If I had to define ‘Grab Your Camera’, I would categorise it as a photography travel blog of sorts. 🤔
Through this website, I share with you, the reader, many different Australian landscape photography locations I have been lucky enough to visit with my camera. My hope in doing this is that it inspires others to get outside and explore our beautiful country, partake in a creative and fun hobby and have experiences they otherwise wouldn’t have.
What I hope to achieve with Grab Your Camera
My goal for ‘Grab Your Camera’ is that it becomes the leading resource for all landscape photographers looking to find great new locations to visit with their cameras.
To achieve this, I will continue to explore, capture and share different Australian photography locations via this website and associated social media channels.
In turning this into a Mission and Vision Statement, I have written the following:
My Mission with Grab Your Camera is to explore, photograph and share incredible Australian photography locations with other landscape photographers of all different abilities and backgrounds.
My Vision for Grab Your Camera is to make it the number one online resource that people use to find stunning new Australian photography locations.
Grab Your Camera is a brand
I see Grab Your Camera as more than a website but a side hustle and, hopefully, one day, a business that will allow me to do this full-time. Who would not want to travel around Australia, taking photos, making content, and sharing it with others?
That sounds unreal!!! 🤩🤞
Releasing products and tours
To achieve this goal, I will need to look at ways in which to offer people great value by selling products and services.
This means that, shortly, I will be creating additional paid content that will become available on this website. I plan to develop photography location guides in the form of ebooks and even an online landscape photography course.
While I will be charging for these products, I plan on packing them full of great information so that they become a real investment for any landscape photographer lucky enough to purchase them.
The other thing that I would love to launch is my own photography tours. I know that there are a lot of people out there already offering photography tours. But to me, this makes sense, as Grab Your Camera is all about photography locations and what better way to help people experience these places than by showing them in person.
Not making past mistakes
Another reason for treating Grab Your Camera as a business is, in part, to avoid making the same mistake that I did with Photography Hot Spots – more on this below.
This business is a long-term investment of my time rather than something I am developing for any quick wins. For that to happen, this website needs to be sustainable and generate money to cover the hours I put into it at some stage.
I didn’t treat Photography Hot Spots like a business, which cost me a lot of money until it was no longer sustainable and needed to be shut down.
So I am conscious of not making this mistake again.
This image is actually a mock-up of the Photography Hot Spots website I designed in Adobe Photoshop way back in 2012. This was the second iteration of the website, and I think it looked pretty cool! 🙂
The History of Grab Your Camera
The journey really started way back in December of 2009 when I first had the idea of creating a website that allowed people to search and share great Australian photography locations.
This idea stemmed from me having just become interested in photography and trying to search online to find spots where I could go and capture some nice landscapes. At that time, I didn’t find any good websites that helped, and phone apps were only very new.
I had just finished a web design course with TAFE NSW, so I began to design and develop, with a lot of help from a good friend of mine, a website called ‘Photography Hot Spots’.
What was Photography Hot Spots?
In a sense, Photography Hot Spots was an earlier version of the Grab Your Camera website. It had a similar Mission and Value statement to this website, Grab Your Camera.
The main difference between Grab Your Camera and Photography Hot Spots is that, with Hot Spots, everyone was allowed to share their images on the website. This had a lot of benefits, and I will always be truly grateful to those who decided to share their favourite photography locations with the rest of us.
However, from an admin standpoint, and without going too deep into specifics, it did create a lot of work and some issues from a technical perspective.
Photography Hot Spots grew over a 7-year period, from 2009 to 2016, to a point where it was getting well over thirteen thousand visitors per month to the website.
Which was amazing! 😀
The problem and the eventual reason I made the incredibly tough decision to close the website down was that I hadn’t monetised the business properly. It was costing me a considerable amount of money each month to keep the website running and operating smoothly. And that doesn’t include the many hours and weekends spent working on the site.
It all concluded when, in 2016, I was made redundant from my role as a Digital Marketing Consultant. With little money and needing a change, I shut down the Photography Hot Spots Website.
