I encountered a really great article on how to create your own NAS server to help with digital asset management.

The article provides an insight on how to cheaply create a NAS server to store, backup files and it’ll allow you to access them anywhere in the world; As long as your server is connected to an internet connection.

The server uses a FreeBSD flavor of linux to serve files. I’m not sure exactly.

I definately recommend checking this out if you’re an uber geek or somewhat computer savvy: NAS Server

Canon officially releases a new camera:  Canon 7D.  With the release of the Nikon D300s, Canon has seen a drop of market share in the semi-pro/pro area. The new release positions itself directly against APS-C cameras like the Nikon D300s. In fact it’s going to be priced $100 less than the Nikon D300s.

The 7D provides some new ground breaking features:

• Boasts 18 Megapixels
• Full Manual 1080p 24fps HD video
• Continuous 8 Frames Per Second of shooting with up to 126 Large/JPEGs and 15 RAW
• A new magnesium body that is durable, weather and dust resistant
  
• Up To 150,000 Frame Shutter Life
• Full Speed CF UDMA Abilities
  
• Dual DIGIC Image 4 Processors
• Amazing 19 point autofocus system.
• ISO 100 - ISO 6400/12,800 (Expanded)

The 7D will retail at $1699 (Canon Website).

Sources:

http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/01/canon-eos-7d-now-official-is-exactly-what-you-expected/

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0909/09090105canoneos7d.asp

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10322059-1.html

In the era of the internet and boundless choices society has devolved to depend on primitive forms of communications (Brafman & Brafman, Ori & Rom 2008).

It is thus essential to get wedding photographers who want to survive this recession as well as expand your wedding photography business to provide the utmost sterling service. With this goal in mind; prices are no longer arguable or negotiable; your reputation for sterling service and excellent quality photographs will give you greater chances of justifying higher prices for less effort.

Here are some easy ideas to provide buzz and give the impression of branding your company as the company of high end quality service.

1. Communicate through Branding - This is usually the first step of any photographer. They create a brand in mind. Make sure it’s true to you and conveys what you intend to do. This will be your foundation of communication to your clients. Your brand must clearly represent yourself in 3 seconds why you’re worth spending all that money for. Make sure your brand conveys the 3 C’s:  Cohesiveness, Clarity, Comprehensiveness.
2. Packaging - Good packaging and attention to the small details are key to creating buzz. Find packaging that is unique from other companies or regions. This may hire a good graphic/packaging designer. It will pay off in the long run.
3. Personality - Be personal and intimate. If this is not your style; that’s quite alright. Give your work a personal flair. Put your soul, empathy, and emotion into your work. Go over your portfolio and pick out those pieces of work that really convey that emotional impact. That’s what will more often than not sell. Just make sure you make it a point to try to find interest in your clients life or interest. It doesn’t mean that you should go out and hang out with them; but just keep in touch with them. Almost be their professional friend.
4. Be generous and kind if it comes up; send them small gifts  if the occasion comes up. Say a birthday, graduation, anniversary, etc. You worry about costs? You’re a photographer; photos don’t really cost so much.  Offer a quick couple shot and print them out a couple 8×10’s or 4×6’s. They’re cheap but can go a long way. Sometimes if you’ve already shot them why not send them a quick post card with their photo. Canon has a printer that allows you to print on postcard paper. Write a personal message. If you do decide to purchase a gift ask your accountant what the gift limits are (as i don’t really know. I’m not an accountant). You may be able to deduct the full cost of the gift.
5. Show up in person when you can I don’t recommend meeting clients in person all that much if you don’t have an agenda. This may cause a lot of lost time. However, make it an effort to show up or meet with them to deliver their final photos for their wedding when you can. This can make a big difference.
6. Underpromise / Overdeliver When you can push the bar lower; but crash those expectations. You may be able to deliver an album in 10 weeks but you actually were able to deliver it in half that time.  This will provide you the buzz you need.
7. Details - Make sure you record notes and store them in a good place. If you can remember the details of your conversations and recall them your authority and position make a lasting impact on your clients
8. Be Consistent Make sure you are consistent and follow through with your actions.

This is a presentation that i’ve discovered. It’s highly inspiring and interesting. It may be more relevant for wedding photographers or commercial photographers who have a larger team.

Regardless of if you have many employees; it’s rather fascinating and groundbreaking insight on how to to manage teams many multidisciplinary teams.

The title sums it all. I’ve discovered some small things will make a big difference in your working day.

