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 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.

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 :)