For a passionate and committed landscape and outdoor photographer who loves to travel
Even if you have never won anything, have thousands of frames you would not print, and have already spent more on gear than you would admit.
Would you not want to know which one it is?
Doors close Sunday 4 October
I am Stanley Aryanto, the photographer behind The Wicked Hunt. My work has earned 100+ international photography awards, and has been published and sponsored by Canon and Canadian Geographic.
None of that matters unless it helps you walk away with the photograph you are standing in front of. That is the only credential worth anything here.
It started at two awards in 2018, with the same camera and worse decisions.
What this actually is
The photographer who walks into a scene and knows what the photograph is about before the tripod comes out.
Who comes home with five frames worth keeping instead of four hundred worth deleting.
Who has something on a wall, with their name on it, that people stop in front of.
Not because they got lucky. Because they knew what they were doing.
The part nobody says out loud
The light was good. You know your camera. You waited, and you got up in the dark to be there.
You remember exactly how it felt. The cold, the colour, the sense that you were somewhere that mattered.
Then you get home, open the file, and something is missing.
It is not a bad photograph. It is just not a keeper. And a small part of you wonders whether one ever will be.
The real cost
Gear Acquisition Syndrome. You have used it about yourself as a joke at least once.
The lens bought for one trip. The filter set. The tripod that replaced the tripod. Every piece bought in good faith, because somebody said the next one was the one.
And the cost was never the money. It is the pause when somebody asks to see your photographs from the trip, and you find yourself explaining them instead of showing them.
The most expensive thing in that cupboard is the thought that arrives at night: if the gear was never the problem, then the problem is me.
The diagnosis
Most photographers decide the answer is a better camera. So they buy one. Then better glass. Then presets. Then a workshop.
And nothing changes. Not because the advice was wrong, but because it was solving the wrong problem.
You were taught the correct part, over and over. Aperture, shutter, ISO, the exposure triangle. Not one course taught you what to point it at, or why one frame stops a stranger and the one beside it does not.
That is the Technical Trap, and most photographers over forty are standing in it holding a receipt. It was never you.
The other side
Arriving somewhere and knowing what the photograph is within minutes, rather than shooting everything and hoping.
Coming home and loving what you captured. Not it is fine. Closer to I cannot believe I got that.
One frame printed big, on a wall, that somebody stands in front of and asks you about.
That is not talent and it is not luck. It is a skill, and it is one you can learn in a week.
It was never talent
I had the gear. I travelled. I shot constantly. And my photographs still did not stand out.
The turning point was entering a stack of images I was proud of and watching almost all of them lose. The winners were not the most technically perfect ones. They made people feel something.
That question became a decade of work on composition, light, emotion and story. Two awards in 2018 became thirty, then sixty, then more than a hundred.
Same camera. Better decisions. The awards are the proof, not the point.
The method
Six decisions, made in an order, before the camera is ever involved. This week is one run of it, on one photograph, so you feel it work before you believe a word of it.
What actually caught your eye, and why you stopped. Most photographers have never been asked.
What is in the frame that weakens the story. Removing is harder than adding.
Where you want the eye to travel, and how to make it go there.
What the light is doing, and what you want it to do instead.
The first time we touch the camera. That surprises people, and it is the point.
Finishing a photograph in minutes, because you already know what you are looking for.
The seven mornings
Each morning: one short video, one card, one thing to go and do. The card names the scene, the hour, the settings, the framing and the one thing to check before the shutter. You bring the camera.
Day 6 is a Saturday, and it is the day you go and make the photograph the week was for. Day 7 you put it up beside the one you took on Monday, live, with me.
Two days ask you outside. The rest happens at the kitchen table.
Proof
“I have been taking photos for a very long time. No clue when it started but never really was impressed with results. Got a camera 3 years back. Then started working with Stanley Aryanto and things started to come together. Photos looked better. People’s comments changed. I am pretty happy with where my photos are at right now.”
Mike HCanada
“Like many people I’ve done a number of online courses in order to improve my skills. I found Stanley over Instagram and have been inspired by his skill and passion behind the camera. I feel that I have progressed further than any other courses I have ever undertaken and I highly recommend his photography mastery course.”
Andrew BNew Zealand
“Has helped me to improve my photography greatly, from reviewing basics to more advanced material. Learning what you need to do to best show your vision when you’re out doing photography.”
David PCanada
“Since starting with your group my photos have been getting noticed by local groups and friends. Some actually think I know what I am doing.” Mike H, Canada
Join
$47
One payment. Nothing new to buy, install, or be ready for.
YES, I WANT ONE PHOTOGRAPH WORTH HANGINGShow me how the seven days workDoors close Sunday 4 October
I am only happy when you get the photograph. That is why the risk sits with me.
Take the seven mornings and put them onto one photograph of your own. If it comes back looking the way it did before, email me inside 30 days and I return your investment in full.
You do not submit your work to qualify and you do not explain yourself. You tell me, and it is done.
The doubt is whether any of this works on your photographs, taken with your camera, in the places you actually go. One week settles that, and thirty days keeps your money yours either way.
Stanley AryantoAward-winning photographer · 100+ international awards
Refunds are processed within five business days.
The honest answers
One last thing
It will do something more useful. It will show you that the thing you thought was talent is a sequence of decisions, and that you can make them.
Seven mornings from now you are at the kitchen table with two frames of the same place on the screen. The one you would have taken before, and the one you took on Saturday.
Same camera. Same lenses. Same fields near your house.
YES, I WANT ONE PHOTOGRAPH WORTH HANGINGShow me how the seven days workDoors close Sunday 4 October