Today’s guest post is by Shuva Rahim of Accent Photographics. Shuva specializes in photographing couples and families in Eastern Iowa, splitting her time between Iowa City and Davenport. You can read her blog, friend her on Facebook or follow Shuva on Twitter.

Put yourself in a prospective client’s mind. This person loves your photography and wants to know more. What impression do you present of yourself?

Good client communication is not about taking great photos, but about trust and follow-through. Even after the job is done your client should leave without lingering questions. So here are 9 tips – things I do and recommend – to help enhance your client relationships.

1. Introduction.

On first contact ask what this person wants photographed, the time frame in which he or she wants the session done by and then clearly explain your process. Even if the info is on your website, don’t assume it’s been looked at by the individual.

2. First Date.

Get to know your prospective client in person with a pre-session consultation. Pre-session meetings can help decide if you and the individual are the right fit for each other, further establishing the kind of client you want. If there is a good fit, the pre-session ideally should be used as a scheduling meeting and to talk specifics about the session. Best case is to meet with all the parties who will be photographed.

3. Ask Questions.

Keep the conversation focused on them, not you. Get to know who they are, the relationship among everyone who will be photographed and what makes them tick. Then talk about you.

4. Social Media.

It’s easy for photographers to promote our work on Facebook, Twitter and blogs. So much so that we can take it for granted. Not everyone is equally active online. If you use Facebook to promote your business, make sure ahead of time that posting photos and tagging them is OK with your clients.

5. Expectations.

Give general information in advance on how long the session will likely take, how soon photos can be ready to view and when an order is expected to be completed. Repeat this information before and after a session. Be realistic, but always under-promise and over-deliver.

6. Highlights.

After the pre-consult, send a letter or email highlighting the main points of your client meeting. That way everyone is on the same page with expectations.

7. Show Thanks.

Send a thank-you note after a session. I use SendOutCards, which allows you to electronically deliver a card that the client will receive in the mail. Sending a card immediately after a session shows how much you appreciated photographing that client and CARE about them.

8. Extras.

Include one or a few additional prints, candy, a gift card or whatever you deem appropriate as something a little extra in the order as a token of appreciation.

9. Become friends.

If a client enjoyed their experience with you, he or she is likely to want to develop a relationship beyond that of a client and service provider. Whether that means being Facebook friends or getting together for coffee once a month will depend on the person. Regardless, if you have a good vibe with a client be real with that individual, and be willing to show who you are as a person.

What other tips would you add to this list? Let us know below in the comments section.

Doug Levy is a photographer based in Acton, MA. He shoots weddings and portraits. Check out his blog. Check out Doug’s first guest blog post about second shooting weddings. Doug will be teaching reception lighting techniques at Inspire Photo Seminars. Follow him on Twitter.

When Seshu saw my year in review post with my favorite ring shots of the year and asked me to write a guest blog about rings, my first thought was, “That’s not substantial enough of a topic for an entire blog post.” Then I gave it some more thought and realized there might be enough there after all.

With my ring shots, the light is almost always the same, small flash through an umbrella or white diffusion panel, as close as I can get it. Shutter at max sync, aperture in the F/8-16 range (you want that diamond to pop!), and ISO 100 or 200.

There are other tricks too. A few years back Matt Grazier turned me onto the idea of magician’s invisible string (to help rings stand up), and though I’ve never been able to make it work for me, I definitely see how it could be a useful tool.

With the technical formalities out of the way, on to the fun part.

My ring shots almost always about one of two things – humor, or something personal to the couple. Sometimes, it’s easy.

The groom was a big Bruins fan, and their wedding was just a few weeks after they’d won the cup, nothing crazy here.

Sometimes though, it’s not quite so obvious.

A bottle cap from room service.

The card from the coffee at the end of the night.

A hotel room key (the couple was going to Hawaii on their honeymoon).

The dessert table is a great spot to dig up ideas.

So is the bar.

When I get really stuck, I start looking for text.

It would be easy to put the rings on the flowers or the cake at every wedding. That’s easy. That’s also, “been there, done that.” And I never want to repeat a shot. To me, that’s just throwing in the towel and being lazy. I love it when potential clients come over and wonder aloud what I’ll do with their rings – that’s the fun part. Then comes the, “I need to step up my game and do this better,” part. But that part should never go away, and that’s what makes it fun.

Share links to your wedding ring shots below in the comments section.

Matt and Enna Grazier, of Grazier Photography founded Inspire Photo Seminars with a group of like-minded studios three years ago, and are counting the days till Inspire 2012! Follow the Graziers on Twitter. Follow Inspire Photo on Twitter.

Thank you again Seshu for inviting us to share our ideas about how to get the most out of a conference! In Part 1 we described our philosophy about conferences and the wonderful benefits of smaller regional conferences. Large or small, attending a conference is a significant investment of time and money, and in this post (Part 2 of 2) I’m happy to share my strategy for getting the most out of a conference.

