Tips for Photographers (T4P) is a regular feature where I talk about a cool tip that I think will benefit my fellow photographers. For more T4Ps, click here!

Every photographer should have an annual education budget. No matter how good you are, there’s always room to learn and grow, and who better to learn from than your peers? Learning opportunities are a fantastic way to pull yourself out of a rut and get inspired to reinvigorate your business and provide a better experience for your clients. After all, when you stop growing, there’s nowhere to go but down. However, there are so many learning opportunities to choose from, and many of them require a large investment, so it can be very confusing to photographers who are new to the game. Here is a bit of info on the different educational opportunities available to photographers these days.

Conferences: For wedding photographers, there are two main conferences – PPA’s ImagingUSA, and WPPI’s annual conference. ImagingUSA is held in January in a different city each year, rotating around the country, while WPPI is held every February/March in Vegas. Most conferences include a number of master classes (full-day or multi-day workshops taught by a photographer or studio to a small class), keynote speeches (30-60 minute speeches by industry leaders given in massive rooms to hundreds of attendees), short seminars, industry parties, and trade shows. Although conferences are a great place to learn, the biggest value in attending a conference is the networking potential. Rarely do you get to rub elbows with so many of the best photographers in the world all in one place and see all of the newest trends and products affecting the industry. And, if nothing else, it’s a ton of fun! With airfare, hotel, conference fees, and all the money you will inevitably spend at the trade show, conferences can be pricey, but virtually everyone who attends will tell you that the money is well worth it.

Workshops: These are the most popular form of education among photographers. Generally, workshops last anywhere from 1-5 days and are often held on the workshop-giver’s home turf (although lately many photographers are giving workshops in destination locations). These can be taught by one photographer, one studio, or a collection of different photographers. Workshops are great because you really get to delve deep into the workshop-giver’s business practices and shooting style, and it’s usually easy to get personal attention from them if you have specific questions. It’s also a great networking opportunity – I have met some of my best friends in the industry at workshops. Workshops tend to be the most expensive option – usually $1000-$2500, not including travel or accommodations – and there’s always the risk that you won’t get your money’s worth. I’ve personally spent thousands of dollars at workshops that I didn’t learn much from. My best advice is to talk to several people who have done the workshop before, and ask them about their experience. If the majority of them were pleased with their investment, chances are you will be, too.

National Tours: Similar to workshops, these are one-day speaking engagements given by a photographer as he/she/they travel the country. Usually held in hotel ballrooms, these tours often have hundreds of attendees, so personal attention from the lecturer is virtually impossible. On the plus side, these tours are generally very affordable (most are less than $150 for a full day) and convenient to attend since they come to your local area, and it can be a great opportunity to meet other local photographers. Unfortunately, because of the large number of attendees, often the topic matter is very superficial and generic, and in most cases a large portion of the day is dedicated to advertising the actions, software, or other products that the photographer is selling.

One-on-One Consultations: These are, in my opinion, the best option for most photographers. Ranging anywhere from $500-1500, these consultations are literally one-on-one – just you and the person giving the consultation. The topics can be tailored to suit you and your business, you can ask as many questions as you like and skip over topics that don’t apply to you. Most of the time these consultations also include a short photoshoot so that you can see the photographer at work. With this type of learning experience, you’re much more likely to get your money’s worth, but there isn’t the same potential for networking that you get with conferences, workshops, and national tours.

Many photographers are now doing webinars or selling DVDs and books, as well. Webinars are generally sponsored by an industry supplier such as an album company, printing press, canvas manufacturer, or web hosting provider and are free or discounted to their customers. DVDs and books are generally sold by photographers as a less expensive alternative to their workshops. Most of these options focus on a specific topic (for example, Zack Arias’ OneLight off-camera lighting DVD or The Image is Found’s Crazybooth Guide). These options generally cost a few hundred dollars and are fairly well-known in the industry, so I recommend searching for reviews on forums before making a purchase (but beware of anyone offering to sell you their copy at a deeply discounted rate – this is often a scam, not to mention blatantly illegal).

When searching for the educational opportunity that is right for you, keep in mind who you are as a photographer and what your long-term goals are. If you want to work mostly local, you should not be taking workshops from people who primarily shoot destination weddings. If your goal is to shoot 10-12 weddings at $15k each, you shouldn’t be doing consultations with photographers who shoot 50-60 “shoot and burn” weddings a year. Sure, you may learn a lot from these people, but chances are that much of their advice will not apply to you or your business. Remember that everyone’s work is unique, and the quality of someone’s work rarely reflects the success of their business. Instead of taking workshops from people whose images you like, focus on the business models that fit you, and learn from those people.

