WHY EVERY ECOMMERCE STORE SHOULD HAVE AN EMAIL AUTORESPONDER

Is your ecommerce store taking advantage of email marketing?

If not, you’re missing out big time…

We’ve already discussed why email marketing is essential for your business – and yet, we’re disappointed at the fact that so many ecommerce stores continue to neglect email marketing.

So, in case you’re still on the fence about using email marketing, we want to give you a gentle nudge to the other side. Don’t worry, you’ll thank us later!

What we’ll specifically cover is your email autoresponder. An email autoresponder is an automated set of time-based messages you send to subscribers after they subscribe to your list.

A basic autoresponder for an ecommerce store might look something like this:

Day 1: Email 1 – Welcome
Day 2: Email 2 – Basic company story
Day 4: Email 3 – How to get the best deals from our store
Day 6: Email 4 – Free gift and discount offer
Day 7: Email 5 – Discount reminder (last chance)
Now that you have a basic of what an email autoresponder looks like, let’s get right into it…

Here’s why every ecommerce store should have an email Autoresponder…

Turn Visitors into Customers
Not every visitor on your website will be ready to buy. Sometimes, they need a little nurturing.

With an email autoresponder, you can take them by the hand and lead them to a sale.

By educating them a bit, adding value, and offering a discount, you become more than just another ecommerce store. And that might be just what they need to become a customer.

To do that, though, you need more than just one email – you need an autoresponder series.

So it’s no surprise that this study from Soundest found that an autoresponder series generates up to 23% more orders than a single welcome email.

Turn One-Time Customers into Repeat Customers
Just because a customer buys from you one time doesn’t mean they’ll buy from you again. However, if you can communicate with them in the right way, they may just become repeat customers.

Again, this is where your autoresponder comes into play.

By telling them a little about your company story and why you’re different, showing them how to get the best deals on your products, and offering them an exclusive discount, you can turn these one-time buyers into loyal followers.

Whereas if you DON’T have any kind of email autoresponder, they may just forget about you. And that’s a big mistake – especially because the customers who just bought from you are most likely to buy from you again. With an autoresponder, you stay fresh in their mind.

Build a Relationship
People buy from people who they know, like, and trust. And so, it’s important that you build a relationship with your customers and visitors.

An email autoresponder keeps your audience engaged, so they never stop opening, clicking, and buying from you. It also allows you to showcase some of your personality and tell your story, so you’re not just another faceless corporation trying to take their money.

That’s part of the reason that 44% of email recipients have made at least one purchase last year based on a promotional email.

Segment Your Audience
Perhaps the most powerful aspect of email autoresponders is that they allow you to segment your audience.

By segmenting your audience, you can send the right message, to the right person, at the right time.

For example, let’s save you have an ecommerce store that sells t-shirts specifically focused on different sports gear.

In your autoresponder, you could ask your audience which sports they’re most interested in. Then in the future, you can tailor your offers to this information. For example, if you have a sale on basketball jerseys, you can send it specifically to the segment of your audience who is interested in basketball gear.

Conclusion
Email marketing is one of the best ways ecommerce stores can build relationships with customers, make more sales, and keep customers coming back for more. There’s no debate here – every ecommerce store will benefit from an email autoresponder, and several of our ecommerce clients here at ARCH are already seeing great results from their autoresponders.

If you want help creating an email autoresponder for your ecommerce store, go here to send us an email and let us know!

3 KEYS TO ENGAGING GENERATION Z

Millennials have been the center of everyone’s attention for the past decade, but there is a new demographic upon us: Generation Z, oftentimes referred to as Centennials or the iGeneration, are currently making up a quarter of the U.S. population and holding nearly $44 billion in annual purchasing power in the U.S. alone.

My name is Mia Stein and I am a coming-of-age member of the iGen. As my generation continues to expand (with its oldest members aged between 20-23), the millennial market is growing increasingly more obsolete.

And so, the time has come to begin shifting marketing focus toward this new generation.

Because whether or not we are included in your current target audience, we will be before you know it; and, with the surge of companies and corporations begging for a second of our attention, you must understand this demographic now if you want to capture our purchases in the future.

Cross Platform Campaigns
My generation is a demographic composed of individuals who have never existed in a time without internet, and while millennials are often times referred to as the tech savvy generation, their exposure to digital technology and social media did not occur in their formative years as it did for me and my generation.

