Sell Photography Online

Holiday Photography Tips

admin — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 16:43:51 +0000

With the upcoming holiday season, photographers and amatuers alike are pulling out the cameras on a regular basis to capture those fun gatherings and family get togethers.

These tips from HowToPhotography.org will help make your holiday photos great!

As we approach this time of year, it’s very likely in most parts of the country that many of your holiday activities will be indoors due to the shorter days, colder weather, and also since most of the Thanksgiving pleasures center around the kitchen! This being the case, shooting indoors with a full house of family or friends all moving around and celebrating can make it difficult to capture clear, crisp, warm images. Here are a few selected photography tips for getting great holiday images in your home.

Use natural light if possible…

I always, always prefer using natural light as often as possible, even when indoors. If you’re hosting your holiday festivities in an environment with few windows, you’re out of luck here. But if the rooms have plenty of windows, try to open up as many of the window coverings (blinds, shades, etc.) as you can to reduce your dependency on flash lighting. This can bring tremendous amounts of warmth to your images as opposed to using a flash to light your images.

…but if you can’t, use indirect light.

If you don’t have natural light to take advantage of, consider bouncing your flash off of a wall or the ceiling. Many flash units and speedlights now come with rotating flash heads, making them a perfect choice for sending the flash light in a direction other than straight at your subjects. This can really do a great job helping to reduce the powerful wash out effect of flash lighting. In a pinch, I’ve also placed items like an opaque plastic bowl or a bit of wax paper over the built in flash unit on my camera body to reduce the power of the flash and hence warm up the image a bit. Just be careful if you try this technique as it can produce undesired imbalances in the lighting. Be sure to check your LCD screen.

Capture the candids!

Holiday gatherings are a great time to catch people just laughing and having conversations. In my family, it always seems that the old timers tend to gather in the corner and share stories that probably aren’t suitable for the kids in the room. I always like sneaking over and catching those types of moments. Just be discreet and see what you can come up with.

Here come the group shots…

Since the holidays are often the only time of year that many families are able to come together, it’s always good to try to get everyone together for a group shot, as long as your setting and family dynamics allow it! Composing group shots is usually a challenge and we’ve written a couple of articles just on photography tips for groups. However, it typically boils down to proper composition, getting everyone to look at the camera, and making sure to reduce any unwanted red eye or glare from eyeglasses. Try to make sure that your composition is balanced, meaning everyone is relatively close together and symmetrical from front to back and left to right. To reduce red eye, either use the appropriate red eye reduction setting on your camera or set your flash to throw indirect light. And to avoid glare from eyeglasses, have anyone wearing them simply tilt their head slightly downward (remember: slightly, not looking at the floor!).

By putting a few of these simple photography tips in place, you can make sure to capture the wonderful memories of your holiday gatherings.

Then of course make sure to upload your photos to your photo proofing account to share after everyone has gone home after the holidays! Reposted from http://www.howtophotography.org/photography-tips-for-holiday-gatherings/

Increase Portrait Sales

admin — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 16:40:36 +0000

What’s the number one way to increase custom photography portrait sales?

Variety in the options presented in a photo proofing gallery.

If you shoot a number of similar poses, expressions, and outfits, the client is likely to choose the ‘best’ of these photos and order that photo, perhaps in a variety of sizes or mediums, but that will be the extent of the order. However, if you show their child laughing, sleeping, smiling, serious, and making that unique quirky expression of theirs, how can they possibly choose one ‘best’ photo?

A variety of poses is helpful as well. Start with lots of close up photos to capture the face, but then experiment with full body shots, various poses and angles. Some subjects will be very willing to move and play with the camera, allowing you to capture the essence of their personality along with their smile.

If you are doing a shoot with multiple subjects, such as a family portrait session, shoot varying combinations of family members. It might be fun for Dad to have a shot of just him and the kids on his desk, or to have Grandma with her special helper grandchild, etc. Presenting these variety of combinations makes for great gift ideas, or special photos, but will of course not be purchased without also choosing the full group shots. Make sure to get all of the possible combinations and ask if there are any special connections so that you do not leave anyone out or miss a great opportunity.

When you sell this photography online, you will see that everyone gets to choose their favorites and may be drawn to one pose, outfit, expression, or grouping, and watch your custom photography sales increase dramatically!

How Photography Connects Us

admin — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 18:45:07 +0000

A great talk from the photo director at National Geographic about the storytelling power of photography. A moving look at beautiful, meaningful photography if you have 15 minutes to spare.

You can use online photo galleries to share your stories.

Event Photography Online

admin — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 19:17:06 +0000

For large events, such as a corporate fundraiser, little league sports teams, a race or other sporting event, etc, posting event photography online is a must. The second step is to distribute the link to your event photo galleries to the participants of the event. Many events or groups keep email lists and regularly ping their list members with updates, news, and information. As the photographer for any event, it is crucial that you find out who distributes this newsletter and get a link to your galleries in it! You may not have huge package orders placed, but you will be amazed at the number of people who will browse and possibly purchase event photos of themselves, their family, or their friends. And, as always, the more people that see your work and are familiar with your brand, the more business you will have in the future. “Who was that event photographer that was at Susie’s last function…?” Make sure that your event photography online presence is easy to find, easy to remember, and professional.

Fixes to 5 Common Photoshop Problems

admin — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 19:14:30 +0000

Fixes to 5 common problems in Photoshop, courtesy of ShootProof’s friends at Photo Templates and Effects

1. The brush cursor is no longer showing a shape but instead a crosshair.
Check the CAPS LOCK key, it may be on.

2. Changes are not being made to a layer.
Make sure you are on the correct layer. Also, you may have a small area selected – go to Menu > Select > Deselect.

3. Paint tools and shapes can only be applied to a layer with the color red.
You may be in Quick Mask mode. Hit the Q key on your keyboard.

4. All images and elements in your document are showing up in grayscale (no color).
The grayscale color mode may be active. Change to RGB or CMYK by going to Menu > Image > Mode.

5. The menu bar is missing or no tools/options are displayed.
Your screen mode might have changed. Hit the F key a few times until you settle on your desired viewing option.

If one of your tools is acting up and you can’t get it to work correctly, try resetting it.
HERE’S HOW: Click the tool icon on the options bar and choose “Reset Tool”.

See responses and post your common fixes here:

http://www.phototemplatesandeffects.com/5-common-fixes/

Cutest lens and laptop bags

admin — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 21:35:52 +0000

These lens and laptop bags from ShootSac are super cute and make carrying all of my supplies easy and stylish: I can take my camera, my lenses, and my laptop so that right after a shoot I can go ahead and upload to my photo proofing software all in one outing.

Young adults with discretionary income are the target market for you to sell photography online!

admin — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 16:55:37 +0000

Online shopping is a swiftly expanding opportunity in all markets, even photography. If you decide to sell photography online, you'll be happy to see that only about 75% of internet users make purchases online. And of the 25% that are holding out from online shopping? Age and socioeconomic status are the two factors that contribute to not purchasing online. In the event photography industry, let's face it, clients tend to be young to middle aged adults (they're the ones getting married and having children, the two single most common event photo subjects). Also, those individuals hiring a professional photographer tend to have discretionary income, and are more likely to take you up on the offer to sell photography online! Good news for photogs moving towards a heavy online proofing presence!