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CJ Chilvers

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"Make Me Nervous"

This week’s newsletter explores why this may not be the time to make a commercial photo book, why it’s always a good time to make a personal photo book, the importance of inefficiency and why John Waters wants you to make him “nervous.”

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Don't be an award winning photographer

The latest issue of the A Lesser Photographer newsletter is out with stories on Google Photos, why you shouldn’t care about photo contests, why you should care about your bad photos and the continued rise of the self-published photo book.

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This Week’s Newsletter

The Best Thing You Can Do When Launching an Idea [https://medium.com/orbital-nyc/on-constraints-exploration-and-chance-cfe46b116c56] “Constraints are a control mechanism buffering against the nature of how ideas work. Ideas like to go on forever, like the party guest who has endless stories to share with you, standing between you and

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Experiencing life second-hand is not living.

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If you could give one piece of valuable photography advice to someone, what would it be?

Jeff Guyer asked his students this question and now shares the best little nuggets of wisdom he received in return. (via Jack Hollingsworth [https://twitter.com/photojack/status/597990884504838145/])

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Read This Before You Blog

This week’s links: Hugh MacLeod wrote the best article about online publishing in years this week. If you blog, tweet or publish your stuff in any way, you need to read it [http://www.copyblogger.com/vanity-metrics/]. Don’t Quit Your Day Job [http://www.levenger.com/BOOKS-17/LEVENGER-PRESS-BOOKS-238/

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What Are You Willing to Give Up for Photography?

As much as photography adds to our lives, we often forget it comes at a cost. Besides money, we invest our time, creativity and attention. When we focus that energy on one thing, it comes at the cost of other things. To leave this unexamined is a recipe for frustration

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How to Avoid Photography Tips

I worry about you. Every time I see another popular tip article, I worry you’re reading it and killing untold brain cells. * 149 Tips and Tricks for Your DSLR * 55 Tips for Absolute Beginners * 30 Amazing Ways to Up Your Lightroom Game * 405 Cameras You Must Try Before Die

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This Week's A Lesser Photographer Newsletter

The weekly newsletter is out. Just a reminder – this blog is just a scratchpad of sorts for the newsletter. The 1600+ newsletter subscribers have entrusted me with their email addresses and I take that seriously. You are my best readers. Want to join them? Subscribe [http://alesserphotographer.us2.list-manage.com/

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Making An Accomplished Photograph Is No Longer The

> “Making an accomplished photograph is no longer the great challenge for our generation of photographers. Instead, our great challenge is using photography to say something meaningful.” — Brooks Jensen on The Lenswork Podcast [http://daily.lenswork.com/2015/04/podcast-912-the-next-challenge.html]