Images are created in fractions of a second and our memories are often too poor to remember how we set up a particular shot. Indeed there is a part of us that probably feels confident in achieving the same look and concept, if only we knew where and how the off-camera flashes were placed, how they were modified or what our settings on the camera were. Well, a couple of weeks ago I connected with Janis Lanka, who founded Strobox.

Strobox is a place for all types of photographers to share how they set up that amazing photo! The easiest way to learn is to look at photos and their lighting diagrams so you can see for yourself how they were created.

Here is a, um, snapshot of the questions I peppered Janis with during our conversation. If you have other questions for him, please post them in the comments section below.

1) It’s great that in such a short span of time, you have been able to create a community of photographers interested in presenting their work and getting it critiqued. How do you, however, qualify the images? Is it a free for all – anyone can post to the site regardless of quality?

While currently there are few basic rules that I screen each photo for, we are continuously adding measures that help us filter through spam or unqualified photos. It’s important to note that Strobox is about a community that raises everyone’s awareness about photography lighting, and as a such, the quality control should be a part of community effort. The ultimate goal is that work displayed is a result of a joint effort from our community rather than just from one or two individuals who happen to have access to MySQL db!

2) Tell us a little bit about yourself – are you a professional photographer? Why or rather how did you see the need to create a website like Strobox for photographers?

Just like most who reads this, photography has been a hobby of mine taught to me by my dad with a Zenit camera. Fast forward almost two decades, my learning curve needed some improvement and I purchased a book about portrait photography which explained how each photo was made by giving technical information as well as sketches of lighting diagrams. That is when I asked the question on why such a thing is not available online. The idea was born and it took another 2 years to make it happen. An iPhone app, a community site, and a book later I still see it as a fun experiment.

Currently my day job consists of being a Strategy Consultant at digital agency “Blast Radius” and by evening I’m trying to coordinate a group effort to make Strobox happen – someone from Canada contributes their design skills, from Slovakia their CSS skills, from Lithuania their programming skills, and from England their editor skills, etc. The Strobox core team members are volunteers and not necessarily professional photographers. We continuously need more help (PHP anyone?) so if you want to join us, let me know!

3) I received Strobox 2010, your first book which is more of a compilation of some of the best work your site has seen in 2010. Books aren’t typically huge money makers for their authors. So why take that risk?

No, making a book has not been our revenue strategy. First and foremost it’s a celebration of our community and their efforts to help each other raise awareness about photography lighting. While this was yet another one of those enthusiastic experiments which resulted in hundreds of hours spent trying to figure out different legal and logistical things in the book-publishing world, it was totally worth it! Not financially, but the emotional reward is there when you hold that book in your hands for the first time. This book seeks to showcase our community’s achievements during 2010, acknowledge our top contributors, and most importantly, attempting to help us financially sustain our online community. On top of that, we’re also sharing 40% of the book’s profit with the top ten photographers who joined us for this initiative. This has been our first attempt at publishing, and we hope that we’ll be able to do this every year and show our appreciation to our community this way.

4) Technique and using tools is one thing. Being able to craft images by collaborating with your subjects is another story. Do you think your site will ever shift the focus every so slightly to discuss that collaboration? That almost intrigues me more than what kind of a light modifier was used in the process of creating an image. Am I in the minority on this?

You are probably in the right minority by asking this excellent question! I would say that story and emotional response it creates is what makes a photo stand out from the others. Lighting technique is merely a tool to help you with that goal. I love listening to other photographers share their techniques and stories of collaboration – those things can’t be methodologically systematized as lighting diagrams can. So, in a rather simple way the Strobox community is trying to do one of those “un-sexy” things and geek-out about photography lighting to help each other get the basics right so that sites like yours could take them to the next level.

5) I suspect with sites like 500px.com and Sylights.com, competition keeps you in check. What would you say Strobox does differently and better than those other sites?

