I think burnout is one of the biggest creative obstacles professional photographers have to deal with. We shoot thousands upon thousands of photographs for our clients and when the work is over picking up a camera is the last thing on our minds.

This is something I've definitely dealt with. I love photography and am so happy to be able to make a living doing something I love but after doing something 40,50, or 60 hours a week you need a break. So I gave myself permission to leave my camera at home a few times when heading out somewhere with Cyndie and Makenzie. Then that turned into never taking it out. As a photographer I felt justified. As a dad, I felt terrible, haha.

Then the iPhone came out and since I have my phone with me all the time, I have a camera with me too! The camera on the first iPhone was "good for a cell phone", the second was a bit better but mainly just more pixels. The 3Gs brought selective autofocus and exposure to the party and the iPhone4 is just freaking awesome. I use it ALL THE TIME. I love it. Not only is it super convenient, I actually like the photos and with the iPhone 4 the pictures are big enough to make a decent size print. Also because its a phone you can't really do a ton to the images so there's no real work that has to be done. They look cool and I didn't have to spend all day obsessing over skin tones. Haha.

I've been using an app called Instagram for a couple of months and I love it. Not only is it a really fun way to process your iPhone pictures but its also kind of like Twitter and Facebook. You can follow people's feeds and see when they post new images. You can "like" the images or leave comments. It's really fun.

If you have an iPhone and don't use it already, download it. If you already use it, follow me and I promise to return the favor. :) My username is @michaelnorwood.

Here are some of my instagrams from the past couple of months. I noticed there are a few distinct categories my photos fall into:

FAMILY... and my beautiful basset hounds :)

NEW YORK...we moved here last year and I'm still in awe of this place

FOOD AND DRINK...if you know me at all this isn't surprising

CRAZY/INTERESTING PEOPLE... yes that is NATALIE PORTMAN We sat next to each other last month on a flight, had a nice conversation, then I went into stalker mode and snapped a few pics of her before we got off the plane. She was super nice. :) I saw Santa on the beach in Waikiki last month and the crazy girls on the right were acting out scenes from harry potter while taking pictures of themselves... hence the tripod in the shot. To say it was entertaining would be an understatement. It was hysterical.

ARTSY FARTSY CRAP...