Being at the right place and the right time is crucial if you’re a wedding photojournalist. Tangent:  I’m more of a fauxtojournalist (Coined by Jerry Ghionis). I like to create moments as well as capture the moment.

The Truth: We’re not perfect. You can’t get every shot Mister/Madam Wedding Photographer

Nonetheless, you can’t always be in the right place in the right time. It’s a part of life: You cannot optimally capture 100% of the shots. Even if you do you might have to throw away a lot of the shots you took. We’re all not robots and we’re not perfect. It’s why the photo gods created photoshop (I wasn’t referring to erasers silly!).  Leaving the joking aside, you shouldn’t rely on photoshop and that’s a total different subject.

We may convey this to our brides to the utmost certainty; the harsh reality is that you cannot capture all the shots. Even voodoo won’t be able to save you this time. On the positive note, if you’re prepared and the photography gods are on your side your odds of getting more perfect shots will increase.

I’ll cover the duh’s and the do’s on getting optimal shots.

Part I: Getting to your bride

Ok so the following are pretty obvious sometimes and even funny. But it’s the damn truth. Make sure you get these down. You can’t shoot great pictures if you’re not on time or even near your bride.

1. Ask your bride some good questions for the wedding. In the next blog post I will provide a templated list or form you can print out that’ll provide you a worksheet where you can write in some standard questions for wedding logistics.
2. Make sure you know where the wedding occuring - Make sure that you have all the information that will allow you to get there on time. This is an obvious duh; but sometimes it might cross your mind because you’ve waited till the last minute to write down where her wedding is.
3. Confirmation - Have the bride confirm the venues a couple days before the wedding. Wedding cancellations are common in a recession like this.  Make sure everything is still on.
4. Check traffic the day of the wedding - I know some of you might live in areas where traffic may not exist; but for me (I live in Detroit) and traffic and construction are a major headache sometimes. Make sure you get your self a good gps as well. This is one of the good habits of wedding photographers i’ve mentioned previously. You may also want to use google maps to consult the
5. Use monuments to visualize your route - Use google street view - I’m a visual guy. I need to see thing where the wedding church may look like.
6. Location scouting - This is a add on to the previous point. Do location scouting through google street view. If you live near a metropolis where most weddings may be held; most likely google has the street level view of how buildings may look. This may allow you to know where to position your bride near the venues where the wedding maybe held: reception hall, church/place of worship, parks for in between shots.
7. Own the town you live in: Keep a log of some great places around town that you know are great shots.

Part II  to be continued later…

Many of you have been following my blog for a while. Some may just be tunining in to my wonderful blog.

During the summer months blogs will be shorter lighter and not as periodic. Since I have more weddings in the summer I will blog less. I will start to pick up the weekly blogging again once things slow down in the fall.

Expect to see at least one blog post a month.  Please check out the archives. I’ve listed some top visted articles below:

1. Facebook Marketing for Wedding Photographers Part I
2. Top 10 Wedding Photography Sins
3. Top 10 Tips on Building a Wedding Photography Business
4. Secrets of Pricing Wedding Photography
5. Recession Marketing for Wedding Photographers

Do more with less time has always been my mantra. I’ve recently have been listening to Tim Ferris and have been inspired by his audacity and tenacious endeavor of trimming all the fat and improving your life and making yourself more and more profitable.

GM Tangent

Speaking of excess; today marks the end of GM as we know it. Today, GM is officially bankrupt.

I think at this point of the day; everyone knows this; that’s if you’ve been hiding under a rock somewhere in Timbuctou. Unfortunately, General Motors provides us an “alamo-like” reminder that times are tumultous, harsh and the rules of the game in Business.

How does it relate to Wedding Photography?

You, too, are a business owner. You must be careful in such times to manage your cashflow effectively and out think and outwit your competition.

3 General Rules of a Profitable & Very Successful Business:

1. Cash Flow
2. Religion of ROI
3. Time Management

Cash Flow

Are making more than spending? Or is it vice versa? Make sure your books are well kept and keep every reciept you can. Take control of your money and if you’re not going to buy Quickbooks or some type of financial software; then just keep it simple. Keep a spreadsheet with a cash flow sheet of your money coming in(Column A) and out(Column B). I’m no accountant so i try not to use those fancy confusing accounting terms.

You must also ask; Can I really afford something like this given my current Income?

Make sure you are projecting your sales. Provide realistic historical cash flow data into your analysis.