Winter is conference season! Several great events have already happened in January, and a few more are on the horizon (WPPI in just a couple weeks, and our Inspire conference later in March).

I tend to get a little ADD – if I may use that term lightly – when I attend a big conference. I’m likely to wander dazed through the tradeshow and collect every single piece of paper that is offered to me, and forget to take notes about products that I might want to buy or sell. I wander from one shiny object or person to the next, I bounce in and out of conference sessions, full of indecision about where to spend my time, or I play hooky from the classes entirely, opting instead to spend quality time with old and new friends over coffee or a long lunch, or even camped out in the hallway outside of the conference sessions.

Don’t get me wrong – I LOVE participating in a conference in this fashion, and I’m sure I’ll never change my ways, whether it’s a cozy intimate conference like our own Inspire or Pictage‘s Partnercon series, or the mega-sized WPPI. What I’ve learned through trial and error is that it’s important to go into a conference with a “strategy”, a plan of action and goals, so that when I leave I can feel that my investment was well worth the time and money.

When attending a conference, our advice is to choose conference sessions and opportunities that will give you concrete help towards reaching new goals. If you’re just getting started, this will help keep you from feeling too overwhelmed by all the new information. And if you’ve been in business for more than a few years, then the great thing about this strategy is that – if you’re completely honest with yourself – it should be easy for you to identify the areas where you need the most help or improvement.

1. Set Goals. What is your business in need of? Look over the course descriptions and find the ones that interest and will benefit you. Set a few goals for the conference based on your own needs and the unique opportunities offered by the conference. Don’t shy away from the challenging topics.

2. Choose Classes. Prioritize your list of classes to attend. See how they fit in the schedule. This can be difficult as you are bound to have to sacrifice a class or two due to scheduling conflicts, but your goals should help you make these decisions.

3. Make a List. Make a list of people to meet, Exhibitors whose products or services you wish to learn about, and any other topics that you need to research at the conference.

4. Connect. Reach out to some of the other attendees and speakers before the conference. This will also make it easier to make connections with people at the conference. We’re super excited about our online conference community which is designed to facilitate this exact sort of interaction and networking before, during, and after the conference! People who are attending our conference in March are already interacting and getting to know each other in our virtual conference community, preparing for their classes, learning about our sponsors.

5. Go. Go the conference. Have fun and learn to the point of exhaustion.

6. Take Action. Set a deadline to take action on all the new ideas and information that you take home! Don’t just let those ideas ferment. Give yourself a deadline (we think 1 month is good) to take action on the most important things you took home from the conference. It may help to find someone you can be accountable to for these action steps – your business partner, or a fellow conference attendee are both good options!

Here’s My Sample Plan:

Our Studio Goals for 2012

a) Expand our studio to include a team of associate photographers
b) Refine our product selection for portrait clients
c) Network with more photographers in Seacoast NH, ME, and northeastern MA
d) Explore other sources of revenue (non-wedding and portrait related)
e) Polish our brand and portfolio

My Punchlist For The Inspire Conference

Look at and hold every Couture book available (and decide which to offer in our Boudoir and Portrait clients). Learn album sales strategies from Studio Nouveau’s session on Album Sales and Workflow.

a) Connect with at least two photographers who we might consider hiring on as Associates.
b) Get an intensive portfolio review with Allana Taranto (I need to choose a good set of images to share, so this review can feel comprehensive)
c) Take tons of notes in Carla Ten Eyck’s Managing a Team class (I admire Carla’s bustling studio so much, and I’ve wanted to learn some of her management techniques for years)
d) Learn about pricing and bidding on commercial shoots from Jane Shauck.
e) Attend Doug Levy‘s lighting demo where I can learn how he works with light.
f) Feed my heart with insights and ideas from Lauren Rutten on how to keep my business and work emotionally sustainable.

After The Conference

a) Set up a meeting with potential associates/employees at our Portsmouth NH studio.
b) Order new sample albums.
c) Identify some potential commercial clients/subjects in our new hometown and pursue them.
d) Get our revised portfolio selections onto our website asap!
e) Have a long meeting with Matt (my hubby and business partner) to discuss all our ideas and new knowledge that we want to implement or continue to develop. Preferably with wine and chocolate.

Like I said, I’m notorious for skipping or bouncing around in between conference sessions because I want to hang out with people, or just can’t decide which session to attend. Heading into the conference with this punchlist will help me stay on task, remember my goals, and ensure that I’ve maximized my time and financial investment in attending the conference. Of course at Inspire I’ll be busy running around behind the scenes, but I do plan to work hard to address each item on my punchlist while at my own conference!

Be one of the first 5 to use this PROMO/DISCOUNT CODE: 2012TIFFIN and receive $50 off your registration.

