Travel and photography seem to go hand in hand. A month before my 2007 trip to New Zealand I wanted to take better photos than what my point and shoot had been taking.

Fortunately, my ex (you know the one I left to travel) is a great photographer and gave me an old Canon film SLR from the 1970s and a crash course on how to take photos.

I had never considered myself a creative person before that but I fell in love with photography. When I returned from New Zealand I bought a used DSLR. Ten thousand photos later I travel with a Canon 60D with three lenses.

I spend a lot of time reading about how to take better photos and my frustration is that most sites list the basics or get too technical there seems to be no in between– I get that we’re supposed to shoot in the golden hour but what next?

Well Beth from Beers and Beans has finally told me.

Bethany is an amazing photographer. She isn’t the kind where you look at it and think wow that is a technically perfect photo she is the kind that makes you feel something and think wow I wish I could do that.

She just launched an ebook called Getting out of Auto and I cannot express how amazing this guide is.

Part One includes all the basics, the stuff that seems complicated like f stops and aperture. But instead of just stating what they are, she actually explains them in a way you can understand with lots of photos. . . .