Religion of ROI

Investing and maintaining equipment is a large part of wedding photography. Make sure you keep track and see if is really worth purchasing certain items. This might mean asking several of the following questions:

• Is this piece of equipment required to do your job or provide you more income?
• Is this form of advertising maximizing the most amount of dollars for me?
• Am i really using this service enough to

Time Management

Your time easily equates into dollars and cents. I’ve probably covered this already and have talked about it several times.

Here are some quick ideas for better time management (These are some of the ideas shared by Tim Ferris in his book; 4 Hour Work Week):

1. Reduce the amount of times your check email a day.
2. Reduce drive time. If you can. Make clients come to you or meet you in the middle.
3. Bring things to do while you wait for clients.
4. Keep a list of errands and do them all at once.
5. Execute at most 2 tasks. Doing multiple tasks at once always that efficient.
6. Have phone calls rerouted to your cell phone. Don’t answer every call. You really don’t need to unless it’s absolutely urgent
7. Time yourself. Keep a timer on hand or download one onto your computer. Get a grasph of how many minutes on average it may take you to retouch a photo.
8. Outsource as much as you can. Simply, find ways to free up your time
9. Avoid meetings that don’t have any set agenda.
10. Replace phone calls with with email.
11. There are so many more. So sure you check out Tim Ferris’ book, 4 Hour Workweek.
12. Oh my last tip is this. Don’t read books. Just listen to them while working on your Post-Processing. You can sometimes finish a book in 3-5 hours. When reading a book might take double that if you aren’t the fastest reader. The exception is if you’re going on a trip. I think that’s most profitable with your time. When you can’t find wireless.
13. Give yourself breaks. Try the 45/15 rule. Work for 45 minutes; break for 15 or 60/20 or 70/30, etc. Whatever works for you. 45/15 seems easiest to keep track of.  Breaks allow you to keep focus. It is often difficult or challenging to work large amounts of periods of time.

Once you free up all that time. Your hourly rate will jump quite a bit. This will give you more time to do things that’ll make you more money.

More ideas on profitability later.

This is an article i’ve published a while ago for a forum. I’ve decided to share the following nugget of advice for you all. I apologize for the advanced readers who already know this.

The dreaded red-eye effect or demonic looking eyes is frequently seen in photos. To avoid them one must understand how it is caused. If you understand how this effect is caused you might want to skip the following paragraph:

The red-eye effect is a result of quick bursts of light off of the retina. This burst of light is reflected off of the retina and into the camera. These quick exposures to light do not allow the pupil to close down small enough to avoid retina reflection. This is more frequently caused by on camera flash because the angle of reflection is close to perpendicular to the camera. The red-eye effect is more common when the ambient (or environmental) light is very low; thus causing the pupils to open up more.

To avoid this red-eye effect one can do the following: (1) Elevate one’s camera flash. This can be done by using an external flash or a camera bracket. This would provide a greater angle of reflection. (2) Move into an area where there is more light. You must also allow a few seconds for the pupils to close down and adjust to the light. (3) Position your camera angle to be above or below the camera subject. This would allow a greater angle of reflection. (4) Avoid on camera flash. Try using natural, continuous or ambient light sources to illuminate your subject(s). (5) Use bounce flash. Bounce your flash off flat objects to illuminate your subject. (6) Pre-flash. This is an option I’d avoid, subjects tend to dislike flashes. But, some cameras are equipped with pre-flashes (which are usually red) that flash onto the subject. In my experience, they’re not too effective but in theory it should work.

If you are somewhat camera savvy the following are some things one can do with their camera settings to avoid red-eye:

(1) Use faster film or lower ISO/ASA speeds. If your ISO speed is lower than there are a fewer chances that your film/sensor will be able to detect the light bouncing off of one’s retina. (2)If you cannot change your ISO/ASA speed, than using the same principle, aforementioned, one can increase your f-stop to allow less light into the camera. (3) Speed up your exposure (time) and allow less light to be absorbed into the camera.

If you could not use any of these tips and red-eye still exists in your photograph there is computer software that can eliminate your red-eye. One can use various software to correct red-eye: Google’s Picasa (freeware), Adobe’s Photoshop, Adobe’s Photo Elements, etc.

For Most Wedding Photographers wedding season is underway. It’s getting warm; even here in michigan. You’re probably busy shooting engagement portraits outdoors or even going to weddings.

I thought today for this week i would write about how to improve your photography eye-q (IQ. Or visual intellect. I just made it up just now). Meaning your visual creative genius or part of the brain. I find that anyone can develop your creative muscles if you would everyday for at least half an hour spend sometime looking over photos.