Matt and Enna Grazier, of Grazier Photography founded Inspire Photo Seminars with a group of like-minded studios. Thank you Seshu for inviting us to share our ideas about the value of “regional conferencing” and to tell your readers just a little bit about what we are cooking up for Inspire 2012!

We love attending conferences! They give us the chance to see great products, listen to great presenters and to network with incredible colleagues! We are excited to be at the forefront of a new trend of conferencing, which is the smaller more intimate regional conference. Jim Collins, CEO of Pictage, sums up the value of the regional conference perfectly when he wrote about last year’s Inspire conference: “the reason I love this conference so much is because it is so relevant to its own community.”

We all know conferences can be tricky … it’s easy to leave a conference feeling like you’ve just glimpsed the glossy surface of the topics presented. The irony for conference presenters is that while it’s difficult to pack rich material into a lecture spot of just one hour (the ability to do this is surely one mark of a gifted teacher), it’s very easy to fill an hour perfectly with a lot of inspiring catchphrases and pretty pictures!

It’s also common for conference attendees to have the sense that the best part of the event was the “in-between” time spent sharing war stories, strategies, ideas, and commonalities with other photographers. Our favorite moments at conferences we’ve attended are the most serendipitous – a chance meeting with a comrade who we get to chat with over coffee – or, if we’re lucky enough, while sharing a fine meal. We can’t tell you how many times we’ve gone home feeling incredibly grateful for these relationships, yet incredibly sad that we can’t easily continue those conversations over coffee, wine, or shared photography jobs simply because we live so far away from each other. Much of our business success is due to these photographers who have shared their own ideas and expert knowledge in happenstance, in-between, serendipitous moments.

Another common disappointment at the large conferences is that the talented speakers and experts who are the biggest draw to attend large conferences are often inaccessible, either surrounded by an almost impenetrable group of fans, friends, and colleagues, or just dropping in for their portion of the schedule and not participating in the greater community for the rest of the conference. Even if they work hard to be accessible, the sheer volume of people at a large conference makes it almost impossible to interact closely with these experts.

Each of the things that frustrated us about large conferences motivated us to put together our own conference that would address these three shortcomings and fact our approach to these shortcomings forms the building blocks of our conference community. We wanted to create an event that has the diversity, breadth, and spontaneity of a conference, but the depth of information and personal connections that are more often associated with a retreat.

Depth. Our sessions are deep. Instructors are selected almost half a year prior to the conference, and we communicate with them throughout the months that they are preparing their lectures. We give them 1.5 hour time slots for their sessions, and we encourage them to focus on addressing the needs of the mid- to advanced-level studio owner. We want them to deliver meat! This approach ensures that their content will be relevant to the beginners as well as the more seasoned photographers. This shouldn’t intimidate the less experienced studio owner, it just helps us make sure that we’re meeting the needs of the larger professional community.

Community. We have built the schedule and physical layout of the conference around the concept that the peer-to-peer networking and mentoring opportunities are of equal value to the conference sessions. There is plenty of time for impromptu mentoring and networking, and we also have scheduled time for 1:1 and small round-table mentoring with our speakers and several of our sponsors (for example, Jared Bauman of ShootDotEdit will lead a small group to whip their pricing and packaging into shape during his allotted mentoring time). All meals are included in the conference fee (breakfast, lunch, and dinner), and we eat together. We have built plenty of time in the schedule for attendees to gather and socialize and because of this structure wonderful things happen! Attendees get more than an idea, more than motivation, more than a plan to move forward; they build real relationships with those who want to help them succeed… relationships that continue beyond the conference and are easily sustainable because everyone is from the same region.

The image above shows one of our innovations this year: a private online community for our conference attendees, sponsors and speakers. Everyone is invited to join and interact during all of 2012, including the months before and after the conference. Conference-goers can manage their class schedule, chat with attendees, speakers, and sponsors, download class materials, and schedule private meetings with others. We are excited to see how our participants utilize this unique tool!

Connections. Our teachers are not always well-known – most of them aren’t on the lecture circuit, and they haven’t proposed their workshop sessions just to become known as “rock star” wedding photographers. They are busy, hard-working photographers who are committed to raising the standards of business and art of photography within their own region, because they recognize that by raising the barre across the region, every studio stands to benefit. We’ve chosen our instructors in part because they’ve expressed interest in learning and participating in this community, and we pay for their lodging and conference fees to enable them to participate fully in the conference community. We know that part of the reason that they are teaching is that they also wish to attend – and not just as an expert, but as a fellow studio owner who recognizes that we can all learn from each other.