Social media has been embedded into the lives of iGen as a major tool for communication. While going a day without a cellphone may be an annoyance for millennials, it is nearly impossible for centennials.

In the past, advertising campaigns were solely designed for TV and radio. After the creation of Facebook and Twitter, it was clear that people’s attention was shifting in a new direction. Now, iGen is glued to their screens, constantly flipping between numerous social media platforms such as Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter, and this is where cross platform campaigns come into play.

Cross platform campaigns are marketing campaigns that utilize multiple social media outlets to spread information and reach a larger audience. If your company does not campaign through social, it is likely a majority of my generation will never hear about you.

So, this means that you should:

Set up social media accounts for your business on platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat
Make sure content is easy to access so that the audience doesn’t have to spend time searching for it
Create ad campaigns across every active social platform
Ensure we see your products across every medium
Give us easy pathways to your products/services and website
Simplicity
Generation Z is a demographic of multitaskers. It is profoundly challenging for us to engage in something as simple as watching TV without simultaneously texting, snapchatting, or browsing our feeds.

Because we grew up in a world full of technology where we are constantly being served enormous amounts information, unfortunately our attention spans last about 8 seconds; but, this exposure has also crafted us into experts in quickly filtering through whatever we come into contact with through various media outputs.

The most successful way of getting through to my generation is by communicating the way we communicate, with short messages that are easy to digest and communication through images.

There is a reason we use Snapchat, an app that allows messages to be sent for only a matter of seconds before disappearing, Twitter only allows a determined letter count, Vine, an app that displayed 7 second videos (RIP #sniff), and text phrases such as “lol”. We simply can’t bring ourselves to interact with anything outside of our attention span.

Important guidelines to remember: Keep messages simple and to the point

Know that we prize our secrecy and will utilize the apps that provide the most of it
Storytelling is still very relevant, but in small tidbits (give us the highlights)
Relevancy
Relevance to your target audience is always a major key in marketing, however this is a tricky crowd to market to because the relevancy of certain material is constantly changing.

Facebook worked for millennials, but a majority of centennials are deleting their Facebook apps or seldom open it. The only reason I keep my Facebook app is to keep in contact with family members and older friends. Snapchat, Instagram, and Twitter are the main focus of my generation.

Another thing to note when communicating with this audience is the vernacular in which you speak. For example, people often assume that younger generations are drawn to words such as “swag” or text phrases, when in reality, this jargon tends to have an opposite effect. We have somewhat of an internal monitor that can detect the whether or not one’s speech is genuine or attempting to fit in.

My generation appreciates realness, authenticity, and individuality. If you aren’t particularly knowledgeable in the latest slang and colloquial terms, it’s best to refrain and communicate in a standard form.

How to maintain authenticity in your copy:

Have confidence in your brand – do not force it to be something it’s not
We know when you’re trying too hard
Don’t try to be “cool” with word choice, hashtags or visual content
There are aspects to my generation that may seem somewhat complex or confusing but underneath all our strange idiosyncrasies, we are quite simple.

We welcome brands that captivate our attention or draw us in, and while it only takes us about 2 seconds to decide if we like you or not – don’t let that discourage you.

Most importantly, don’t let your marketing style drive us away. It’s one thing if we don’t like the product/service, but it’s a shame if we are interested but the irrelevant marketing strategies drive us away.

Keep it short, stay confident in your brand, and be everywhere.

HOW TO CREATE A PAID PRIVATE FACEBOOK GROUP

Do you know one of the biggest keys to a thriving business?

A highly engaged community.

When your customers are engaged with your content (and with each other) they’re more likely to become your true fans and stick around for the long haul.

And one of the best ways to create a highly engaged community is with a paid private Facebook group.

Why?

It gives you a place to host and deliver your content
It allows your community members to easily engage with that content and with each other
It allows you to limit access to qualified members
It allows you to moderate and control the group
What’s more, when done right a paid private Facebook group can be a great source of monthly recurring income.

So, in short, paid private Facebook groups can be powerful. But how do you actually create one and get it up and running?

That’s exactly what we’ll talk about today.

How to Create a Paid Private Facebook Group
Choose a Group Title (and a Purpose)
Before you can pick the title, you need a purpose for your group.

To figure that out, ask yourself: “How will my Facebook group help my customers?”

Will it support them and guide them on their way to starting an online business? Will it provide a place for them to get answers about their Facebook ad questions?