Both of your mentioned sites do an amazing job and each of them excel at different things. Without getting in too many details, focus of Strobox should be changing a bit so stay tuned! Additionally, because this is mostly a volunteer experiment that is not based on generating revenue or trying to entice customers, I would rather ask a question of what keeps us doing this. It’s our community members who write us and thank us for a useful iPhone app, it’s our Facebook fans who encourage us and like to hear what we’re doing, and it’s our community members who help us with moderation.This started as an attempt to get educated about photography lighting by looking at other examples. But it has turned into a platform for learning. When you learn something, we’ve done well.

Thank you for help us not just create lighting diagrams but also curate them and share them with others. We’ll be sure to follow you on Twitter to hear more of your experiments and new features on Strobox.

This guest blog post is written by Eric O’Connor, a Chicago wedding photographer, owner of Allori Photography and mylife-pages. Follow Eric on Twitter.

2012 will soon be here.

January is the perfect time to take a hard look at how to maximize profits in the upcoming year. These are a few recommendations that have helped me, follow all three and I know they’ll work for you too.

1. What’s in it for me?
2. Stay in Touch
3. Share the Love

What’s In It For Me?

Your clients want information. They want to know every detail about their purchase. Give it to them! You are the expert. Share your knowledge and process with them. Whatever you do please don’t wait until after the wedding to inform your client about the pre-design process. If you do they will feel cheated.  After they book with you make sure to take time or create a wedding album FAQ to walk them through the album process. This doesn’t have to be complicated. Just a simple step by step from the day you shoot the wedding to the day you deliver their album. Set expectations and then deliver on them. It is important they understand you will be telling the story of their wedding day and you’ll use as many pages as it takes to get it right. I always like to mention it gives them a great starting point. They can then customize the album to exactly what they want. Your clients will love this idea. Anytime they can take ownership in the process, you win!

Stay in Touch

Take a minute and think about the excitement leading up to the wedding. Your clients are excited about their wedding and then … BAM! … the wedding is over. It doesn’t take long and they are back to real life. Catch your bride and groom in that first 30 days and their wedding day excitement will do the selling for you. You likely only have a 30 day window to take advantage of the wedding high. If 30 to 90 days go by and your bride hasn’t seen pictures or a draft of her album it is much harder to add pages or sell additional albums. I make it a point to have everything to my brides 7 days after their wedding. I used to deliver images 30 days after the wedding and routinely life got in the way and the brides wouldn’t even think about their album for a few more months. There were always a lot of album edits and very little pages added. Now, 7 days after their wedding they can view their Animoto slideshow, image gallery, and album pre-design right on their wedding website. I make sure to give my clients a deadline. We want to have the album completed and ready to print in 3 to 4 weeks. This helps give them a target to have their changes complete. Extra albums page sales have gone from a few or none to five, ten or more from every wedding.

Share the Love

Quick turnaround time is essential but I find coupling that with excitement from friends has really helped additional album page sales. A few years ago I emailed PDFs to my brides and they would leave me comments for changes. This was pretty efficient but didn’t help me much when it came to advertising or extra album pages. I don’t pay for ads in magazines and only have one ad online that I tested out this year and will discontinue Jan 1.  Word of mouth, SEO, social media, and over the top customer service do the job for me. The next iteration of album sharing was a slideshow posted on YouTube. I found I was getting quite a few hits and at the same time album sales started to increase. Brides started telling me their friends loved watching their wedding album movies. This was one of those common sense moments when the light goes on in your head. Friends of the bride love the album and they start telling the bride about their favorite pages. This process makes it harder and harder for the bride to remove or change pages.

Finally I arrived at the perfect solution, Share the Love! Wedding album movies on a post wedding website are essential to higher album page sales. With a favorites gallery, Animoto slideshow, and movie of the album, my brides have a constant flow of compliments from their friends about how much they love the wedding images and album pages. As you can see in the graphic the album movie in this wedding was viewed over 200 times in 6 weeks. I have been completely removed from the album page sales process. Yes, I have to take images my clients love but my brides’ friends do the rest of the work for me. I do not meet with my clients to sell or add pages. These days they all add pages without sitting down with me.

Test out the three steps above. They are easy so don’t cheat yourself and pick just one. Do all three. You will start to see a difference in sales. Click the image below to see how I display sample albums on post wedding websites.