Regionality. Oh yeah, did you notice this word that I’ve repeated throughout this post? Region. Inspire is a regional conference. The national conferences are definitely important, offering polished and inspiring speakers with dazzling success stories, diverse trade-shows, and incredible opportunities to mingle with photographers who we either know or admire from across long distances. However, we’ve found that within our region (and perhaps others), photographers are starved for structured networking opportunities, and for relationships with local colleagues. It’s important to cultivate relationships locally: this networking provides emergency backup and other skilled resources within easy reach, and gives opportunity to become more familiar with the local markets. And, with enough critical mass, we believe that a community can actually drive the market – in style, policy, practice, and culture.

We have heard many photographers say they don’t recognize all the names of our speakers. While that presents a small marketing challenge for us, the tradeoff is that every single person who attends inspire – paying ticket-holder, speaker, sponsor, exhibitor, and members of the planning team – will benefit greatly from genuine, deep relationship building with successful studios who are right in their neighborhood. Our speakers are true experts, and we want to facilitate their connection with other photographers within their region. These are relationships that can continue into the wedding season and beyond. We’ve seen photographers meet at Inspire and hire each other as associates, cover for each other in emergencies, and share incredibly helpful information to see each others’ studios grow. We’ve even heard from one person exclaim, “I’ve vacationed with people I met at Inspire!” This was the biggest compliment, because it shows just how well people in our conference community can connect with each other.

You may work alone, but you don’t need to build your business alone. Everyone who attends Inspire finds a welcoming community willing to help.

Be one of the first 5 to use this PROMO/DISCOUNT CODE: 2012TIFFIN and receive $50 off your registration.

In our next post, we will share our strategy for choosing your path in a conference agenda so that you may leave the conference fulfilled and ready to tackle your business!

I was one of those that scoffed at the idea of learning old-school lighting and posing. But guess what? I was wrong. Learning the fundamentals is so crucial to our success that when the Monte Zucker Lighting and Education bundle was being offered through PhotoDough.com, I had to jump in and get it.

Who was Monte Zucker? He was a master as lighting and posing. He was a teacher. At one of the first WPPI’s I attended, I recall a room full of nearly a 1000 people sitting there watching this man teach his techniques. The minute the seminar ended, the crowd surged on towards the stage to badger him with more questions. I had absolutely no chance of getting close to him. I felt like I was at a rock concert. People like Bambi Cantrell still talk about him and what he taught her.

“Based on classical tradition, Monte’s portraiture has never strayed far from his original intent – to capture a moment in people’s lives and memorialize it for posterity.”

After battling cancer, Monte Zucker passed away in 2007. I know it was a huge blow to the industry he cared so much about.

Here is what Bay Area photographer Michael Corsentino says about Monte Zucker:

“Sad that some people don’t know but at least they’re asking. He was a great person and a passionate educator, definitely missed.”

Thankfully, his teaching lives on.

You can learn more about Monte Zucker’s products here. But if you are quick, you can grab a good chunk of what the store offers and save $131 now through PhotoDough.com.

For $49 you receive a downloadable set of 4 CD-ROMS, including 6 slideshows with over 500 photographic examples with text descriptions. Also included are PDFs that you can tote around on your iPad and refer to often. As I said, I bought this bundle and I am looking forward to getting back to basics. Frankly, there are too many “teachers” out in the world now who are just winging it. If you want to learn from the best, this is your chance.

Get to know Monte Zucker and learn from him at your own pace. The PhotoDough.com deal is only on for a limited time.

Oh, one more thing – it’s tempting to learn from a master and just copy what she or he says. That would defeat the purpose of photography for me. I intend to learn from Monte Zucker, but plan on adapting it to the way I work with my clients. Making that experience unique is key to everyone’s success. Good luck!

Today’s guest post is by Jerod Foster, an editorial and natural history photographer based in Lubbock, Texas. His book, Storytellers: A Photographer’s Guide To Developing Themes and Creating Stories With Pictures, was published in 2011. Follow @jerodfoster on Twitter.

Many thanks to Seshu for providing me the opportunity to guest appear on such a resourceful blog. Once again, the ability to create positive relationships over an ever-growing online community of photographers astounds me.

Speaking of community, if you’re reading this post, there’s no doubt that a good many of you came here via a link posted on Twitter or Facebook, perhaps Google+, your own RSS feed, or a variety of other means of connecting you to, well, here. Word spreads fast in the photography world, especially when that world spans across a very diverse and prolific online community. Needless to say, the photography community, online or not, is large. Very large.

It’s so large and diverse that it’s often difficult to distinguish who we are at times. Just think about it for a moment. We’re so vast and varietal, and in some cases so niche, that we’ve become enclaves of particular areas of the entire art and craft of photography. At the same time, however, we know we all relate to each other on one level or another, but what?

A quandary? Perhaps. Maybe we can be a bit deductive in finding out just who we are as a community. Consider this an exercise in getting to the essence of photographers in general.