This question will help you determine the main benefit of the group (i.e. why people will want to join) and also help you decide on a group title.

Once you have a purpose in mind, you can choose a title related to that purpose (and/or related to the name of your company).

Keep in mind: you want the group title to be something people think of and are proud to be a part of. So, leave the cheesy titles at the door, and pick something that your customers will strongly relate to.

Here’s a title-picking process you can use:

Write down 10-15 potential group titles
Narrow it down to your top 3
Test the titles with Facebook ads and/or ask friends and customers which title they like best
Set Up the Group
Now for the basic step-by-step of actually creating the group on Facebook. Here’s what to do:

Go to https://www.facebook.com/groups
Click the green “Create Group” button on the top right
For group goals, click “Connect and Share”
Add the group title as well as any early adapter members (more on this in a minute)
Select the Privacy Setting (closed or secret) and click the “Create” button
Once the group has been created, upload a group profile image, and select the option to have only admins be able to approve members.

Set the Price
How much will you charge for your group, and will it be a recurring fee? Remember: you can always increase the price later on, but it’s a good idea to let members be locked in at the original price for which they signed up.

For example, if you start by charging $17/month then increase the rate to $27/month, the members who were in at the original $17/month will be locked in at the lower price.

Set Up the Payments
You have several options for setting up recurring payments. We recommend platforms like Paypal, Stripe, or Square.

With each of these tools, you can automate monthly payments. That way, your Facebook group members are charged automatically each month, and you don’t have to put an extra thought into it.

To learn how to set up recurring payments on Square, check out the how-to on their website here.

To learn how to set up recurring payments on Stripe, check out their how-to here.

To learn how to set up recurring payments on Paypal, check out their step-by-step instructions here.

Create a Landing Page
To get people to sign up and pay to be a part of your Facebook group, you need a landing page.

It doesn’t have to be crazy long. But it should cover these 5 main elements of a high-converting landing page:

Strong headline and subheadline
State their problem
Tell them about your solution (i.e. the private Facebook group)
Describe the benefits (use strong bullet points)
Use social proof (in the form of testimonials)
End with a strong call to action to sign up for the group
You can take the information you collect from the landing page and use it to cross-check people who try to join your private Facebook group. That way, you can be sure that all members have paid and signed up through the landing page.

Get Some Early Adapters and Active Members
When people pay for your Facebook group, you want them to have a great first impression. You definitely don’t want them to click through to the page and see that it’s empty.

So, before you open the group up and have paid members start to join, add in 10-15 friends and dedicated customers to the group. Have them each write a post introducing themselves and discussing their goals as they relate to the group.

That way, you get some early discussion going, so when customers start to join, they feel like they’re already a part of something.

Conclusion
Paid private Facebook groups can be a powerful tool for your business. They can be a source of recurring monthly income, and also provide an easy way for your customers to engage with your content and with each other.

Have you tried to create a paid private Facebook group in the past? What was your experience with it? Let us know in the comments below!

P.S. Stay tuned for part 2 of this post in the coming weeks, where we’ll show you how to run your paid private Facebook group effectively!

HOW TO STRUCTURE A WINNING BLOG POST

Blog posts can help you generate tons of strong leads for your website.

But amidst a sea of average (and even sub-par) content, you need to know how to make your blogs stand out. And to do that, you need to structure them the right way.

You see, most every great blog post has certain elements. When pieced together properly in the right structure, that blog post can turn from good to great. And if you can do that consistently, you can generate a boatload of traffic and new leads to your website.

So, what are these elements and how do put them in the right structure? That’s what you’re about to find out…

Here’s how to structure a winning blog post…

Create the Hook
The hook is what makes people want to keep reading. That’s why the goal of your introduction is to do just that – hook in the reader.

Here’s a simple way you can do this:

Start by digging into a problem that the reader faces (i.e. the difficulty of making blog content stand out)
Show why it’s important to solve the problem (i.e. getting more website traffic and leads)
Give a quick preview of what is to come (i.e. you’re going to learn exactly how to structure your blog posts in a way that makes them stand out)
Just like that, you’ve caught the reader’s attention and gotten them excited to keep reading.

Add in the Meat and Potatoes
The main points are the meat and potatoes of your blog post. They should be somewhat unique – people don’t want to see the same cookie cutter points over and over again.

At least some of these main points should create a feeling of curiosity. You don’t need to give away the point completely in the heading. By creating a little curiosity, you’ll incentivize people to read more of your article instead of just skim the main points.