I have reflected on Photography Hot Spots a lot over the years, and while I did switch it off, I still see it as a great success. I am certainly excited to bring my knowledge and experiences from running that website into this new one.
Grab Your Camera is born
After a long break of approximately six years, I launched a new photography travel blog that you see now, ‘Grab Your Camera’.
I had been itching to start another website and had played around with the idea of relaunching the original Photography Hot Spots. Either reinstalling the site from where it had finished or starting it again from scratch.
However, in the end, because I decided to start again from scratch, I moved away from Photography Hot Spots and developed a fresh new brand.
I liked the phrase ‘grab your camera’! 😀
You would grab your camera as you head out the door and travel to a beautiful landscape photography location. Plus, I have naturally used this phrase in many of my photography location guides, which I feel is a good sign.
So the ‘Grab Your Camera’ brand was born, and the website went live in September 2022.
Starting again has benefits, and I am keen to use the lessons learnt from Photography Hot Spots. Not only to run the business side better but mainly to produce even more helpful content that readers of the website will love.
What are The Photowalk Guys
In 2011 or 2012, I co-founded ‘The Photowalk Guys’ with Ben Fewtrell of On3Legs Photography.
This has been an enjoyable collaboration and fun time that saw us team up and host many free photowalks across Sydney, the Blue Mountains, Central Coast, and even in Melbourne.
Best of all, these photowalks were greatly received with people travelling far and wide to join us on these outings. It wasn’t uncommon for thirty-plus people to join us at one of these events. It was a great way to grab your camera, meet like-minded people, and travel to different locations.
All of the things that I love to do! 😀
We even began a fortnightly photography podcast, which was incredible. We covered a wide range of photography-related subjects and were lucky enough to interview several brilliant photographers, including Ken Duncan.
While we haven’t organised a photowalk for some time, I haven’t ruled out making a return and running a few more photowalks in the future. If this sounds like something you would like to partake in, keep an eye on the Photowalk Guys Facebook page, which is still live and linked below.
The Photowalk Guys, Facebook Page
(Photo taken: March 2023)
The Team behind Grab Your Camera
Rob Potter, Owner and main contributor
It is just me at the moment! 🙂
I, Rob Potter, am the owner and only contributor to the ‘Grab Your Camera’ website. All of the content, and most of the images you see here, have been written and taken by myself.
This may change in the future, and at some stage, I might look to actively reach out and gather other photographers’ photos and thoughts on different photography locations throughout Australia.
If you want to learn more about me specifically, jump over to the about ‘Rob Potter’ page.
How can you support me and this website
First of all, can I say thank you! Just the fact that you are here and reading this is greatly appreciated. 🙌
If you are getting value out of the content on this website, then there are a couple of other things you might like to do that will continue to support me in running and growing the Grab Your Camera brand.
Join the Grab Your Camera Newsletter
Please join my mailing list to receive regular monthly newsletters. Each email is jam-packed with the locations I have visited, newly published photography location guides, links to other helpful content, and additional information that I feel will be of value to you.
I promise never to spam you with useless information but to respect your time, as I know it is limited and precious. Again, my goal is to help you find great new photography locations.
Let’s connect on Social Media
I post to Social Media regularly and check out and comment on the images and posts that others share. If you are on any of the platforms below, please connect with me so we can continue the conversation there.
Tell a friend about Grab Your Camera
Lastly, and probably the number one way you could help support me is by telling a friend about Grab Your Camera!
The chances are that if you are into photography, you will also know others who love grabbing their cameras and heading out to photograph amazing landscapes. Undoubtedly, they will also benefit from the information on this website.
So if I could be so bold as to ask you to please share a link to the Grab Your Camera website with them, I would be genuinely grateful.
You will be helping them and me at the same time.
It’s a win-win! 😊
Acknowledgement of Country
I would also like to take this opportunity to respectfully include an acknowledgment of country to all Aboriginal people.
‘I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of this Country and recognise Aboriginal people’s continuing connection to Land, Sea, Waterways, Sky and Culture. I pay my respects to Elders, past and present, and also acknowledge our Aboriginal colleagues who are present today.’