Let’s break some of the diversity down by types of photographers, starting with some of the more obvious. A lot of us are wedding, engagement, bridal, and family photographers, established in a particularly special and popular area of photography that have, if you think about it, one of the most important jobs in the world. Others of us are photojournalists, visualizing the life around us for a variety of outlets, including the tried and true newspaper industry, magazine publications, and a boatload of online resources for both traditional and new media content. Still, there are those of us that concentrate solely on the natural world, training our vision and gear on awe-inspiring landscapes and the wildlife that populate such environments. We can’t leave sports shooters of the list, either, since they carry quite a bit of the load for both personal and media audiences (globally, I might add).

Story is not something new, but it is indeed a constant. It’s what each and every one of us as a community (online or not) has in common.

Hold up, though. I’m creating a rather clear separation of the types of photographers out there (I also realize the listing is quite truncated). It’s also apparent among the community that not all of us are 100% one type or the other. Many of us that sling a camera over our shoulder do so with just as much commitment to shooting a family as we do the magazine story assignment we picked up last week. I know sports photographers that can shoot a heckuva wedding, and vice versa. Lest we forget, there are specializations upon specializations in the photography field as well, ranging from different styles of portraiture and cultural photography, to underwater shooting, science and medical image making, to fine art forms of the craft. Some of us are primarily focused on publishing in coffee table books and magazines, while most of us will never see the inside of what those that do call the land of the yellow border (although that shouldn’t stop one from trying).

Finally, but certainly not the least, there are those of us that do not necessarily aspire to be labeled a “type” of photographer, but instead are content and productively happy being generalists and avid shooters. This position is true for many, if not the most, of us, and it includes all levels of photographic achievement/aptitude, from the most basic hobbyist to the amateur wondering if she can earn some side money photographing her neighbors’ children, to the emerging professional right out of university.

So, if the photography community is so diverse, what keeps us together, stumbling upon (if you will) other parts of the industry, different shooters, and strange and interesting sources of visual inspiration? No matter what type of photography you lean toward, the thing that connects each and every one of us is the fact that we’re all telling stories with the images we produce. Story, for that matter, has been a part of what connects us all since the dawn of time! Story and storytelling is what and how we use the information we are continuously consuming to learn and interpret our world. Photography, in this sense, is one of the most important modes of telling story and has been since its commercial inception in the early 19th century.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that storytelling is vital to being a photographer. In some ways, it’s our responsibility to tell stories with images. Not in a cliché way either—I believe that we photographers (no matter what level of professional or hobbyist achievement) are a very important part of what keeps this world in tune with itself. Whether you’re shooting a global humanitarian campaign, a national advertisement, or your child’s first birthday, you have something to pass along with your images, and it keeps informing those around you.

That being said, I also believe that in order to grow as a photographer, we have to tie quite a few things together—things that are discussed quite a bit by the online community I mentioned earlier. Gear, technique, technical aptitude, vision, visual language, style—all are used in order to increase how we see and create compelling images. In addition, and more importantly, each helps us tell stories (they can get in the way as well; a post for another time). Our job is to make sure we’re doing just that. We may improve as photographers, but in essence, we grow as storytellers.

At its core, photography is meant to tell story. At our core, we are storytellers. Whether you’re just starting out, or you have shot professionally for the past 30 years, whether you’re in the studio or on some exotic location, whether you’re shooting solo or as part of a budgeted production crew, story is the central element of the visuals you produce. Story is not something new, but it is indeed a constant. It’s what each and every one of us as a community (online or not) has in common.

We are, in essence, a community of visual storytellers.

This guest blog is by Ellen Petty, the Head Brandslinger at Identity Kitchen, a marketing and design studio specializing in photographers. She and her business partner Marty Thornley launched a new line of affordable all-in-one WordPress portfolio sites designed specifically for professional photographers at PhotographyBlogSites.com.

Just yesterday, they announced new lower pricing on their self managed, all-inclusive BlogSites. As a special thank you to the Tiffinbox audience, they would like to extend an extra $50 off your first year when you use the code TIFFINBOX50.

Let’s Start at the Beginning. What is Branding?

Your brand is your touchpoint. Everything from how you answer your phones to the auto-responder on your email. Yes, it’s the big picture items; your website, your business card, your space, but it is the cohesiveness, that glue that gives a clear picture to your potential clients. There are some companies, (Starbuck’s anyone?) They do this very, very well. Talk about the Starbucks cup, how it fits perfect in your hand. Not a waxy exterior, not styrofoam, a little thinner than a regular takeout coffee. How much planning do you think went into just the coffee cup? Now let’s talk interior, advertising, their charities, the music, the Wifi.

“That’s great for Starbucks”, you say, but how can I create a killer brand for my photography business? Here are 9 steps to not only get you started, and make sure you stay on track.

1) What’s Your Mantra?