For example, you can’t just read “add in the meat and potatoes” and know exactly how that factors into a blog post structure. So, you’re probably reading this point right now!

Go In-Depth
Don’t just skim over your meat-and-potatoes points. Go a little in-depth. Give people some how-to, so they can take some actionable steps after reading your content.

When reading your main points, most times people will think, “Ah, that makes sense,” or “Hm, I never thought of that before, but it could work!” But without a little how-to, they probably won’t take any action – and as a result, your blog won’t stand out all that much.

Here are some ways you can add depth to your points:

Create short bullet-pointed lists highlighting some steps to take
Add internal links to relevant content that explain the how-to
Provide examples
Infuse a Call to Action
You don’t want people to just read your content and then leave your website. Otherwise, they might never come back again!

So, you should infuse at least one call to action within the post.

Here are some calls to action you can use:

Link to your lead magnet (i.e. Want to learn more about how to create the perfect blog post? Click here to download your winning blog post cheat sheet!)
Link to other relevant content on your website (i.e. internal links)
Link to a sales page for a relevant product (i.e. a product/service that relates to the content of the post)
Comment on the post (this one is self-explanatory!)
Wrap It Up
Once you’ve done all this, you need to wrap up your post.

Here, you just need to summarize a few of the main points, and ideally end with a call to action (like asking readers to leave a comment).

Conclusion
When you consistently write blog posts with the right elements and structure, you’ll get more website traffic and leads.

Use the structure we’ve laid out here to create epic blog content that keeps your readers coming back for more!

Do you add any other elements into your blog post structure? Let us know in the comments below!

HOW TO USE BUYER PERSONAS TO BUILD SUCCESSFUL FACEBOOK ADS

So you’ve heard the hype about Facebook Ads. You’ve decided you want to dive in and start promoting your business on Facebook to the millions of people who are active every day. So the first step is opening up Facebook Ads manager and building ads, right?

Wrong.

It’s hard to not get ahead of yourself, because of the all the promise that Facebook Ads have, but when you’re spending your hard earned money, you need to approach ads strategically.

And that means having a clearly defined target audience.

Building buyer personas for your ideal customers is the best way to do this.

What Is A Buyer Persona?
According to Hubspot, a buyer persona is “…a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers.”

Buyer persona’s include things like:

Demographics including sex, age, education levels
Goals and motivations
Interests & behaviors
These things should sound familiar, right? Yes, because they are similar to the targeting options available inside Facebook ads!

The best part is, you don’t need just one buyer persona, each business might have multiple buyer personas as they can attract different types of customers for different reasons.

Building Your Buyer Personas
We know that buyer personas are representations of our ideal customers. When developing your buyer personas, we need to brainstorm who exactly is our ideal customer.

Is it a highly ambitious young professional motivated by money and accomplishment, who has graduated from a four-year college and likes brand name clothing and popular music?

Or is it a middle-aged mother of two who does most of her shopping online and is highly active in her community, serving on the school board and works part time as a nurse, while supporting her family?

These are all questions that you need to ask yourself as you look at your existing customer base, and then think about who the best fit for your products or services are.

As you are developing this list of traits and demographics, it’s important to use existing data to build out the most accurate representation you can.

Here are some tools you can use to do this:

Facebook Audience Insights
Google Analytics
Customer Surveys
Internal CRM Data (when applicable)
Social Analytics tools such as Sysomos or Follwerwonk
Market data from sources like Nielsen or comScore
This list goes on, but it’s important to think of every angle when you build your buyer personas.

Perhaps the most effective way to learn more about your customer is to speak with your sales or customer service reps – or any customer facing team members and get insight into the daily troubles, concerns, and challenges that your customers face.

Once you have gathered all the information about your persona, it’s time to give them a fancy name (think “Marketing Mary” or “Stay at Home Mom Suzy”), define a clear call-to-action for each persona and organize the information in a way that makes sense for your business.

Distribute these to your team, because this information should be central to your business’ growth and everyone should be on the same page!

Putting Your Buyer Personas To Work
Now, the fun part.

After we had you put the brakes on earlier, it’s time to go full speed ahead into Facebook ads.

All that information you dug up about your ideal customers… start entering that into your Facebook Ads Audiences!

(Image Description: Image courtesy of Facebook)

Save each of these audiences with the same name that you have assigned to each persona so there is no confusion.

