When I was young, I had all the time in the world for hobbies, but for some reason I was never really into photography. Then when my first son was born, I suddenly discovered what busy really means. Overnight my life went from what I now look back on as a life of leisure, to barely having enough energy to change diapers and sleeping two hours a night if I was lucky. I had no time for current hobbies, let alone picking up a new one.

I’m a fan in the Pareto Principal, also called the “80/20 rule”. Basically, focusing on the right 20% of anything will usually yield 80% of the results. As an incredibly busy parent, figuring out the right 20% of photography to focus on was the key to getting maximum enjoyment in a minimum amount of time. So I looked for books, classes and other tools that could make me a better photographer in the least amount of time. It took a lot of trail-and-error, but I ultimately discovered a couple gems that were game-changers. Today, when I look at all the photos of my kids, our vacations, our travels, etc., I feel like the return on investment is bigger than I can measure: The memories I’ve captured are a continuous source of joy for my entire family and even for a lot of our friends.

My approach and process for quickly learning any new skill

When my first son was just a few months old, I made a startling discovery as a new dad. Just looking at the past several weeks worth of pictures on my iPhone made me realize just how fast he was changing. It was unreal. Everything everyone told me was true: In a matter of months newborns go from baby to toddler, then before you know it, they’re kids. It was that realization that made me want to get better at capturing precious memories while staying present in the moment at the same time. That meant spending no more than a few minutes each day learning something new, and whatever I learned had to be useful immediately. Fortunately, I already had a time-tested approach I could use.

In my day job I am a Tech Concierge for customers ranging from small business owners to CEOs and other executives. I am constantly helping my customers overcome new problems that come from the new tech products they buy. To be successful, I constantly tap into my education, certifications and decades of experience, but what’s more important is my approach to learning something new, very quickly. It’s an approach that has served me well, and delights my customers, because service is always brief, efficient and effective.

My three-step approach for learning any new skill

Here is the three-step approach I use when learning any new skill that helps me decide what information to consume and when:

First, you need to learn the basics. If you want to learn how to use a camera, it’s worth having a guru or an expert explain the basics and what’s important — the 20% that you really need to know. At this stage you don’t need to know why things work, you just need to be able to pick up a camera and take an in-focus picture.
The second step is learning some theory and practice. Learning more about how things work, like how light, shutter speed, ISO and aperture all work to create an image — again, focusing on the 20% of theory that matters most to get 80% results — can dramatically improve the quality of the photos you take, no matter what kind of camera you use, even a smartphone.
Finally, the third step in the process is continuous improvement on a case-by-case basis. By this point your skills are enough to begin understanding what you need to know that you don’t know, and it becomes easier to search for the in-depth information — again, the 20% that matters most — to keep getting better.

My top 3 photo and video training tools for super-busy parents

I spent some time on Youtube looking for good videos covering the basics. There are a lot of really great creators talking about nearly every aspect of photography, but almost everything was lacking context for beginners and mostly focused on people who want to do professional photography. I really couldn’t find a Youtube channel for a dad like me who just wants to take photos for my family.

The best book for basics: Stunning Digital Photography

Then I discovered a book called Stunning Digital Photography by Tony and Chelsea Northrup (link to Amazon). If you only buy one book on photography, this is it. I bought the Kindle version which has nearly 100 videos — nearly 20 hours — of incredible content explaining the basics and concepts in the book. Tony and Chelsea are great teachers with a pragmatic, practical, almost minimalist teaching style.

Stunning Digital Photography is both easy to read and approachable for anyone at any level, even someone who’s never touched a camera before. Because of my crazy busy dad/husband/work schedule, I only had a few minutes each day to read, but within those few minutes I always took away at least one tip or concept that was immediately useful the next day, no matter what camera I picked up to take a picture, even an iPhone.

Stunning Digital Photography also gets better with age. I bought the book nine years ago, and year after year I keep going back to it, whether it’s to re-read a section I’m interested in or to learn a new fun trick, like how to “draw” light trails with long exposure at night. Stunning Digital Photography is a great investment.

Going beyond the basics using CreativeLive

We traveled a lot as a family during my son’s first few years, and sometimes I took my better camera in addition to my iPhone. The basics paid off. Some of the photos are family favorites we look back on year after year, and our son loves seeing things we did together that he sometimes doesn’t remember, which is often the case with kids as they go from baby to toddler to bigger kids. A camera with interchangeable lenses makes pictures like the one here possible.

I naturally hit certain challenges along the way. Usually I knew I was at a road block when something I wanted to do was uncomfortable or the results weren’t great. So I started looking for the next-level of education that would fit my busy lifestyle. Traditional college classes or photography workshops wouldn’t work. They would take away too much of my time from family on the weekend. Even something local required getting prepped and driving across town, which adds another hour to whatever the length of class is. Also, I always hated college classes in general, because I’m sitting with 30-ish other people at whatever level they’re at, and we are all sharing the teacher’s attention. This means, realistically, I may be spending 2-3 hours in a class and only getting 3% of the teacher’s bandwidth. The other 97% of time the teacher’s addressing questions below my level or above my level, or simply regurgitating material that’s designed for everyone. It’s a royal waste of time.