Your brand essence, sometimes called your brand mantra, is the heart and soul of your business. Sometimes defined in a few words. Your brand essence is “Who you are”. Try and define your brand in six words or less. If I said “Maiden voyage…iceberg…not enough lifeboats” you would know Titanic. How can you define who you are?

Start with describing your work, yourself, your approach. Ask, who am I, who is this business? Choose 5-6 words that best describe you and your business.

2) Who Am I?

This is your brand positioning; what makes my business different from my competition? Is it the service that you give? Is it the kind of photographs you take? Is it the kind of photographer you are?

One of the most important rules in positioning your business and your brand is to know your competition. Once you know what you are up against, once you understand your competition you can figure out how you are different AND create a unique business perspective and carve out your very own market share.

3) Define Your Target Audience?

Do you know your target customers? Who are you going after? Engaged couples? Parents? Parents to be? What is their demographic? How do you want to come across to them?

This is where you really think about who your client or potential client is. Where do they shop, what toothpaste they use, how much disposable income they have, are they like you are they not like you?

4) Get Inspired

Now that you know who you are, what makes you/your studio different, who your competition is and who you are talking to…it’s time to get inspired, and really push that creative envelope. Look to places outside the photography industry for inspiration. Fashion, architecture, music, fine art, even food. Wherever your muse lies, don’t be afraid to interpret. Pinterest is a fantastic place to create style boards and have a sneak peek into other creative formulas.

Below is an example of an inspiration board and how we translated it into the online brand design for Studio Diana.

5, 6 & 7) The 3 C’s; Get Creative, Make It Cohesive, Keep It Consistent

Ok, you have your strategy, you have your inspiration boards, now it’s time to get creative. Whether you are designing your brand yourself or hiring an outside designer, this is where the magic happens. The “Ah-­?ha” moment. The spark, that can be realized as your own personal touchpoint or brand.

Once you choose a design path make sure there is a thread or a few that keeps your brand cohesive and consistent across all mediums. Print, online, advertising, promotion, and sales. Don’t be afraid to loosen the reins on your brand as you move between mediums, keeping your brand consistent, does not mean choking it. This is where it may be helpful to bring in a professional.

Below are some examples of the creative process of Partridge Lane Studios. Also, an example of how we kept the look cohesive from printed material to the online presence.

8) Choose Your Best Work

If you have completed the last 7 steps, we know you can make choices. Don’t question yourself now. It’s time to choose your best work. Go through your body of work and choose your best 5, 10 and 20 pieces. Those should always be front and center on all your promotional vehicles. Be strong, if you feel a piece does not live up to the standard of these choices, they should not appear in your portfolio. Your online galleries should be between 20 & 30 photos per gallery. Always aim to put your very best foot forward.

9) Be Unique

If you have followed these steps you should arrive at a brand that is unique, because it is you. If it is true to who you are as an artist, it is right.
One of my favorite sayings when it comes to finding your true voice in life and in branding is by Oscar Wilde, “Be yourself, because everyone else is already taken.

As a wedding photographer for almost 10 years, Lara White has always loved the business side of photography. She shares her passion for business and marketing strategies with photographers through her PhotoMint blog and recently authored a free book for photographers interested in learning how to get their images published. Follow Lara on Twitter.

Want to get published? Follow these easy 4 steps and you will be on your way to creating images that wedding magazines find irresistible.

The first thing you need to know is that wedding magazines and blogs are all about details. Their readers can never get enough details. So that right there should tell you that your submission needs to be at least 75% or more details, and you need to have that on your mind when you are shooting your next wedding that you think has a shot at getting published.

1. Plan Ahead

Take the time to plan ahead for your shoot and how to get the most out of it. Speak with the planner and the florist to get an understanding for the décor and the florals. Will there be a cool escort card table, and if so, how will you capture it prior to the guests spilling into the cocktail hour? How about ceremony details-can you get to the ceremony area prior to the guests, in time to capture how the ceremony looks prior to guests putting their purses down and otherwise cluttering up the area? Ask the catering manager to keep the reception doors closed until the reception, and that you’ll be coming in for a few minutes to capture the room before the doors open.

2. Allow Plenty Of Extra Time For Capturing Details

It takes time to capture details in a way that “sells” them. Allow yourself the extra time needed to spend time in the reception finding just the right angle for capturing the centerpieces. Arrive early while the bride is just starting makeup, and you’ll have plenty of time to “play” with the details in the bride’s room. These can include the dress, shoes, jewelry, bouquet, invitation and other items with personal meaning.

