Sandy Noto Photography

04/13/2018

The hardest part of visiting Japan is leaving. At least editing all the photos I took during the trip is a good opportunity to re-experience it all.

This was my third time in Tokyo. It was nice not to feel the initial confusion of figuring out a totally new place. The subway lines didn’t seem like an impenetrable spider’s web. For the first part of our trip, we stayed in Shinjuku and explored around Shibuya and Meguro. After going around sol...

03/16/2018

02/20/2018

One of the fun things about writing photography tutorials is discovering how much I've progressed over the last several years.

Early on, I found shutter speed to be the easiest of the photography components to understand intuitively. Shutter speed literally refers to how fast your shutter closes when you’re taking a photo. The faster the shutter speed, the more you can freeze a moment in time. When you’re ready to jump ...

01/26/2018

I had a ton of equipment malfunctions while in Hawaii but still managed to take a few photos. Here are a few faves.

Eli and I tend to end most years with a family trip and this year we went to Kauai and the Big Island. The trip is usually a nice way to wind down and catch up. While I often plan to shoot for fun, I never pitch ideas or specific shoots for family trips to keeps things easy. This year, I was extra

01/23/2018

Sometimes I find the end of winter a little bit uninspiring. Most days, I just want it to be spring. These 3 photographers have been keeping me inspired and shooting these last couple of weeks -

After weeks of long and lazy winter evenings, I find myself drawn to calm and contemplative work. These days I’ve been bookmarking soft peachy photographs, quiet portraits and interesting studio work. Here are 3 photographers I’ve been visiting for inspiration these days. Camila Gutiérrez. It's...

01/12/2018

Even if you're not a photographer, a fujifilm instax is a really fun, little camera to have around.

These days photography is so intangible and digital. Last year, I started to send framed prints to friends, family and clients. It was surprisingly fun and exciting to see my work out in the real world, not just on a screen. I wanted to capture that for shoots so I scooped up a Fujifilm instax. The

01/06/2018

My last 2017 reflection post - all of my favorite travel photos from the year.

I'm oddly superstitious about New Year's Eve and believe that it sets the tone for the entire year. Staying calm and avoiding quarrels is key. For me, 2017 started off in New Zealand but the glacier climbing that we were supposed to do on New Year's Day got canceled due to fog. It was an end and be

12/14/2017

Scoop up the AFAR Jan/Feb 2018 issue for lots of travel inspiration and check out my photo of the Ace Chicago.

12/12/2017

Organized my favorite food photographs from this year. I'd highly recommend eating before looking through these.

By the end of 2017, I will have photographed 74 restaurants this year, most of them for the fine folks over at The Infatuation. These are some of my favorite images sorted by aesthetic appeal. As someone that has spent many evenings editing these photos and then sadly looking at the pitiful selectio

12/03/2017

Starting to look back on some of my favorite moments and images from 2017.

I know, I know. The year isn't over yet! Each year, I take this stance and allow December to roll on by before I start thinking about "best of" sets but by January that party is over. Everyone is on to workout motivation and goal setting. So I'm getting a jumpstart on reminiscing this year

11/15/2017

A few thoughts on the new Lightroom CC, which is apparently now called Photoshop Lightroom CC

Since Lightroom is a large chunk of my photographic workflow, I wanted to force myself into using the newest version as soon as it came out to figure out how it might fit into my work. Heading to Mexico, I downloaded Lightroom CC (now called Photoshop Lightroom CC ¯\_(ツ)_/¯), skipped on updating Li