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Tag Archives: Tips for Photographers

T4P - Do you Twitter?

November 4, 2008 – 10:11 am

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)!

By Stacy | Posted in Tips for Photographers | Also tagged | Comments (2)

T4P - Albums

October 28, 2008 – 4:30 pm

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!!

By Stacy | Posted in Tips for Photographers | Also tagged | Comments (1)

T4P - Actions

October 21, 2008 – 1:54 pm

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.

By Stacy | Posted in Tips for Photographers | Also tagged , | Comments (3)

T4P - Posing Inspiration

October 7, 2008 – 12:37 pm

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 going to be about posing inspiration. Posing is probably one of the hardest aspects of being a photographer, and in my opinion, one of the most important factors in what separates a good photographer from a so-so one. It also completely sets the tone for the photoshoot and your “style” as a photographer.

My primary source of inspiration for my posing is magazines. My poor boyfriend can attest that I buy every single Bridal magazine I can find, as well as several high-fashion magazines such as Vogue and Elle, and I immediately run home and flip through every page, ripping out any poses that inspire me. I have a huge collection of tearsheets that I have collected over the past few years…

I used to paste these into a journal where I would make notes on each pose, what I liked about it, how to achieve it, what types of brides/dresses the poses worked best with…

Now I keep them organized into a binder, divided into categories such as “Poofy Dresses,” “Mermaid dresses,” “Bridesmaids,” “Bride and Groom,” “Groom alone,” “Details,” etc., so that I can easily find the tearsheet that apply to whatever it is I am shooting that day.

Before each session, I go through my binder and review the poses that apply to that particular day’s shoot, and I try to commit 2-3 of the poses to memory. I study them very carefully and try to burn the aspects of the pose that I like into my brain. Then, during the session, I will re-create those poses, but I will do something different to make them my own, such as changing the arm placement, lighting, angle of the body, or composition. After awhile, you will have a mental repertoire of images that you can work from during your sessions whenever you can’t think of something new or unique.

That’s it for this week. Hope you guys like the new feature! Let me know what you think :)

By Stacy | Posted in Tips for Photographers | Also tagged | Comments (11)