The reason professional photographers are better than an amateur is truely not because of our technical abilities or camear gear; but the amount of creative intelligence we possess: technical ability comes second (IMHO). You see this holding true with a photographer like gregory crewdson. He rarely ever likes to shoot photographs but he is gifted and talented and can create strong concepts and ideas for his team to execute.

The greater our Eye-Q of an individual the easier it is for a photographer to  contrive, execute and pre-visualize our shots and create beautiful images on the fly. This is what our clients pay extra for; or should be paying you a premium for. They’ve entrusted their dollars/rupies/currency to execute their wedding/portraits with the utmost creative excellence for whatever you do.

You’re ready to work out your Eye Q?!

Here are some things that you can do everyday to enhance your creative Eye-Q. But first you should follow some rules:

1. Copying. Try not to copy the style.
2. Be yourself. If it’s not your style don’t do it
3. Don’t give up. Keep learning

Here are somethings or ideas that will help improve or expand your creative Eye-Q.

1. Keep a collection of magazine photos that you are inspired from
2. Store these clippings somewhere. I find a cork board best. Stack images on top of them each month. Keep it updated.
3. Subscribe to some magazines that interest your style: Brides magazines etc.
4. If you don’t want print. Print some things out and attach it to your creative cork board.
5. Spend time minutes scanning portraits or paintings or find some inspiration for photography through other mediums: movies, books, paintings

After you’ve found your clippings or have filled your inspiration board. Try to execute on them. Have them stored in your brain (with neurochromes) and try to execute them in your own way: whether at a wedding or a portrait session.

Hope this has been helpful for you wedding photographers. Hoping you all the best start of the wedding season. -C

Image Shot by Flickr User: SqueakyMarmot

A lot of people make emotional decisions by pricing. You want to avoid that. If you can. Remember to be as rational and objective as possible. Most of the time good business decisions are made with solid information and empirical data. You may not be a good business person if you decide that one day widget a would be a good day to sell more only because of a gut feeling.

Emotions should only belong in selling to your client. You want to instill emotion in your clients by presenting something that is sensational and an offer they cannot refuse.

In this current economic condition in the US, it maybe easy to drop your prices in order to obtain a quick sale. Say a 500 dollar wedding. We’ve all done it at some point but you don’t want to admit it.

In my eyes, this presents several problems:

1. Future Growth: If you’re starting off you don’t consider where you’ll be in the next 1-2 years. If you’re doing this for a profession it’s important to keep in mind that you need to make a profit; in order to continue wedding photography as a profession. Doing business without making profit means that you’ll quickly in the long run go bankrupt like the auto counterparts. In your case, you will not be receiving a bailout.  Unless you have a rich uncle.
2. Caste system: In an ideal world a rich client would be perfect. It’s easier starting to shoot weddings for the higher clientele than to move up on the food chain.
3. Less is more: Why shoot 40 weddings for $500  when you can shoot 15-12 $4,000-8,000 and end up on top.
4. Hourly wage: Your hourly wage decreases as you have more photos to edit. You don’t get paid for that time unless you already consider it in your fees in the first place.
5. Deliver a poor product: at $500 dollars a wedding you cannot spend time to edit your photos. If you do; It maybe more profitable for you to work as a manager at McDonalds.
6. Customer Service: Good word of mouth depends on excellent & sterling customer service. You need to pay yourself for that as well. Meeting with your client costs money as well: Gas, telephone bills,
7. Risks: Traveling to a wedding where your equipment may cost more than what your making may present a lot more problems. If your equipment breaks at least once; you’ll have to work double as hard to make up for it.

I cannot stress more enough  that profit should dictate your business actions & decisions. Time is finite and is only diminishing: More time should be spent on profitable endeavors: Networking; Meeting with clients; building relationships and closing sales.

The free and under $500 Lesson Here

Again, there are always exceptions. Frequently, you’ll encounter photographers who are pretty lucky; work hard and make it big starting of at $500 weddings. My message is that it is not sustainable. I’m sure you can do 30-40 $500 weddings; but it’s not sustainable in the long run.

If you cannot travel. Try engaging your clients through social media and creating conversations; helping others etc. This we will discuss later in an article titled; building word of mouth marketing.

Photo Source: Squeaky Marmot. This person has a huge collection of photos of antiquated cameras they’ve collected over the years

Join me in the next blog article when i discuss how to price yourself in a recession.