Want to try a post wedding website? Your first site is FREE. Surprise one of your favorite clients with a wedding website with colors to match their wedding.

This guest blog post is by Aaron Hockley, a professional photographer and writer who tweets too much and blogs a few times each week. His professional work finds him working with businesses for events, publicity, and editorial work; he also creates abstract and travel photos for leisure. In addition to photography for clients Aaron often works with other photographers to help them understand and refine their online and social media presence.

As we reach the end of 2011, we’ll be reading various articles online and in print about resolutions for the new year. Much like the proverbial gym membership which goes unused after the first few weeks of January, I’ve seen photographers drift away from their promises to change their practices once a new calendar begins.

Looking forward to 2012, I’d encourage folks to look at their photography world from two standpoints: that of the art and that of the business. If you’re a hobbyist, the business aspect is irrelevant. If you’re a professional, you’ll find that the art and business are intertwined. Instead of making a big list of resolutions, I’d suggest photographers pick a theme or two for their 2012 goals.

An Artistic Resolution

From an art perspective, where do you want to go? Is it time to dive into the world of off-camera flash? Is this the year to spend some time learning how to make HDR images? Perhaps you want to get serious about black & white for output. It’s great to think about all of the things that you could do, but after that I’d challenge you to pick just one. Instead of a list, let’s choose one theme for the new year.

Getting Down to Business

If you’re a professional (either full or part-time), it’s also wise to make an objective evaluation of your business as we begin a new year. While each business is unique, here are a few items for evaluation:

• What aspect of your business brought in the most revenue in 2011?
• What aspect of your business brought in the least revenue in 2011?
• How much time and effort are required for each of the previous two answers? What’s the return on the time spent? We’re talking “bang for the buck.”
• What marketing are you performing, and what results can you attribute to each form of marketing?

After evaluating your current business situation, decide what will change in 2012. Pick a direction for a business change in the new year. Perhaps it’s the elimination of an unprofitable aspect to your business, or perhaps it’s time for something new. For my business, I’ve decided to begin marketing and selling my abstract photo art.

After the Theme: Action

So now we’ve picked a theme for something new or changed for the art and business of our photography. What next? Next is turning that big theme into actionable tasks. Sit down with your task planning system of choice. Perhaps it’s an application specifically for tracking tasks. Perhaps it’s a blank document in the text editor of your choice. Perhaps it’s a legal pad. It doesn’t matter.

Record your theme and then start brainstorming actions that will help you move towards that goal in 2012. The actions will be depend on your goal, but might contain:

• market research
• learning a technique
• going somewhere
• branding
• marketing plans
• studying others’ work
• connecting with other photographers in a genre
• outreach to past clients
• outreach to new clients

Massage your list into a plan. The next step is to do the work. Stop planning and start doing, starting January 1st if not before.

Checkpoints

Go to your calendar (again, either electronic or analog, it doesn’t matter) and add some items. Make a note to give yourself a checkpoint on your goals. Set checkpoints for at least once a month, with the first checkpoint no later than Janauary 15th. When you hit a checkpoint, take a look at your efforts and results. If you aren’t moving forward, why not? Do you need to adjust your goal?

Adjusting your goal based on situational feedback is fine and healthy. Abandoning your goal probably isn’t.

2012 can be a great year for your photography. I’d love to know what you’re planning to learn, explore, or change in the coming year. Sound off below in the comments section.

Today’s guest post is by Joe Decker, a nature photographer, writer and educator who lives in Northern California. Follow Joe Decker on Twitter to learn more about his workshops or read his blog. Learn about composition from him from his e-book, Tuesday Composition.

While I’ve had the opportunity to teach and work with hundreds of talented nature and landscape photographers, few if any of them ever consider artist residencies as a tool of developing their photography.

That’s a pity.