3. Don’t Be Afraid To Rearrange & Declutter

Nothing ruins a great detail shot like a half empty glass or a partially eaten plate of appetizers. Think of your detail shots like a product shot. You want the image to “sell” that detail. It’s OK to rearrange things a bit or remove bits of clutter from your image. Think of yourself as styling the details. It’s perfectly ok to take the salt and pepper shakers (or the table number sign if it’s ugly) off the table for your shots of the centerpiece. Take the bouquet out of the cardboard delivery box and find a beautiful spot with nice lighting. It only takes a moment and will vastly improve your images.

4. Consistent Photoshop Style

If you create certain looks or styles in Photoshop, be consistent. For example if you go for a desaturated vintage look on some of your images and some of them are just in a “standard” look. Most magazines and blogs prefer to have all the images in a set done as a consistent style and look. Otherwise the overall theme and feeling of the images is lost.

The more time you spend working on mastering the art of detail shots, the better you’ll become. And the better you are at capturing details, the more likely you are to find your images in the next issue of your favorite wedding magazine. If you’d like to learn more tips about getting published, check out Get Published: A Guide for Wedding Photographers.

It takes time and patience to learn to create images magazines will be interested in publishing, but it’s well worth the investment of time, because your brides will love those images too.

Remember – You can pick up Lara’s e-book, Get Published for free. No strings attached. I’ve read it and it’s full of great, actionable topics. Get it now!

This guest post is by Rob & Lauren, who are photographers, educators, travelers, and all-around fun-loving folks. They spend their time teaching on Photography Concentrate and creating portraits of fun people. They are currently obsessed with espresso and robots. Follow them on Twitter.

Once upon a time we made a really big mistake in our business. The kind of mistake that still comes back to haunt us on a regular basis. A real forehead-slapping, bad-word-saying, doozy of a blunder. 

But before we tell you what we did, let’s take a second to talk about mistakes. 

We’re human. So are you. (Unless you’re a robot, and then you don’t really need to read this.) Human beings make mistakes. All. The. Time. If you haven’t made a big mistake in your business yet, chances are pretty good that you will.
 
And so a big part of being a business owner is getting your mind in the right place to handle the inevitable missteps. Here are a few steps to take care of those problems when they pop up:

Step 1: Understand that you will make mistakes.
 
You’re not perfect and mistakes will happen. When you accept that, you’ll feel a lot less anxious and worried! You may even come to embrace mistakes when they happen! Maybe…

Step 2: Admit the mistake.
 
This is a big one. It’s easy to hide from your mistakes, and pretend nothing is wrong. Bad move. They have a way of getting worse over time, and you lose your ability to nip the problem in the bud. So when you make a mistake, acknowledge it. Write it down to make it real if you have to. Just admit you messed up, and you’ll be in a much better place to fix it.

Step 3: Look at the mistake objectively.
 
When it’s your business it’s easy to get emotional, and think the mistake is much more dire than it really is. Take a step back, get some big picture perspective, and figure out just what went wrong. Be honest.

Step 4: Fix it. 

This might not always be easy, but do your best to figure out how to fix the mistake. Make things right with clients, with your business, and with yourself. Every mistake is different, so there’s no single answer to this one. But now that you’ve admitted the mistake, and looked at it objectively, you should be able to figure out how to fix it.

Step 5: Learn from it. 

After you’ve worked to fix the mistake, now comes the most important part. Learn from it!! This is the silver lining, and the big reason why it’s ok to make mistakes. They are amazing learning experiences in disguise. If you figure out how to prevent the mistake in the future, you end up growing as a result of making it in the first place. Win!

Step 6: Move on. 

Remember, it’s ok to make mistakes. After you’ve learned from it, then move on. Dwelling on mistakes you’ve made doesn’t help you at all. Focus your energy instead on doing great things in the future. You can’t change the past, after all! (Unless you have a time machine, and if so we should talk.)

So, now are you ready to hear about our big mistake? Let’s do it.

After a couple of years of shooting weddings in our hometown of Edmonton, we thought it would be a great adventure to move to another city (Vancouver) and set up shop. We went out there to look around, and even did a bunch of networking with local photographers. 

Then, the big mistake: we announced that we would be moving on our blog. 

And never moved.

But all of our clients and potential clients thought we weren’t going to be in Edmonton anymore. They stopped contacting us, referring us, telling people we weren’t shooting here anymore…you can see why this was a big mistake. 

When we decided to stay in Edmonton we did post about it, and sent out a newsletter, but we never really admitted just how big the mistake we made was. We didn’t take the “fix it” stage seriously enough. We didn’t put in enough effort to make sure everyone knew we were staying.

And so fast forward a few years, and we still regularly get asked when we are moving, or hear statements like “Oh you’re still here! I thought you had moved!”. Bummer.

Luckily it didn’t send our business down the toilet, but that was a very real possibility. We’ve now learned to never make big announcements online unless we are absolutely, positively, 100% sure about it. 

So, have you made a big mistake? Did you admit it and fix it? Or ignore it and have it grow into a big issue like ours? What did you learn from your boo boo? Share with us in the comments now!

