Once suicidal and depressed, Corey Hudson, a photographer in New Haven, Connecticut has embarked on a personal mission to photograph The Hearts of Strangers. Similar to StoryCorps, Corey spends his time getting to know complete strangers and asks them a series of questions about their life.

I've always been curious to see how this could be done at the local level after seeing the Humans of New York project take off. But Corey's approach is different and remarkable because he dives in deep to ask people those very things that they might often suppress within themselves. That might be due to feeling disconnected from society or unwanted by their family members. By giving people a channel all their own to express themselves, Corey hopes that their stories will inspire others and convince most who read these stories that they are not alone at all.

Project has had a cathartic effect on Corey, who is now clean and sober, is not on any anti-depressant medications and sees every day as a special gift. He feels more connected to society and thanks to a fully funded Kickstarter campaign is set to get on the road to discover strangers all across the US who will talk to him and allow him to photograph them in this intimate manner.

We chatted quickly about the project. Give this is a listen:

Some of the “strangers” Corey has photographed. Remember, their stories can be found here.

Please spend the time watching this interview Corey gave to WTNH's Ann Nyberg:

Would you like to support Corey's project? You can by buying his first book from this project called Every Heart Has A Story To Tell. Feel free to follow Corey and the project via his Facebook page.

Can embarking on a personal photography project help you overcome your obstacles and challenges? Brené Brown who wrote “Daring Greatly” explores the power of vulnerability. I highly recommend you read it!

What I find remarkable about Corey is his perseverance to pivot from a lousy situation and find purpose and meaning in his life through photography, writing and sharing stories contributed in large part by strangers. In the video, I tip my hat to Skip Cohen who at Shuttefest presented a fantastic idea to photograph local business owners and celebrate them through blog posts or social media channels. Imagine for a second if you are feeling like nothing is going right in your business or life and you suddenly start to connect with these strangers in such a positive manners. What could happen to your business and you? There is no downside to knowing more people in the world in an intimate and authentic way.

Are you working on a project you would like to share with us? Contact me to tell me more. I'll be in touch with you right away.

By the end of September, Pictage, a service you may have either used or have heard of, will be dead. If you banked on storing all your high resolution photographs on their servers, you may want to start downloading them now and backing them up.

Are there alternatives to Pictage? Yes, there are. But the one I depend on is ShootProof. I have enjoyed using ShootProof so much that I signed up to be an affiliate partner. So, yes, I make a small commission for promoting them, but I do so from the perspective of an actual user.

Photography Storage & Archive

ShootProof‘s business model is different from any other company's out there. Most want you to pay a monthly fee and then make some more off of you if you sell a print. ShootProof, instead, gives you the option of choosing a plan based on the number of photographs you have in your active galleries. You could start with a small plan of 1,500 photographs and pay just $10 a month. Or, you could be that busy wedding studio and have an unlimited plan for just $60 a month. ShootProof also lets you test the waters and upload 100 photographs for $0 per month.

Now, any gallery you move to an archive – that is, out of the gallery and into a “storage” area – is charged a modest sum of $.04 cents per gigabyte per month.

Lab Integration

I don't know about you, but when I create photographs for my clients, my end goal is that they place an order. In that regard, ShootProof gives you the option of having your prints printed at either Bay Photo, Black River Imaging or ProDPI (my top choice). The integration is seamless. ShootProof pulls the base prices from these professional labs into their system and gives you an opportunity to mark them up (as you should to reflect the time, skill and effort you have put into creating that work of art for your clients).

With my lab, ProDPI, for instance, I can either approve the order manually as it comes in or have it automatically shipped from Denver to my client's home without it ever coming to my home studio first. This is a huge time saver in those instances when my client does not live in the same town as I do. Read all about the ShootProof lab integration here.

Gallery Control

One of the things I always wanted in an online proofing site is some control over who sees what and for how long. Thankfully, I can set those limits within ShootProof quite easily. I can create a custom link, using the event name or client's last name, for instance. So, instead of a string of numbers, your clients will see their own recognizable name in the link. You can set expiration dates for the galleries. So, if you give your clients a deadline to order prints, they will see that deadline when they log in. You might still need to remind them, but at least you have given them the information from the get go!

Some of my business clients expect downloads. For the longest time, I used Dropbox to transfer files over to them. That worked to an extent, but ShootProof allows me to create an option at the top of the gallery to download all of their images in one go. So cool!

Customizing The Gallery

I've already mentioned how you can create a custom domain for your galleries, but the customization goes beyond that with ShootProof. You are able to set the colors of background for your galleries, upload and display your logo in all the obvious places. The user interface is intuitive and easy on the eyes. Everything is where it should be and there is no second-guessing where certain features are placed.

