If you haven’t checked out the LiveScribe Sky pen yet, do so now. I’ll wait.
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Full Disclosure: The LiveScribe Sky pen was provided to me as an Evernote Ambassador. There was no requirement to write a review, positive or otherwise.

There are obvious benefits to the LiveScribe pens. Especially for students or anyone who has to take handwritten notes. We’ll skip those and go right for the benefits to photographers.

Lighting Diagrams

I’ve tried drawing diagrams out in Illustrator or on the iPad… It works, but there’s something about pen and paper that just seems to work better. I used to draw out lighting ideas and save them in a sketch book or note pad. Inevitably, I wouldn’t have the drawings when I actually needed them. Now, since the Sky pen syncs with Evernote, all my drawings are with me all of the time. I can reference them whenever I need to

Poses and shot ideas

Sketching out line drawings of pose ideas is easier than trying to randomly twist and bend a model to find poses you like. Eventually, they get sick of feeling like Gumby. So plan a few ideas out before the model even gets there with the Sky pen. That way, when you’re ready to shoot, you can open up Evernote and browse through the ideas with your model.

Shot Notes

I try to take mental notes when shooting to remember which ones I know I want to spend some time on in post. Sadly, my memory isn’t what it once was. Who am I kidding–my memory has always been a little sketchy. It works much better if I write things down during a shoot. Doing it in the LiveScribe notebook ensures those notes will make their way into Evernote as soon as I return to WiFi range.

If you take hand-written notes at all, the LiveScribe pen is worth looking at. It completely eradicates the extra step of scanning notes.

Sidenote: I know I’ve missed the last couple weeks of Tuesday Tips. No excuses. I have a fresh list of ideas, so they’ll be coming out weekly again. If you have ideas or questions that you think would be good as Tuesday Tips, contact me and let me know!