Residencies offer artists a place to stay and focus on art. This adobe cabin is used to house resident artists at Petrified Forest National Park

What are artist residencies?  Residencies are programs which grant artists a place to live while they focus on their work. These programs can take many forms. In some cases, these residencies are created by fine arts programs, many of those residencies pull in several artists at a time with the hope of encouraging interdisciplinary work or at least a sharing of ideas. Many parks and organizations that manage natural areas have residencies which are usually more solitary, but that put the artist in close connection with the landscape, in part with the hope of encouraging artwork that promotes and communicates the features of that park. Even some commercial concerns create residencies, my shipboard arctic residencies provided me incredible access to hard-to-reach areas of the planet, with the expectation that I’d also provide some work back in the form of workshops and material for a passenger DVD.

Residencies are offered by many types of organizations, from fine arts collectives and parks to commercial cruise lines.

Why do so few photographers apply for such opportunities?  Part of the disconnect is cultural. There has always seemed to be a quiet divide between the photography community and the fine art community, and while artist residencies are a staple of the traditional fine art community, they’re rarely if ever talked about in the photographic communities I’ve been a part of. There’s also a mystique factor, because of this “quiet divide”, Many times talented, creative photographers make the mistake of thinking that their work won’t be accepted by something they perceive as being part of the snooty “fine art” world. in reality, most residencies, particularly those applicable to landscape and wildlife photographers, are juried by people who do understand the creative potential of the photographic medium, and see art more broadly than many photographers might imagine.

Of course, there are some practical challenges to accepting a residency. Not everyone can afford the luxury of putting eight weeks into nothing but developing a new body of artwork. However, many people, particularly many talented amateurs, could afford two or three weeks if they understood the value they could get from a well-chosen residency.

Why You Should Consider a Residency

Why would a photographer wish to invest a few weeks in a residency? The most important reason to consider a residency is the opportunity for focused time. Whether you’re a professional or an amateur, it is unlikely that you get to spend nearly as much uninterrupted time making photographs as you’d like. Whether it’s the “day job at the factory” or the usual grind of marketing and selling your photographic work, the inevitable distractions of day-to-day life really get in the way of digging deeply into a photographic project. A few weeks dedicated to a project can bring depths to your work.

Cost is another reason. Few residencies offer anything in terms of cash, but there’s no question that the value of simply having a decent place to stay for a few weeks in an area you’d like to work is substantial. My arctic, ship-board residencies are probably the most extreme example of this, the cabin that I stayed in during my Svalbard residency this year probably would have cost around twenty thousand dollars if I’d paid for it retail.

Some residencies offer access to unique resources, whether they be archeological, geological or cultural.

Which brings me to access. Every residency I’ve been awarded has offered me unique opportunities in terms of access to the locations I’d be working in. In my National Park residency, not only did I have the run of the park at night and sunrise t (when the park was otherwise closed to visitors), but I also had enormous support from the staff there, from access to their geologic archives to guidance on a couple hikes to lesser-known park locations, as well as access to many archeological resources. My arctic residencies included the support necessary to get me and my camera near to polar bears without risking my life.

Residencies often offer a variety of forms of other support, from access to art making equipment to support in getting to unique and otherwise inaccessible or dangerous locations.

How To Apply

First, find a program that’s relevant to the kind of work you do, or at least the kind of work you’d like to do. You are more likely to be awarded a residency if it’s clear how you and your work fits in with the opportunity being offered, and you’ll are far more likely to benefit personally and professionally from a residency if the specific opportunity inspires you. If you’re a wildlife photographer, you might want to skip that urban art center opportunity, unless you have a clear plan for applying your skills and interests to a new environment–and even then, you’ll need to make a solid case in your application as to why you’re the best person to benefit from the residency.

Carefully research each residency you apply for, and respond to each residency individually. In applying for my Petrified Forest residency, I proposed projects that both inspired me and that leveraged the unique features of that park, such as it’s archeological resources and it’s incredibly dark sky. The Park Service’s own web site and in-park informational signage gave me a great deal of information about what they believed to be key features of the park, reflecting that understanding in my own proposal likely helped me win that particular residency.

Whether you’re a professional or not, it is essential that you show that you’re serious about your work. Few of these opportunities care about whether you make your living at photography, but all of them will care about whether you bring a serious, committed attitude to your art. There are many ways to show that in your application that don’t require having been “in business” for ten years–have you being showing your work consistently over a period of time? Have you been published broadly?  Have you won awards or other recognition over time? Do you have references that can attest to the quality and longevity of your efforts?