Tips for Photographers (T4P) is a regular feature where I talk about a cool tip that I think will benefit my fellow photographers. For more T4Ps, click here!

Lately I have received a lot of questions about what kind of gear I use, so I figured it was about time for an updated What’s in My Bag post! When I’m shooting, I always carry the same gear on me:

Shootsac
Canon 5D Mark II
Canon 50 1.2L (stays on my camera 90% of the time)
Canon 100 2.8 Macro (mostly for detail shots and some portraits)
Canon 16-35 2.8L (great for big sweeping ceremony photos, wedding party photos, large formals, and reception dancing photos)
Canon ST-E2 Wireless Transmitter (for firing my flashes)

I like to work light, so this is the only gear I actually carry around with me (plus copious amounts of memory cards and batteries). I also have a second gear bag that holds all my miscellaneous items. This gear serves as my backup kit, as well as supplemental gear for my second shooter, should she need it.

Lowepro Pro Roller 2
Canon 5D (backup camera)
Canon 70-200 2.8L (used during the ceremony for closeups)
Canon 28 2.8
Canon 85 1.8
Canon 50 1.4
Tamron 28-75 2.8
Canon 580 EX (2)
Canon 430 EX
Canon ST-E2 (backup)
Canon flash sync cord
Lowell ID 100w video light w/ 4-way barndoors + Bescor battery
2 Lightstands
1 Monopod (to use a light-on-a-stick, as held by my assistant)

Here are a few things I DON’T use (nothing against any of these items, I just don’t find them necessary for my shooting style):
-Tilt-shift lenses or Lensbabies
-Pocket Wizards
-Filters
-Flash diffusers (I have a couple but they have been gathering dust since I bought them)
-Strobes
-Flash brackets
-White balance tools (ExpoDisc, grey card, etc)
-Reflectors (again, I have a couple, but I never use them)

There are a lot of neat gadgets and gizmos and add-ons that the camera industry pimps out, but in my experience most of them are either gimmicky or easily replicated in Photoshop/Lightroom. Gear is useful, but only to an extent. The truth is, if you can’t take a good photo with a Digital Rebel and a kit lens, you’re still not going to take good photos with a 5D and a 50 1.2L. However, if you CAN take a good photo with a Rebel and a kit lens, investing in professional-quality equipment will help you take the quality of your already-good images to the next level.

Tips for Photographers (T4P) is a regular feature where I talk about a cool tip that I think will benefit my fellow photographers. For more T4Ps, click here!

One of the primary things I hear from new photographers just breaking into the biz is that they have a really hard time getting experience. They e-mail every local photographer in their area, and never get any response.  This isn’t surprising to me, considering that I receive 3-4 e-mails from “wannabe” wedding photographers every week asking to second shoot with me.  If I said yes to all of them, I would easily have 5-10 people following me around at every wedding!  Not only would this be a mess, it would be unprofessional and unfair to the client.  As a paid professional, I am at weddings to work, not to teach, so I only bring people with me who already have some experience and who are ready to do the job I assign them to do without me having to keep an eye on them.  This is why I pretty much universally say “no” when people ask me if they can shadow me.

Of course, there’s a catch-22 in there.. You have to have experience to shoot, but you have to shoot to have experience.  So what do you do if you have the desire but not the experience?  Well, mass e-mailing hundreds of people you don’t know telling them that someday you want to be their competition, but for now you just want to follow them around and take all their trade secrets probably isn’t the best course of action!

The first step is to form a personal relationship with your colleagues.  Become more than a face in a crowd.  Find out what forums they frequent and participate in active threads, provide feedback (honest feedback, not just empty praise), get involved in heated discussions.. Show your fellow photographers that you’re serious about this business and you have an honest desire to learn.  If your colleagues don’t participate in forums, arrange local get-togethers or join local guilds.  In Dallas we have several branches of the PPA that hold monthly meetings, and many of the non-PPA crowd  get together for lunch or poker every couple of weeks.  Someone is much more likely to give you a chance to work for them if they consider you a friend, or at least a colleague.

The second step is to be willing to pay your dues. Metaphorically speaking, you should be willing to do some of the grunt work – carrying bags, holding flashes, backing up cards, etc. – before you ever expect to take a photograph.  Think of yourself as an intern.. You have to do the crappy work for free before you can do the fun, skilled stuff for pay.   This is how it works in every indsutry, so wedding photography should be no different!  Literally speaking, you should also be willing to put your money where your mouth is.  If there’s one photographer in particular that you really like, e-mail them and offer to take them out to lunch at a fancy restaurant, or offer to pay them to do a day-long consultation with you.  If you truly value their advice, you’ll be willing to invest in such a great, personalized learning experience.