About the time I was looking for an alternative, a brilliant photographer and entrepreneur named Chase Jarvis founded CreativeLive, an online education site filled with incredible classes by top professionals that are surprisingly affordable for the quality and content. I have bought 47 classes to date on various business and entrepreneurship topics that interest me, but I started with some photo and video fundamental classes (link to CreativeLive) that helped me take my skills to the next level. The following list of photo-related classes I bought at full price. If you end up buying a course from CreativeLive I receive a small referral fee that supports my work here on the blog. It almost goes without saying I would never recommend anything I don’t use and love. Every one of these classes I bought for myself at full price:

Fundamentals of Photography taught by John Greengo (link) was the first class I took when I was ready to go to the next level.

Fundamentals of Photography taught by John Greengo
iPhone X: The Quick Guide to Great Photos + Video taught by Chase Jarvis
Natural Light Photography taught by Sue Bryce
Light Painting for Beginners taught by Ben Willmore
Light Painting by Tim Cooper (can you tell I like light painting?)
Night Photography Fundamentals taught by Gabriel Biderman
Astro Landscape Photography taught by by Lance Keimig
Portraits at Night taught by Matt Hill
Fundamentals of DSLR Filmmaking taught by Victor Ha

We live in an exciting time, and we’re so fortunate to have access to classes like the ones above, accessible on any device and from anywhere with an Internet connection. I didn’t have to go back to school to learn photography. At least not traditional school. I was able to find the topics I wanted to focus on, in the order I wanted them, and from teachers I like, and at a tiny fraction of the cost of schools that keep investing in more buildings and desks that are empty the majority of the time.

Continuous improvement: Finding your tribal chiefs (experts) on Youtube

Tony and Chelsea got me started with their book, and Chase Jarvis got me access to the next level of instruction, all while I was building a tech company, traveling around the world and helping raise our first born.

By the time I made it through those resources I could finally understand the language of photography. Maybe not all of it, but I could participate in the conversation. So I jumped on Youtube and started looking for Channels let by Creators I both liked and could learn from. Oh boy, did I find them. Here are my choices for the fab five of Youtube:

IMPORTANT: DO NOT subscribe to their channels unless you are really smitten by their work and plan to follow them. The Youtube algorithm can actually hurt creators if you subscribe but them don’t actually follow them. Check out their videos first, and if you like them, subscribe. But if you don’t, no worries. No one will blame you. Just find who you like, and that may not be any of these Youtubers. These are my favs, remember? And it’s all about me when I’m the one blogging.

I already knew about Tony and Chelsea from their book. I think Tony came from an IT background, similar to mine, so I feel like I have a lot in common with his philosophy and approach to the “system” of photography.
He’s a bit advanced, but Phillip Bloom never talks over his audience. I quite love his style. A seasoned cinematographer, he understands and can explain the relationship between photography and video in clear and understandable ways that other photographers can’t. He’s also a cat person.
For pure, undiluted photography videos that are smart, polite, funny and very entertaining, check out Peter McKinnon. Fun vlogs, great tutorials, and lots of other really great content.
UK based Thomas Heaton is the photographer I relate to the most. Maybe because he’s an admitted introvert, or maybe because he lives for the outdoors. Thomas is a fantastic photographer and a fun human being.
I feel like I need to put a PG-13 rating on Kai Wong, only because his sense of humor is so well developed. Kai’s like a rarely R-rated version of Monty Python, but only smarter and not quite R rated, so I suppose that makes him PG-13 to silly people who care about measurement systems for nonsense like this. Anyway, Kai’s brilliant and does great reviews. I highly recommend his channel.

The power of Youtube is the ability to connect at some level with talented creators, the most successful of which find their micro-niche and attract other like-minded people. Seth Godin calls this phenomenon finding “People like us who do things like this", and Youtube is where you find people with the skills, attitudes and similar interests you can learn from.

Conclusions & some other thoughts

Remember, I wouldn’t have gone down this path if I didn’t value the pictures. Capturing what my little guys looked like (I have two boys now) at various stages of their life was important to me. Today, they’re still little kids, but the happiness I get looking at them when they were small enough to be strapped to daddy’s check in an ergo makes the investment in camera gear sooooo worth it.

I can’t take credit for coming up with a smart plan that fit into my crazy busy overloaded dad life. What I just shared with you above may sound great in hindsight, but I really had no idea what I was doing. I’m just crazy and stubborn enough to keep trying things until I find something that works. Which is why I wanted to share this with any other dads & moms that may find some element of it useful.

If you have any questions about any of the above, reach out to me here.

Also, I am offering a special package for Father’s Day. It’s an unlimited Google Photos account setup for an entire family. Check it out here.

How super-busy parents can improve their photography skills in no time