Finally, don’t give up. While there are a lot of residencies out there, there are also a large number of artists, not just photographers but painters, poets, sculptors and videographers often vying for the same slots. With effort and focus, you can take advantage of this wonderful opportunities to further your photographic efforts.

If you made it this far down, I have to ask you if you are now considering artist residencies to elevate your own craft. What, in Joe’s article, moved you to make that decision? If you have any follow up questions for Joe, please feel free to ask him in the comments section below.

Joe has offered his e-book, Tuesday Composition, to one lucky person who comments below. Winner announced on December 30th.

Today’s guest post is by Nikki Peters, the community support manager for MarketMeSuite, the social media marketing dashboard you can use for free.

Publishing photos online is the new way of marketing your business, brand and even yourself and your own interests. Everyone can read a tweet or Facebook update and think nothing more of it, but to see a photo really does help you increase online engagement. As a professional photographer, it’s vital that you get your photos out to your audience and even going viral. This article examines why photo sharing via social media can really help increase your online reputation and gain you a significant following. Here are 4 tools to help facilitate interaction and sharing of your photos.

1- MarketMeSuite – Photo Sharing From A Dashboard

MarketMeSuite, is a free Social Media Dashboard which has a Photo sharing feature called Photo.Me. This is excellent for those of you who like to upload and publish photos to all your accounts as it allows you to do so all in one place. Also, whenever you publish a photo via MarketMeSuite, it is automatically added to the official Phto.Me web page so anyone and everyone can see it. Every time someone visits the website itself, they see the images, and discover new Twitter accounts, people and businesses. It’s a great way to get your photos seen, not just on your own Twitter/Facebook and Linkedin walls, but shared over a collective body of images where people can sit and browse at their own leisure and explore the photos origins.

Tips And Tricks For Using MarketMeSuite

Using MarketMeSuite’s “Send To All” feature means you get to send your photo to your Twitter, Facebook profile, Facebook pages and groups and Linked.in in one swift swoop. Just check off the accounts you want your photo to be sent to and a link will be sent to all of them at the same time so you save time publishing your images to your audience. You have the ability to visit that photo at any time, delete it, see how many views it’s had and grab the URL all from the MarketMeSuite app itself so you have everything you could possibly need at your finger tips to make sure that image is getting seen and by how many people.

2- Instagram – Photo Sharing From Your iPhone

Everyone with an iPhone is playing with Instagram, and why not, it’s free and offers some pretty amazing photo effects that are easy and quick to apply. No fiddling, no adjustment, you pick the effect and they do immediately! If you are on the go and want to edit your images, Instagram offers you the ability to pick the desired photo effect and publish it to your audience quickly and whilst on the go! If you snap a great image and want to share it with your audience, there really is no better or more simple way. You can also post it to Facebook, Twitter and Flickr meaning it reaches the widest audience.

Tips And Tricks For Using Instagram

There is a common misconception that Instagram is for phones only. There is in fact, a cheats way of getting your photos on to it from your professional camera. All you have to do is upload professional quality photos using Dropbox and you can then pull them from your iPhone directly onto Instagram, and since it’s a great network for sharing photos a lot of photographs and businesses alike are doing this. This way you don’t have to sacrifice quality and pixels. Also, a Flickr plugin on your website can showcase all your photographs and you can hook it up to your iPhone to automatically share from Instagram.

3- Flickr – Photo Sharing On Your Blog

Flickr is arguably one of the worlds biggest photo sharing websites, it’s certainly one of the more popular ones which is why it is a must for professional photographers. What better place to meet others with the same passion as you and share ideas and thoughts about it? With millions of people with an account, you are in good company! Upload your images and they can be seen under your username. Again you can structure your photos into albums so your work is neat and well organized so your audience can easily find what they like.

Tips And Tricks For Using Flickr

Flickr allows you to add plugins to your websites and blogs so you can advertise your photos on your website making marketing and access to your images easier than ever! Having content on your website gives people an immediate knowledge of your work and style so catches their interest. It also gives you the ability to let others use your images in their “Creative Commons” section meaning people can use and interact with your work so it gets seen by even more people. It’s also a good idea to use tags so your photos can be searched for easily and you get a wider result of people looking at your work.

