The other day, my friend “scared off” a bear. The bear was getting too close, so she followed the safety guidance for the situation and made her presence known: (“Hey, bear.” is the official way!) The bear moved away. Nobody was hurt. It should have been the end of the story. Except a nearby photographer, with an absolutely enormous telephoto lens, yelled at my friend for scaring away the bear...

Practice here. Nail the bucket-list shot later. Before your next big adventure, do this... Hey there Reader, You might think that you need Patagonia, Iceland, or a three-day backpacking trip to become a better adventure photographer. You don't. In fact, you probably shouldn’t wait for the big adventures to practice. Because when that bucket-list moment finally happens, you don’t want to be standing there thinking: Wait…what settings should I use?! The little adventures are where you prepare...

I may have created a monster... It's a PHOTOGRAPHY Bucket List! Hey there Reader, Most people have a travel bucket list. Naturally, I have a photography bucket list. And it has gotten slightly out of control. I want to photograph... -a whale breaching -an orca in the wild. -the Milky Way over my tent. -a glacier calving. -bioluminescent water. -a ridiculous cloud inversion. -...and apparently about 145 other things. So instead of keeping this chaos trapped inside my brain, I turned it into...

Let's be realistic here How to Practice Photography When You Aren't Traveling Hello Reader Sometimes I think we accidentally convince ourselves that photography requires... 🏔️ An epic mountain🐻 Cooperative wildlife✈️ A plane ticket🌅 A suspiciously perfect sunset🧜♀️ Perhaps a mermaid. Couldn't hurt. But here's the problem: If we only pick up our cameras when life looks extraordinary, we don't get much practice photographing ordinary life extraordinarily. And that's where a LOT of photography...

My Unfiltered thoughts on Wildlife photography When Seeing the Bear Gets Complicated Hey there Reader There is one question I hear almost every day as an adventure guide in Alaska: “When are we going to see bears?” And I get it. If you're coming to Alaska, seeing a bear is probably somewhere on the bucket list. And as the guide, I feel this weird little pressure to deliver. I want people to have that HOLY CRAP, I SAW A BEAR IN ALASKA moment. And selfishly? I want to see the bear too. I'm a...

No more ramen! 10+ Adventure Recipes HeyReader When people picture food that they take on adventures, they usually imagine one of two things: Trail mix and ramen. Story of my LIFE. And while there's absolutely a time and place for both...I refuse to believe that's the peak of human achievement. This summer in Alaska, I've been living out of an old bus, backpacking through the wilderness, and cooking on camp stoves with no refrigerator. Some days I'm guiding hikes, other days I'm out...

Wait...what did that mean again? 7 Adventure Photography Terms Every Photographer Should Know Hey Reader, Have you ever watched a photography tutorial and felt like everyone was speaking a completely different language? "Shoot in RAW." "Watch your histogram." "Try back-button focus." "Use hyperfocal distance." Cool. Great. Fantastic. But what does any of that actually mean? Photography has a habit of making simple concepts sound far more intimidating than they really are. So today, I thought...

Let's talk about the uncomfortable topic... Can you actually make money from photography online? Hey Reader, For the longest time, I thought making money from photography was something that happened after you became a professional photographer. You know...after the fancy camera. After the massive portfolio. After the thousands of followers. After you felt "good enough." Please note that this email may include affiliate links to trusted partners. I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you...