“To live a creative life we must first lose the fear of being wrong.” – Joseph Chilton Pearce

Have you ever noticed banding or streaks in your images, especially in areas where there are plain backgrounds like blue skies or plain coloured walls? This banding is caused by too much jpeg compression and can easily be avoided. In this tutorial, I’ll show you how the amount of jpeg compression you choose to export your images will influence how your images appear in print, and on the interwebs.

Above: Image by Gina Milicia, Cartagena, Colombia shot on iPhone 6 and processed in Lightroom Have you ever felt intimidated to share your work because you thought everyone else in your photography group, online community or class was better than you?  Are you frustrated by the fact that you are not grasping photography concepts or your work isn’t developing as fast as everyone else seems to be? “Comparison is the thief of joy.” When I was seven, my dad bought me a bike. It was the most beautiful bike I’d ever seen. It was powder blue with a white seat and white grips on the handlebars. I rode that bike everywhere. On the weekends I’d clean and polish the chrome and grease the chain. Riding that bike was my happy place, then one day one of my best friends got a bike for his birthday. His bike was a beautiful red...

Above: Image by Gina Milicia

“My favourite thing is to go where I’ve never been.” – Diane Arbus

Above: Image by Gina Milicia I realised that many of the principles used to create amazing meals can also be applied to the way we edit our photos. I’ve been binge-watching cooking shows during the summer. Nigella, Jamie, Anthony and Man vs Food (don’t judge me) are a few of my faves. Food porn is awesome. I watch in a Homer Simpson style stupor (“Mmmmm doughnuts…”) and the great thing about these shows is I can gorge on them all summer long and still fit into my jeans at the end of it. So aside from learning how to make custard filled doughnuts using a brioche pastry (the secret to a good brioche is chilling it overnight) I also realised that many of the principles used to create amazing meals can also be applied to the way we edit our photos. Above: Image by Gina Milicia The thing that all...

Above: Image by Gina Milicia “Let go of something old that no longer serves you to make room for something new.’” – Roy T. Bennett

“I think I’ve said this before many times—that photography allows you to learn to look and see. You begin to see things you had never paid any attention to. And as you photograph, one of the benefits is that the world becomes a much richer, juicier, visual place. Sometimes it is almost unbearable — it is too interesting. And it isn’t always just the photos you take that matters. It is looking at the world and seeing things that you never photograph that could be photographs if you had the energy to keep taking pictures every second of your life.”  – Saul Leiter In this one-hour webcast, Danie Bester talks about the life and work of the celebrated street photographer and master of colour photography, Saul Leiter.

Above: Image by Gina Milicia “Education without application is just entertainment.” I have a confession to make: I have not eaten Nutella for 4 months. This is a record for me. I have tried to quit before but always fell off the wagon. This time was different, the last binge did it for me. I ate two (YES, TWO!) jars of Nutella in one sitting. It was bliss at the time, but I felt like garbage for the next week, and now each time I think about Nutella, I am reminded of that ‘you just ate 200x the daily allowance of Nutella’ feeling. The pain of being a Nutella addict was now worse than the pain of not having Nutella in my life. “Change happens when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change.” – Tony Robbins As photographers, the ‘unknown’ or ‘discomfort’ can be experienced in...

Iceland Above: Bali fisherman Fuji x100f, image by Gina Milicia “I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. “Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re Doing Something. “So that’s my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life. “Whatever it is you’re scared of doing, Do it. “Make your mistakes, next year and forever.” ― Neil Gaiman