Remember, everyone’s time is valuable.  Before asking someone to spend time on you, you should be willing to spend either time or money investing in them, as well.  Good luck!  Here’s a photo of me and my second shooter (who has been a friend and fellow photographer since college, as well as one of my past clients) Jena at a recent wedding.  What can I say, we love our job :)

Although I haven’t used the camera much yet, I do want to provide some feedback for anyone who is considering purchasing it. A lot of you have asked me if I think it’s worth the upgrade, and it’s hard for me to say because that decision depends on a lot of factors that are specific to you as a photographer. To make it easier, I’ve prepared a list of PROs and CONs.

PROs (in order of how much I care about them):

-Improved image quality. The jury is actually still out on this one, but one thing I have noticed is that the images are much, much crisper. I used to run a sharpening action on all my images from the old 5D, and now I am finding that that action is making the images look over-sharpened, and that the SOOC image is pretty amazingly sharp as-is.
-Small RAW. I hate big images, I think anything over 8 MP is a complete waste, and even the original 5D was too big for me. Each JPG was 12-15 MBs, too big to send even one over most e-mail systems. Small RAW gives me a 10 MP option, so my files are now a little bit smaller, which is great, but of course there’s always the option to use the 21 MP huge RAW if I feel like wasting memory card space. The filesize selection menu also tells you how many photos you can take on your memory card at each setting directly in the menu, which is very useful.
-Manual autofocus point tweaking, PER LENS!! So if you have a lens that you know is slightly soft at the far right point, you can tweak it in camera to make it sharper. CRAZY. And here’s the best part – Canon has already determined this information for most of their lenses, so all you have to do is download it and sync it to your camera, and WHAMMY – instantly sharper lenses. Probably the single most awesome feature on the camera.
-HD Video.. More on this in a bit.
-Automatic sensor dust cleaning, and – get this – Dust Detection Removal, which will record where sensor dust spots were, clean them, and then fix those spots in the photos you’ve already taken. Holy cow.
-AUTO ISO!!! This is HUGE, it’s insane that it took Canon this long to get this.
-New highlight protection feature. When turned on, this option gives you a little bit more detail in your highlights, which is helpful when you shoot lots of white wedding dresses in direct sun, like I do. However, when turned on, this feature limits the ISOs that you can use, which can be a hassle, unless you have it set up on one of your……
-Three custom Creative modes, so you can have a “sunny outdoor with highlight protection” setting, “dark church” setting, and “reception with flash” setting (or whatever else you choose).
-Bigger, improved LCD screen with more options and LiveView, which lets you see what the photo will look like before you take it. If you’re trying to make the switch to full Manual, like I am, this will help you quite a bit, because you will be able to see on the screen if your settings are too light or too dark. LiveView also has a magnification option, which is very helpful if you’re a manual focuser, as well.
-Focus point notification. Basically you can activate a setting that will place a red dot over the area of the image that is in focus (in playback). Very handy for insuring that you don’t get home from a session only to find out that your favorite photo of the series was backfocused.
-Ability to make new folders on your memory card. This was something I missed from my 1D Mark II N.. Really useful for organizing images from the day of the wedding, or setting aside a group of images that is special for some reason.
-Option to insert your copyright info into the EXIF of every image you take, as well as the option to mark a photo as an “original” copy. This way, if someone steals your photo and strips the exif, you’ll have proof that your photo was the original.
-Speedlite custom functions, so you can have settings specific to each of your flashes that are automatically set when you put the flash on your camera.
-Super high ISOs. I shot several of the photos from Darby and Mark’s session at ISO 2500 and although the grain was noticeable SOOC, it was easy to remove in Lightroom. I doubt I’ll be using the high ISOs all that much since I use flash when it gets dark, but it’s nice to have them for those super dark churches where no flash is allowed.
-Improved battery information, including percentage of power remaining and number of shutter clicks on that battery (to determine recharge performance). You can also “register” your batteries with the camera, so that your camera will remember what power level each battery is at. With this option, you won’t have to try to remember which battery is drained and which one is fully charged, because your camera will store a catalog of that information for you!
-Lots of things that will be very helpful for JPG shooters, such as Filters and toning in Black and White mode, white balance bracketing, vignette correction, tons of Picture Style options, etc.

