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I’m writing about field notes today: What are they? And why do we take them? I will cover the tools of the trade, what to document in field notes, and my techniques on streamlining the note-taking process to capture tons of valuable information using my Apple Notes shortcut. Here is a video of me discussing everything I’ve written below: What are field notes? Field notes are written or recorded observations collected by writers, researchers, or anyone else doing fieldwork like anthropologists, ecologists, geologists, ethnographers, and journalists....

To be a successful creator, you don’t need to wait for inspiration to strike. You don’t need to wait for the muse or to wait for an original idea. You don’t need “hacks” or to follow the teachings of the latest productivity guru. To be the kind of writer, photographer, musician, artist, or creator who builds a body of work, you only need one thing: a creative project. A creative project is an idea, a proposal to engage in some hypothetical and unrealized creative undertaking....

I am starting to “work with the garage door open.” Robin Sloan coined the phrase in an article discussing/dreaming up new ways of working, networking, publishing, creating, and connecting online. These “new ways of relating” are less reliant on the social networks we’ve become accustomed to over the last decade or two. About working with the garage door open, Sloan wrote: This isn’t a time for “products”, or product launches. It’s not a time to toil in secret for a year and then reveal what you’d made with a shiny landing page....

Have you ever thought about what goes into sequencing a photobook or a zine? As some of you know, I’m in the process of making my own photobook The Hill of the Skull. I’m no expert on photo book sequencing, but I have been thinking about it for the last several months and I would like to share with you some points that I’ve learned along the way. I hope it will help make the process for you easier than it was for me....

Fujifilm make some of the best mirrorless cameras for travel. The Fujifilm X-Series cameras have a cult-like following and have earned their reputation among traveling photographers for being compact, lightweight, and fun-to-use alternatives to the other brands. That said, Fujifilm’s X-Series lineup can be a bit confusing for the new photographer. That is why I wanted to write this guide, to help travelers who are new to photography (or looking to buy a new camera) decide which Fujifilm X-Series camera is right for them....