Advice? My grandmother used to tell me that most folks know how to talk but don't know how to listen. She was a wise old woman.

So, before dispensing advice on how one should improve or approach their photograher, I need to find out what they want to do, at what level, how much time they want to devote to their hobby, art, or profession, and how they like to enjoy what they are doing. I prefer NOT to superimpose all my ways of doing things on everyone else unless they want to do what I do and/or apply it to what they do.

I am not going to bombard someone with little or no technical aptitude with all kinds of complex technicalities and stringent rules when all they want to do is make some decent snapshots and place them in a family album or enjoy them on a screen. A few tips will do. Too much technobabble will intimidate them and probably dissuade them from continuing on.

For advanced workers and aspiring pros, I find it's best o look over the work, find out about the concerns, and offer advice that is specific to their needs. Pontificating on blanket rules or remedies is useless- "ALWAYS shoot RAW, use this or that focal length, come in close or far away, use manual, or NEVER do this or that" is only restrictive and does not address anyone's specific talents or lack thereof. Tailor your advice to the person's level of knowledge and talents and introduce new and better concepts incrementally.

As for always carrying a camera? Again, it's a matter of an individual's habits, requirements, and level of enthusiasm. In my own case, photograhy is my day job, I shoot, full time at least 4 days each week and the other three days are devoted to the administration of the business and sales. Most of my work entails heavy and bulky gear, so the thought of schlepping around cameras in my "off duty" time is not appealing. Nowadays, however, there are small cameras and nifty cell phones so I always have some kida imaging device with me. That is because I still enjoy casual and fun photograher and my own "Murphy's Law of impromptu photograhy", which is the unique and interesting pictorial opportunities always arise when I am without a camera- RATS! Things happen, I spot an interesting face, a house on fire, a unique reflection or strange weather conditions, a familiar place or building with a unique light, whatever! This does not mean I run around town incessantly shooting everything and anything. Rather than explain, I show a few of my off-duty experiments.

One day, I needed to go downtown where the parking is nearly impossible so I took the bus and found 2 interesting faces. I shot them on the way to my destination and processed them on my phone on the way home. One evening I went out, on a rainy night, for some take-out food, and found a puddle in front of my favourite burger joint so I made a shot. The next morning a crew came and fixed the sidewalk, no more puddles! An old building in the neighbourhood (104 years old) suddenly collapsed, and a quick shot at my granddaughter's birthday party. No high-art, just having some fun away from the office.

So, my advice, when photography stops being fun and becomes an obsession of attaining an unreachable level of sharpness, amassing an excessive inventory of equipment, reading every book on the subject rather the doing lots of shooting in the time available, all of this will reflect negatively in your serious work. Loosen up and chill out with your camera! Jump out of your box, at least a few times a week, and do what you are not supposed to do! With your camera-that is!

PS- I now ride that bus, at least twice a month. It drives through a very diverse neighbourhood. I now have collected some 150 characters, moms nursing babies, gangsters, you name it. It's fun simulating portrait lighting with daylig coming through the windows and the fluorescent lights on the bus. My activities never disturbs anyone- I look like a typical nerd messing with his phone! Maybe someday, I'll publish a book "Life in Transit" or perhaps "OCT-Rout #11"!

Celebrate what you have and learn from that one then if you can move up to something better, do so ,otherwise just take pictures and have fun with it. Try some simple editing if you wish and always look for better ways to do things that save you time and unneeded steps.

If you can follow you tube videos, look for ways to improve yourself with the gear you have before spending a lot of cash on stuff you may not really need. There are many helpful channels that can get you started in the right direction.

Regularly review old images, and look for improvement. Sometimes you'll see minor technical flaws that you missed the first time around, other times compositional, post processing decisions, etc may be questionable in retrospect, and in the worst cases you may wonder what the hell you were thinking about. If you find stuff, that's good. That means you've progressed. If you find nothing, that could be bad - it doesn't mean your photography is perfect. More than likely you have settled into complacency, and are not making any progress. The overall goals are to learn how to look at photography with a critical eye, judging your images as others might see them or as you are seeing them and finding things that you would have handled differently, and looking for signs that you are a better photographer today than you were a year ago.