Now, as you build out ads, you can select your newly saved persona from the “Use a Saved Audiences” button on the targeting screen.

As you build out your ads, it will be important for you to understand what copy and imagery works best with each of your personas.

You might need to do a great deal of A/B Testing to determine which types of ad content works best with each of your defined personas, but ultimate, as you refine your strategy, your ads will become more successful.

In Conclusion
Defining your target audience, building out buyer personas, then using that information to build out highly targeted and customized ads for your ideal customer is the best way to take advantage of the many options available to you inside Facebook Ads.

Have you had success using saved audience targeting in the past? What is your story?

If you need help growing your business with highly targeted and customizable ads, contact ARCH Digital Agency for a free consultation call to learn about how we can help!

HOW TO MASTER PHOTOGRAPHY

I have loved photography since I was a young girl pouring through National Geographic magazines. We didn’t have a TV so these magazines carried me to worlds I could only dream about.

I remember standing in my backyard with my first film camera claiming to myself one day I would be a nature photographer. Immediately I thought to myself, “How will photography pay my bills?” With that question I noticed the chains of doubt began wrapping around my creative brain – would I ever be good enough to be a “professional photographer?”

Every photo had to be perfect, each moment carefully planned out until it almost became nonexistent. I continued snapping away and roll after roll became my treasure chest of tiny moments captured with perfect details documented. I fell in love with the art of the tiny moments, a rain drop falling onto a single rose petal, the subtle greens in a blade of grass, the sparkle in a bird’s eye, the orange blinding rays of a dying sunset peering around each little tree branch to lift my spirits before I had to go inside for the night.

Here I am 26 years later with the same question haunting me with the same love for every small detail we forget to look for. How can I make my love of photography become a career of photography? What does a career of photography mean? How do I balance a love with a career? Maybe there is an easy answer to all this or maybe it is a little of business and the love.

For the Love…

I believe love is what drives us to do something others may feel isn’t worth trying. Often when I feel I am not getting where I want to or I am not as far along as I should be, I always come back to this. Pick up my camera and go shoot photos without wondering if my audience will like them. My primary audience needs to be me and I need to like what I shoot. If I take these photos based on what I think others will like, then the love dies and so does my ability to see what I see and others don’t.

How do I know what I love? That requires me testing the waters by taking those photos that seem less than or not so perfect. On many of my photo shoots, I will take hundreds of pictures and keep only 30 or so. With every imperfect, blurry or not-quite-the-right-angle shot I find the one that is beautifully rare.

I also dig up my other loves and take a trip to find them. For example, airplanes fascinate me beyond what I can describe. While living in Austin, Texas I spent an entire afternoon driving around chasing planes just to find the “best” spot to see them land. That spot ended up being a deserted graveyard just behind the end of the runway fence.

With the mosquitos and ghosts I sat there until I saw the first landing lights in the distance. Within minutes the roar of Southwest Airlines 737 engines became closer and the plane slightly bobbed and weaved, wings tilting from side to side in the small crosswind. Goosebumps formed and adrenaline poured through me and I readied my camera capturing every small moment I could of the landing. As the jet roared over me I swore I could stand on my truck and touch the landing gear. The plane landed in the distance and the engines became quieter but not before the jet wash whistled and whipped around that graveyard with ghostly fingers barely visible to the eye.

Energy pulsated through the air and then as fast as it came the fingers disappeared into the mesquite trees. You couldn’t wipe the smile from my face or the high that came into my soul that night. I could never explain to anyone else how much fun this photo shoot was and no I didn’t capture award-winning photos but I captured the love. In those moments I captured the fuel that drives each of us to do something beyond how much money we could make on it.

For the Money…

The business of photography is one I find very tricky and intimidating. It would be awesome to sell my images and make enough to spend all my days in the field doing what I love. However on the back end of taking photos are the hours of editing, and charging enough for your worth versus what customers can afford or feel they should pay for the image. It can be easy to become what your customers need, trying to get every image they imagine is the perfect moment and also losing yourself to doing the work of photography.

I faced my fear of people photography last year. My yoga friends needed a photographer and I volunteered my skills for a world famous paddle boarding competition. Both scared me because I felt I had to be perfect. I couldn’t take the images I found easy, and non judgemental. I felt I would be accountable to those on the other side of the lens and needed to make them feel beautiful, successful or victorious. My images would be posted on websites and social media for people all over the world to view and either love or hate.

