You might know Nicole Young through her blog, Nicolesy. Perhaps you’ve read her book on food photography, Food Photography: From Snapshots to Great Shots. She has written other books on photography as well. I have one of her food photography books and her guide to the Canon 60D. They are excellent reads, easy to understand and follow and quite useful. If you’re new to Nicole Young’s work you can see some of her work at 500px. It’s easy to see that she loves what she does and that she knows it well. So I was quite happy to review her latest e-book The Inspired Photographer – 20 Ways To Seek Inspiration Ignite Creativity.
It might seem strange to see a photography book review on a food blog. Not really, to my mind. I don’t really see food photography as a very separate thing from photography as a whole. Food photography is just a specialized area of photography where most stuff relating to photography in general applies.
Most of us, at one time or the other, go through periods when inspiration and creativity desert us,. A sort of a writer’s block equivalent in photography, if you will. As Nicole says in her book, “Inspiration – It’s the driving force that spurs people to do great things, create beautiful works of art, build miraculous architectural wonders, and strive to victory and success. The thing is, you can’t just pull inspiration out of thin air whenever you want to, but you can search for it.”
Inspiration can come from anywhere but how exactly does one go about this and where? That is exactly what Nicole’s new 145 page e-book deals with. There is no “one-size-fits-it-all” answer to finding inspiration and you won’t find it overnight. There are ways of getting the process started. So, Nicole shares 20 different ways to go about finding the inspiration that gets your creativity back in your photography.
I can vouch for quite a bit of what she has suggested. I have tried them at different points when I get stuck in a photography rut, or feel my photography is getting very mechanical. The next time I’m in that rut, I’m going to try her other suggestions to find inspiration and rediscover my creativity.
Each one of the 20 chapters in Nicole’s book deals with one idea to seek out inspiration. The book also features many of her beautiful photographs as examples. Her suggestions include “Limit Yourself (to your camera and one lens only, or pick a particular theme or technique to try out)”, “Create A Personal Project” and “Try Something New (photograph something that you normally would not)”. She even says “Forget Photography”! I’ll not spoil the fun on that and let you discover that for yourself when you get her book.
The nice thing about this book is that apart from the suggestions on how to find inspiration once again, Nicole also shares details of hows, and wheres of each one, making them very doable. She also provides links to resources that are helpful in this search.
About the Author:
Nicole S. Young is a professional photographer who specializes in food photography, but also enjoys traveling and photographing both landscapes and people. Many of her images are licensed through iStockphoto and Getty Images. She is also an accredited Adobe Certified Expert (ACE) in Photoshop and a Help Desk Specialist with the National Association of Photoshop Professionals.
Nicole Young’s latest e-book is available for purchase on her blog and at Flatbooks.
Please note : All images in this post are courtesy Nicole Young from her book – The Inspired Photographer.
I'm Aparna and My Diverse Kitchen is my ovo-lacto vegetarian food blog where you'll find recipes, food stories & photography. I've been blogging since 2007 and believe the kitchen, and the dining table (by extension) is really the heart of a home. 
Leave a Reply