Creating A Workflow For Your Photography Business

Whether you are a wedding or portrait photographer, I would recommend you create a gallery for your clients ahead of the event or the session. Are you wondering why? Here's an awesome little feature in ShootProof that I love – you are able to essentially pre-register all the guests who are interested in seeing your photography BEFORE the gallery is released to the public. Whoever registers at the gallery gets first dibs at seeing your work. Plus, you have just legally captured their email address. Imagine that you can contact them before a national holiday letting them know about your other services or special sales on the photographs you created at an event they visited. Huge win, if you ask me!

One other reason you should create a gallery in advance is because it makes it easier for you to upload finished images from a folder on your computer or directly from Lightroom, via a plugin.

Sharing Is Caring

Lastly, you can share your galleries and photographs via social media. You can enable this or disable this feature but why wouldn't you want to have your photographs go viral online? Plus, there is the free ShootProof iPhone app that gives you the ability to share a gallery with your clients who in turn can share it with their friends and family. You can customize this free app with your studio logo and every time your client shares the gallery with someone they know, your company branding goes along with it. Quick and easy marketing, right?

Back to using the online gallery, did you know ShootProof works with Triple Scoop Music to bring you nearly 13,000 songs to use in your slideshows? If you have an unlimited plan, you can add up to 20 songs to any gallery or slideshow! Read more about this partnership here.

So, I hope I have given you enough reasons to move on from Pictage or any other online service and join ShootProof. I almost forgot to add that as a ShootProof user, you will have a say in the next features the company is working on. There is an active private Facebook group where each of us trades ideas, questions and suggestions on how to make ShootProof even better than it is right now.

Won't you join me? Try ShootProof out right now. Upload those 100 images and play with the interface. If it is a good fit for you too, then great!

On or close to my birthday, every year for the last four years, I have recognized and tipped my hat to a photographer-teacher in the industry who makes a significant impact on people's life.

The first four awardees of the Annual Tiffinbox Award are: David duChemin, Spencer Lum, Jamie Swanson and Jenika McDavitt.

This year, I am thrilled to announce the 5th Annual Tiffinbox Award goes to Neil van Niekerk, a South African photographer, teacher, author and speaker who now calls New Jersey home.

Neil publishes two blogs, One Perfect Moment and Tangents, a blog I recommend every photographer bookmark. It is through this latter blog that I learned that Neil also offered workshops on off-camera lighting. If memory serves me right, I have attended at least two of his workshops as a student. If you are starting to make the move from natural light photography to flash photography, Neil's workshops are a must. The day is usually long because he patiently goes over all that you will need to know about using your strobes off or on your camera.

Neil knows his stuff so well that he has written four books on the topic of lighting (see above) and is frequently invited to speak about lighting at conferences and industry gatherings across the US and beyond.

(if you were wondering, yes, that's a real tiffinbox you are seeing on the right there)

Here are some of my favorite blog posts by Neil van Niekerk over the years:

Dragging The Shutter
Black Foamie Thing
Flash and Ambient Light
Using Exposure Compensations vs. Manual Exposure

Please visit and bookmark Neil's websites, buy and read his books and enroll in his workshops. I guarantee you will be a better photographer. You can also follow Neil on Twitter and Facebook.

Meet Brandon Wong, a wedding photographer based in Orange County, California, and listen to the story behind how he and his wife Katrina Santos decided to launch Photobooth Supply Company.

As a busy studio they began to cap off at 30 weddings a year. Savvy business owners, Brandon and Katrina were looking for ways of expanding their business and bring in more revenue without having to be personally involved in the service. They hit upon the idea of offering photo booths but the only ones available were expensive and kludgy.

After sinking nearly $15,000 into a photo booth set up that didn't work for them at all, Brandon and Katrina resolved to bring to the market a more elegant, cost-effective solution that creates a revenue stream for photographers.

I wanted to know more about how Brandon and Katrina decided to launch their photo booth and so I spoke with Brandon earlier this year (yes, when it was winter time and I was wearing three layers of clothes here in Connecticut).

Learn more about Photobooth Supply Company here. If you decide to lease one or buy one, please come back here and let me know what you thought of it. Let's say you go in for the top photo booth (that's $9300 right now), and you charge $1500 an event, it will only take you six rentals to recover the cost of the set up. Surely, if you are a wedding photographer or an event photographer, you can persuade your clients to have one of these fun and easy to set up photo booths at their event!

Here is a few frames of my buddy Dave Jackson and I at Inspire Photo Retreats. Hat tip to Lulawed and Maine Snapshot Studio for making a Photobooth Suppply Company photo booth available for all of us at the photography convention to play with and experience first hand!