CONs:

-HD video is incredibly, incredibly flawed. Considering that Canon pushed back the release of this camera for sooo long, it’s really unforgivable that they released it with such a majorly messed up headlining feature. The main problem with the HD video is that there is basically no manual exposure control, aside from a slider that functions as a “brighter/darker” scale. All the hype about being able to use your fancy 1.2 and tilt-shift lenses is somewhat moot, because the camera retains almost ALL control over your exposure settings, including your aperture. You’ll notice that virtually all of Canon’s promo videos using the HD video are at night – that’s because shooting in near dark is the only way you can get your camera to use a fast aperture, producing those impressive shallow-DOF scenes. If you shoot in a well-lit area, you’re stuck using f16 the whole time, and it doesn’t look very impressive. The autofocus is also really frustrating – it’s very very searchy, and goes in and out and in and out several times before finally locking in, and it it often also throws your exposure way out of wack, making most of the video you shoot while using autofocus useless. The only upside to the autofocus is that it stops down to your widest aperture, so you can at least get a little taste of what your video would look like if you were actually able to shoot at f1.2 (or whatever your max. aperture is). I have my fingers crossed that
-Sensor issues. I have noticed that the reds/oranges/yellows are way, way too strong.. To be fair, since the camera is so new most programs (including what I use, Lightroom) had not yet released support for the Canon 5D Mark II images. Now that they are starting to update, they may make corrections to compensate for this, so it might not be as big an issue. However, there are other problems.. Many people are reporting seeing black dots on their night images, and I have three – THREE – dead pixels (white spots that appear in the same place in every image) on my brand new, right out of the box camera.
-New battery. What a huge pain in the butt. I can’t even sell my old batteries to buy the new ones, because I still need them for my 5D Mark I and Jason’s 30D. This adds at least another $200-300 to the cost of the camera, not to mention extra time, hassle, and camera bag space. This may have been a necessary evil to compensate for the video feature and LiveView draining the battery life, but it’s upsetting to think that it might have just been a ploy from Canon to get more money out of us. I guess I can forgive them if it was, since the 5D Mark II was surprisingly cheap at only $2700 ($2500 if you shop hard enough).

Obviously there are far more PROs than CONs, but that doesn’t mean that I advocate running out and buying one right now. The 5D Mark II is a substantial improvement over the Mark I, that is true without a shadow of a doubt. It gives the photographer far more control over their images, and has a lot of features intended to save photographers time, which is wonderful. I honestly believe it is the best DSLR on the market right now, hands down. That said… Everyone doesn’t need the BEST camera, especially when the 5D Mark I is such an incredible camera, as well.

If you’re a smart, rational shopper, there are really only two reasons to spend the extra $1200+ on the Mark II (since Mark I’s have now dropped to $1500 or less): High ISO and HD video, and as I’ve already mentioned, the HD video is extremely flawed. If I were a more patient person, I would probably wait it out and see if Canon releases a firmware fix for the video shortfalls in the next couple of months. If they do, then I’ll say it’s absolutely 100% THE camera to have as a wedding or portrait photographer. If they don’t, I suspect that we will see a 5D Mark IIN or a 5D Mark III in less than a year, and that will be the camera to own. Since I am not a patient person, and since I really want to have the ability to play with the HD video, flawed as it may be, I went ahead and took the plunge, and I don’t regret it at all.

Tips for Photographers (T4P) is a weekly feature where I talk about a cool tip that I think will benefit my fellow photographers. For more T4Ps, click here!

Back in my sorority days (Kappa Delta – AOT forever!), we used to have a joke that we used to keep people in line.. “If you’re talking, you’re WRONG!” Well.. If you’re not Twittering, you’re WRONG! Twitter is an amazing mini-blogging tool that helps you keep people aware of what you’re doing, what’s going on in your business, how you feel about certain things, and what your future plans are, all in 140 characters or less. The text limit keeps everything short and sweet, so even the most ADD blog follower can handle it. Do you see that little blue box at the top of my blog? That’s my Twitter feed! You can click on it and see all the twitters I have tweeted (haha!) in the past, as well!

Here is a great article I discovered that covers the basics of what Twitter is, and how it can help you promote your business and keep in touch with your clients and colleagues. This is a neat video by the very talented Bui brothers specifically regarding Twitter for photographers.

To sign up for your Twitter account, simply go here and join! And once you register, don’t forget to follow me so we can tweet to each other :)

Side note: Twitter isn’t just for photographers. ANYONE can join! I would love love love it if some of my amazing clients would join, too (hint, hint)!