Need to learn how to use your camera, edit images in Lightroom, design wedding albums in InDesign? Robert & Lauren Lim are passionate about teaching you through their website and products. Buy them here using these affiliate links so that you may support Tiffinbox as well.

This guest post is by Dr. Dhiraj Kacker, CEO and co-founder of Canvera, an online digital photography company based in Bangalore, India. Dhiraj has numerous patents and publications to his name in the field of Digital Imaging. Dhiraj can be found online on twitter, his company blog or his personal blog.

With the advent of digital photography and the simultaneous rise of the Internet the entire photography landscape has been revamped in the last decade. This audience knows these changes quite well so I won’t dwell on all of them but rather I’ll focus my post on the technology and craft that goes behind a product that was spawned by this revolution: Photo Books.

I don’t know how many people actually sit back and think about it but it is quite remarkable that today we can actually get a single copy of a book printed at a reasonable price and turned around fairly fast. In the traditional book publishing world the economics just would not make sense unless there were at least say a 1000 copies of a book to be printed. There are many services that provide the ability to print one-off books:

a) Consumer grade photo books by companies such as Shutterfly, Snapfish, Kodakgallery

b) Self publishing service providers such as Blurb, Amazon etc. that focus on generic publishing not just photo content

c) High-end photobook and album manufacturers such as Graphistudio, Asuka, Queensberry etc. that provide a much richer variety in covers, papers, finishing and other customizations. These are the favorites with professional photographers because they best showcase the work of a pro.

Canvera falls in the last category and we have slowly but surely added more and more options as we engaged with more photographers and understood their needs. There is however a constant tension between how many options we can offer versus producing a high quality output and keeping fast turnaround times. What makes this difficult is that there are many different pieces that have to come together in an exact sequence without requiring any one person or set of people to keep track.

Take for example a flush mount book with a custom cover and a personalized box with pictures. The inside of the book is printed on a silver halide machine and bound. The cover and the box wrap are printed on a wide-format printer (in Canvera’s case). The cover goes for separate finishing and then through barcodes is matched at a separate station with the book block and then bound together. The same happens with the custom box. Now there are complications in the process: the silver halide printer and wide-format printer have to be producing the same colors at all times, we can’t afford to have anyone trying to match colors on a book by book basis; individual sheets may have to get re-printed for a variety of reasons; QA may reject the finishing of one of the pieces and that may have to get re-done and matched back with the remaining finished pieces.

None of this is possible to do at scale without significant automation and technology. But adding options brings with it significant complexity as well. Even seemingly simple things such as adding more cover varieties, paper types or hot foil stamping fonts requires us to think through the full workflow: what equipment do we need, where will the raw materials be available on the production floor, how will quality analysis happen etc. We keep trying to push the envelope in adding choices (and at times have gotten burned!) but it is a balancing act.

At Canvera our driving philosophy behind everything we do is as follows:

a) 80% of what makes a good photo book or album is the photography! No matter how many digital photography touch-up tools have been created and how many effects one can do, the pressure on a pro to produce great pictures is as high as ever. In fact I’d argue that with an explosion in images fueled by the web and multitude of capture devices, consumers have subconsciously developed a greater appreciation of what makes a good picture.

b) Fast turnaround time matters a lot. Take the case of wedding photography: For the bride and groom 90% perfect pictures and album received within 10-15 days of the occasion are much more valuable than the absolute perfect set received 6 months after the event. At Canvera therefore, once we get an order we try to put it in the mail within 48 hrs.

c) Quality of printed products should be high and predictable. It is not good enough that the samples are great, but every single product produced every single time without requiring any special treatment should be produced at high quality.

With these driving principles, we focus more on turn-around-time and end-to-end workflow to ensure speed and quality while hopefully letting the photography do most of the talking. This does not mean that we don’t keep adding options, but we do try and think through the full implications first.

Here are things for you to consider when choosing a photo book or album company (beyond of course liking the samples):

1) What kind of front end tools (web or client based) do they provide to capture the order correctly? If there is complexity of choices in the order that the front end tools are not capturing and you are sending instructions over email/phone, chances are that mistakes will happen..

2) As the company grows, do they have processes in place to maintain their turn-around-times and quality at high volumes or are they better off as a low volume hand-made producer?

3) Do the variety of options on the books and albums lend themselves to more mistakes? Is the company ready to handle that much complexity?

4) What kind of color consistency is there in their production work flow?

As I said earlier, at Canvera we are taking the approach that first and foremost the photographs should do the talking. That’s key. And we as the photo book and album manufacturers should get out of the way by quickly turning around a high quality product with the right colors morning, evening or night, even if it means in the short term compromising a little on the variety we offer.

What do you think? How do you pick your photo book and album company? Do you agree/disagree with this thinking?