4- Facebook – The Viral Photo Share

It’s so obvious it’s easy to over look it. Facebook is the worlds biggest social network and when you add pages and profiles and gain a good following, it’s a great way of easily uploading and sharing your photos. Whether you add them to a particular structured photo album or to a wall or share them individually, Facebook gets your photos to the masses. All it takes is one photo to be “Liked”, “shared” or linked out and you suddenly get a in-tune and appreciative audience.

Tips And Tricks For Using Facebook

With Facebook, you have so many options as to how you want to publish your photos and who can see them. Bulk load your images into content albums or upload them one by one, you have a limitless amount you can add and upload. The biggest tip with Facebook, is to publish photos that encourage your audience to get your photo’s seen by liking and sharing. That’s the best and most organic way of going viral as people trust their friend’s “likes” and suggestions.

So Why Should You Use Any Of These Tools?

Words can’t fully explain a sight, a time, a moment like a photo can. Not only can they inspire, they can help facilitate passive following. Your photos work for you even when you’re not online engaging and trying to convert customers. Whether it’s a photo of the office dog, of a new product for your business, or even just a beautiful photo, you have the internet at your fingers tips which helps you make sure they are seen and gain your exposure in your profession.

Which of the above tools do you use and why? Have you found clients or people interested in licensing your images because of these social media applications? Let us know below!

There are several phases of being a photographer. The obvious ones are beginner, amateur, professional and, perhaps at a stretch, “master.” You may disagree with that progression and that’s fine. But I suspect you will agree with me when I say that at every level (yes, even if you self-proclaim yourself the Grand Poobah of photography), you are constantly learning.

Yes, that’s right. Educating yourself never ever stops. It’s what I find most exciting about photography. Every day, I am learning something new about the art and also ultimately about myself.

Several weeks back, I announced the 1st annual Tiffinbox Award winner. That photographer is David DuChemin, an author, blogger, teacher and foremost a visual explorer. I urge you to check out his blog and his books.

David is also the visionary behind Craft & Vision e-books for photographers of all stripes. Each of these books is $5. They are a fast read and are chalk-full of great tidbits of useful information that you don’t just save in your head but are forced to go out and try out for yourself. To say that I have fallen in love with these e-books would actually be a bit of an understatement. They are exquisitely designed and of course contain some of the best photography I have seen. I eagerly wait for each new e-book because they are so remarkable.

Today, Craft & Vision is doing something different. They are actually giving away their latest e-book, 11 Ways You Can Improve Your Photography.

So, why is this 69-page e-book free? What’s the catch, you wonder? There is none. Think of this book as a sampler. The authors of these chapters are representative of the breadth and depth of the topics you will find on the Craft & Vision website. The writing is lucid and engaging. The images are spectacular. If you are even remotely inclined to educate yourself or even elevate your photography, these e-books are a must. Being e-books, I carry them around on my iPad 2 and flip through them when I want a quick burst of inspiration.

I bet you are curious to know what those 11 ways are right? So here they are, in the order they appear in the free e-book (yeah, download it now):

1) Make Your Images More Dynamic by Piet Van Den Eynde
2) Tame Your Digital Exposures by David DuChemin
3) The Power Of The Print by Martin Bailey
4) Learn To Direct The Eye by Michael Frye
5) Understand The Stages by Alexandre Buisse
6) Create Projects And Collaborate by Andrew S. Gibson
7) Refine Your Composition by Nicole S. Young
8) The Power Of The Moment by Eli Reinholdtsen
9) Forget Lens Stereotypes by Piet Van Den Eynde
10) Slow Down And Learn To See by Stuart Sipahigil
11) Make Stronger Portraits by David DuChemin

Buy one or two, or better yet, buy them all (and save 20%). With the Christmas season around the corner, I don’t think there is a better set of gifts than these e-books for the budding or experienced photographer in your life. I know I would appreciate it, if I was presented this incredible opportunity to learn from the very best in the industry.

Disclosure Of Material Connection