Tips for Photographers (T4P) is a weekly feature where I talk about a cool tip that I think will benefit my fellow photographers. For more T4Ps, click here!

Today’s Tip for Photographers is something that I talk about quite a bit already, but it’s super important so it’s always worthy of another mention. For me, albums are the cornerstone of my business. In my eyes, I sell two products – my time, and my albums. Those are the two biggest expenses on my pricelist, because they are the heart of what I do. Some people take photos to take photos, I take photos to create albums.

The company I use for my albums is absolutely wonderful and fantastic in every way. The company is called Forbeyon and they are a dream to work with. A few months ago I took a tour of their showroom and got a newfound respect for what they do. All of their albums are handmade, right here in Dallas Texas, with top of the line quality materials, and a rigorous quality inspection process. Since day one of working with Forbeyon, it has been obvious to me that the most important aspect of their business is creating a high-quality product, and I really respect that. I have looked into a lot of other album companies, but I always come back to Forbeyon. I could gush about them all day!! To learn more about the albums I offer, check out this page.

Although Forbeyon does have a design team that will create great album designs for you, I am a control freak so I choose to design my albums myself. I do this using the Page Gallery software by Yervant. Although I have had some issues with this software (their tech support is less than stellar), I really can’t live without it. It takes me about an hour to design a full 60-page wedding book, which is unheard of. It used to take me a week just to design a small book, now I can whip out 2-3 a day! It’s a template-based program, but has several options to customize pages, and it outputs PSD files so you can tweak them by hand, as well.

It blows my mind when I hear that some people are not even offering albums at all, let alone not offering them in their packages. If you’re not selling albums, not only are you providing your clients with an incomplete service, but you’re losing a lot of potential revenue. However, to sell a product, you have to have samples to show, so make sure you have several great, top of the line sample albums to take with you to client consultations. I have about 8-10 books altogether – one for each year I have been in the business, several duplicates of client’s books, a photobooth album, a details album, and a guestbook album. And don’t complain about how you can’t afford sample albums – a couple hundred invested in sample books will mean THOUSANDS of dollars in a return on your investment, if you price them correctly. Totally worth it!!

Tips for Photographers (T4P) is a weekly feature where I talk about a cool tip that I think will benefit my fellow photographers. For more T4Ps, click here!

One thing I get asked pretty often is what kinds of actions I use. In general, I try to stay away from using actions too much (although I did go through a phase where I went crazy-go-nuts for actions because they were all so new and cool). These days, I think it’s important for images to look consistent and generally timeless. However, there are a few sets that I love and use on a regular basis.

The first is Kevin Kubota’s action sets. I have Artistic Tools 1 & 2 and Production Tools 1. Although there are hundreds of actions all together, I really only use a few: Magic Sharp, Vibrant Glow, Vignette, and Daily Multi Vitamin. Here is an image with all four of those actions applied (with tweaking).

Another set I love is Totally Rad Actions Volume 1. Several of these – Pro Retouch, Oh Snap!, Cool as a Cucumber, Warm it up Kris, etc – are great for every day use, and a few more – Antique Tone, Rusty Cage, SX-70 – are good for special projects, but the one I absolutely adore is Old Skool. I have come up with a lot of variations on Old Skool that work well for me.. Here are two examples.

The last set that I use is from a friend of mine, Kevin Jairaj, and his set KJ’s Outdoor Action Set. His Punchy B&W is the BEST! It’s high contrast, which often requires some tweaking, but I absolutely swear by it and don’t use any other B&W conversion.

Any time you use an action, compare the new version with the original, and make sure that the change you’ve made is an improvement on the original, and not just a change for the sake of change. Also, don’t hesitate to tweak the actions. One thing I love about Kubota’s Actions and the Totally Rad Actions is that the changes are made on a new layer (sometimes several layers) so you are free to adjust the effects to fit your personal style. Almost every time I use an action, I adjust it in some way, either by changing the opacity, changing the layer Style, using the history brush to paint in parts of the original image, etc.

There are a lot of new trends in the photography world right now – colorshifting, textures, super-contrast/super-saturation, etc. – and it’s great to give those techniques a shot and incorporate them when appropriate. However, when you build a business around a particular trend you always run the risk of your images dating themselves or going out of style. If you want your images to stand the test of time, define your “style” in the simplest possible terms, and focus on creating beautiful, meaningful images straight out of the camera, rather than relying on Photoshop.