I also had to shoot images that would bring compensation. Talk about creating boundaries and anxieties for myself…it was enough to make me not want to do it. However as with every fear you have to face it. I decided that even if I undercharged or volunteered my services for free all of it was part of the road and I had to start walking.

I cannot say I have found the best answer but what I do know is I’ve found another sort of magic in the business of photography. I recognize with each person I’ve taken photos of no matter how successful or beautiful they are, they all have the same fears. So we face these fears and find the unplanned magic each person carries within. I have found some of the best shots are the ones between posing. I have seen golden moments appear behind a beautiful yogi whose favorite color was yellow, a silhouetted tree on a black brick wall spreading the love from another gorgeous yogi, and captured a rock star moment of hair flying on one of the top women’s paddleboarding champions. All these situations are important for me to establish confidence in myself and blend what I love with creating successful photos from my customers’ perspective.

I have learned to look beyond the business aspect and accept where I am. I am careful of how many images I take and edit, more accountable to myself of the hours of editing it will take and charge what I feel is needed for each shoot. There is a fine line of charging too much and not enough and I tend to follow the latter at the moment. I accept I have much to learn and as my skills and experience grow so can my prices.

The Love with The Business…

The love fuels the business and when the business takes over, step back and go chase what you love. Finding a career in photography takes time and patience, it takes creating connections, making people feel beautiful beyond how they view themselves, and combining the details with the bigger picture.

What is the magic you find and how can you bring it out in every subject you film? Growing a business is learning the art and letting it blossom while growing you along the way. The business of photography is more than making a quick fortune by people magically buying your images, no matter your talent. It is blending your love with a little cash flow until one day if you work hard enough the two will merge into a career.

HOW TO STOP TIME WITH A PHOTO

Stopping time with a photo has always been a fascinating idea for me. The moments captured between seconds can be truly miraculous. They are the doorways to opening our minds to a new world that exists all around us. But how do you train your eye to stop a moment in time, how do you know when to snap the photo without missing that perfect moment, and when do the best conditions exist?

The Anatomy of the Seconds

Capturing frozen moments isn’t always easy, and it requires a sort of gut communication between your instincts and trigger finger. I’m often asked how I captured a wave before it crashed with the light blended through each watery drop. My response always is “I feel it.” I feel the split second before it happens and this is when you snap away.

I spend a lot of time watching my subject – how it moves, the way it communicates, and every speck of light or darkness reflecting within it. Your eye will become trained to see what it did not before. You begin to see small fragments and textures, beads of light not previously there, or anticipation of action and impact. It is a dedication to learning, observing and taking mental notes to store for later. Training yourself to slow down and allow things to move around you with an observant eye versus moving with it.

Your eye becomes an extension of your trigger finger and your gut. Knowing your subject allows you to feel it, to be in tune and in some way be a part of it. If you are connected you will know how to capture and stop the moments with a photo.

The Best Conditions

What are the best conditions for capturing a moment in time? My opinion and answer to this question is light. Light creates so much depth and magic. Your camera quickly responds to the correct amount of light and it can be manipulated easier.

I tend to love the sunrises just as the sun has risen over the horizon, and sunsets when the soft pinks and oranges melt into the landscape around me. I haven’t learned the art of shooting moonlight or starlight yet but it is a challenge I continually work on as I grow.

Learning how to let light paint your photo is important to a successful photo. My classroom for learning light is to be on location before the sun comes up. This is the same for a sunset. Light changes quickly and you have to be in tune with that change to nail the best shot. Playing with the aperture and shutter speed and their relation to one another is interesting. Having a quick shutter speed with a lower f-stop or a slower shutter speed and a higher f-stop – how do they affect the image? Finding a balance by letting the lens work or pushing its limit still intrigues me and I only get better by letting experience teach me.

Just Having Fun
Every second is about having fun while capturing the magic between these seconds. Study your muse, the conditions, find the movement, see the light, capture the feeling inside and grow your instincts between your gut and trigger finger. Stopping time with a photograph only happens when you can stop yourself and observe each detail, each suspended particle of changing light. How your camera responds when you play with the settings of aperture and shutter speed. I have found

How your camera responds when you play with the settings of aperture and shutter speed. I have found experience to be my biggest teacher and with every photo new knowledge creates new questions. I study my favorite photographers, read their blogs, watch videos, and gain tips to try on my next photography adventure.