Above: Image by Gina Milicia “The one thing you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can. The moment that you feel that just possibly you are walking down the street naked… that’s the moment you may be starting to get it right.” – Neil Gaiman, Make Good Art

This simple little tip will make a big impact on how you view your images. When working in the Develop Module in Lightroom tap “L” on your keyboard once to dim the filmstrip and tool panels around your image. Lights out mode (Dimmed) removes distractions but still lets you view filmstrip and tools. Tap on “L” again to completely black out the area around your image. Blacking out the area around your image removes distractions and makes it much easier to judge brightness, contrast and colour tones.

Above: Image by Gina Milicia The difference between average and great – the thing that sets the Nutellas apart from the regular chocolate spreads – is hard work.  Ask any champion athlete, billionaire businessman or brilliant artist what they do every day to reach that elite level and you will never hear “Errr dunno, I woke up one morning after spending most of my waking moments on the couch watching re-runs of One Tree Hill and eating Cheetos.” The only exception to this rule is the supermodel. They are formed by a rare genetic mutation where all the cells miraculously line up to create physical beauty. They literally wake up one day and are drop-dead gorgeous. So even if you missed out on the supermodel genes when they were handed out at birth, there is still hope for you to achieve greatness. But first things first, put down the Cheetos and step...

Above: Image by Gina Milicia “You can look at a picture for a week and never think of it again. You can also look at the picture for a second and think of it all your life.”  – Joan Miro

Above: Image by Gina Milicia, Cartagena, Colombia shot on iPhone 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 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 racing bike...

Above: Image by Gina Milicia I’ve spent most of my life believing I was an extrovert. As a child, I was the class clown, always the first to volunteer to read out loud in class. I love people and will happily talk anyone’s ear off at a party. Classic extrovert right? Ahhh nooo, the truth is I’ve got this definition totally wrong my whole life.  I’m an introvert.  I always believed the definition of an introvert was someone who was painfully shy, socially awkward and hated to leave the house, and while this may be true for some, there are many, many introverts who, just like me, have the following preferences: 1.  They prefer to work in solitude  I spent the first 15 years of my career working in a shared office in a busy studio. I was very easily distracted by other people and found I got the bulk...

Iceland Above: Image by Gina Milicia All of us are on borrowed time. There are no refunds and there are no guarantees. At some point, the only time you’ll have to worry about is the time you’ve wasted. – Seth Godin

How do you know when to press the shutter of your camera? How do you know when you need to take a photograph? How do you decide that this is the moment? This is it! I just have to take a photo. This is what the French photographer Henri Cartier Bresson was calling the Decisive Moment. That moment of perfect position of the person that it’s being photograph in relation to the perfect position of the photographer that takes the photo. It all has to come together perfectly. And this is just a click, a moment, a split of a second. Henri Cartier Bresson was a French photographer, born in 1908. He is considered the master of candid photography and he was one of the founding members of Magnum Photos. But what he’s famous for is this concept of decisive moment that produces a lovely candid photo.

Above: Image by Gina Milicia I’m now in my second week of stage 4 lockdown. This means that approximately 5 million fellow Melbournians and I will stay home for the next six weeks. Everything is closed except for essential services. We can only leave the house for an hour a day and must not travel more than 5km from home. I’m not going to lie, this second lockdown has been tough. I think I spent most of the first-week comfort eating, day drinking and binge-watching One tree Hill ( my go-to in a crisis). Then somewhere between season 5 and season 6 I started feeling a bit more positive and remembered something my mum always used to say when life got tough. It’s an old Sicilian proverb, handed down through the generations. “From caca, good things grow.” I have two choices here. I can be angry and complain about everything...