David Beckstead is clear about one thing and that is he serves a very particular kind of client who gets what he does and loves what he does for them. I met David at Mystic Seminars some two years ago and he is slated to be back this year to present again. Like his work, he is a dynamic personality – always smiling and ready to answer questions from the audience. If you get a chance to view his images and his presentation, don't miss it.

For those who are intrigued by David's work, you are in luck. Photodough.com has on his sale his new e-book called Dynamic Wedding Photography. At $27 it is a steal. And as a bonus, you get to listen to David's presentation in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Are you looking to kick your wedding photography up a notch this year? No, not through Photoshop actions or Lightroom presets. Those will only get you so far. If you don't have an exciting or dynamic image to work with in the first place, you are just adding to the problem using those tools. I was always taught to get the image right in the camera first. Perhaps that's “old-school” thinking, I don't know. But it has worked really well for me.

Anyway, David's e-book promises to show us,”how you can become a stylistic and creative photographer attracting clients that love what you do.” Given his style, I suspect that even as a portrait photographer you are going to learn a ton from David Beckstead.

The sale runs through the end of day on Monday, January 7th, so, don't wait. The price goes back up to $65 and I doubt the video will be a part of that option.

As always, if you buy it, read it, use it, come back here and tell me about it. I want to know what you got out of it. Perhaps we can compare notes? Feel free to comments below.

P.S. Full disclosure, you betcha those are affiliate links! I promote only the best resources for photographers.

I am a huge fan of photographers who can teach. Ones that do it with clarity and wit are a minority, however. Jason Groupp is one among them.

The first time I met Jason was at a photography convention where he patiently looked over my sample wedding albums, and played mentor for about an hour. It was a memorable discussion and we soon stayed in touch, especially as I attended workshops that his New York City studio hosted. More recently we have been in touch via Twitter. While we go back and forth about the Jets and Patriots (he is a Jets fan for some unknown reason – Ha!), he let it slip that he was producing a DVD about off-camera lighting. Now, if you have followed this blog along for some time you already know how crazy I am about learning to light – people, objects, scenes, whatever. I was intrigued but Jason kept a tight lip about it, until recently.

25! from Jason Groupp on Vimeo.

From Jason Groupp's website about his DVD called “25 Kick Ass Lighting Scenarios”:

“In this DVD, I will demonstrate 25 easy to remember, simple to complex, lighting setups on a LIVE SHOOT! Did I mention it will all be done with equipment that won't break your budget?

Have you ever struggled to take great portraits of your clients because you don't have decent light to shoot them in and are not comfortable with off camera lighting?

I will break down these 25 easy to use lighting setups that you can adapt and call your own. This DVD isn't about fancy hard to understand ETTL techniques, I'll show you my easy to use “shoestring TTL” techniques and how you can create your own “no excuses bag”.

Here is another clip from the DVD:

#12 – “25” DVD || Setup: “St Marks” (low res) from Jason Groupp on Vimeo.

Well, today happens to be Jason Groupp‘s birthday. He won't tell me how young he is, but he did say he would offer Tiffinbox readers a great deal on his new DVD.

How would you like 50% off? Here is the code you need to use: “imaging2011” to buy 25 Kick Ass Lighting Scenarios TODAY! The deal saves you 50%. Original price: $150. Your price: $75.

It lasts through 12 midnight tonight, that's EST. So hurry!

(Want the deadline extended? Jason has this challenge for me. If at least 10 people buy the DVD today – leave a comment below saying you did and I'll verify with him – then he will have the code available to us for at least one more day. But the catch is, 10 people need to step up and buy the DVD today! Personally, I think this is a terrific deal.)

Still not convinced? (You gotta be kidding me! LOL!) Jason is offering this exclusive viewing of another episode for you to check out:

Please let me know if you purchased this DVD. I do not make a red cent off of the sale. I just think it is valuable, useful information you can put to use right away in your photography. If you did buy it and watched it, please comment below with your thoughts. I'll try and get Jason to respond to them. Thank you!

This guest post is by David Macvicar. He and Sean McGrath are wedding photographers based in Nova Scotia, Canada. Storyboard is their bright idea.

Have you ever wanted layout photos like in the image below, but were absolutely defeated by the number of steps and amount of time required to make this happen?

I think the process goes something like this: Create a new image at the right size, open up each image, resize, drag, resize again, nudge image, etc. etc. Even with an action, you are still doing a number of steps that slow down your blogging workflow. Wouldn't it be fantastic if this process was completely automated and worked at the touch of a button, or a simple run of an action?

That's why we created a photoshop script called Storyboard. It makes blogging diptychs and multiple image layouts as easy as selecting the images and clicking a button. We built this tool for ourselves, because we didn't have time to do layouts the traditional way, but just loved the impact they have on a blog post.

So what exactly is Storyboard?

Storyboard is designed for photographers who blog their work and love to show numerous images which provide a sense of storytelling. Diptychs, triptychs and other combinations of images are perfect for telling a story from a wedding or a portrait session. It works with any blog size & color, any number of images, any combination of aspect ratios, and best of all it was designed with speed in mind. We wanted it to be as fast as possible to build image layouts for your blog.

Why use Storyboard?

We have heard from photographers who have resorted to a tonne of different ways to handle this situation – create actions that still require a lot of user input, photographers who have created InDesign documents with predefined layouts (who wants to jump between different applications!?) and a few other situations which were less than ideal. Other blogging actions often lock you into pre-determined blog sizes (900px, 750px, 600px to name a few) … what if your blog is a different size? What if your blog background features a different color? It's much better to have options than it is to be pigeon-holed into some other photographer's idea of how to blog. Since creating these layouts is a challenge and the brands and blogs of photographers all vary, we thought it was time to solve this problem and provide the best solution for blogtographers! With Storyboard it is possible to create an entire blog post worth of images in just a few minutes.

What does a storyboard look like?

Here is a basic example:

And here is something a bit more complex:

How can I configure Storyboard to work with my blog and workflow?

Storyboard is a simple script, but has a powerful configuration panel. Within a minute you can have it working specifically for your blog. Here are the parameters you can change to work with your blog:

– Set your blog width
– Set the space size between your images
– Change the background color to match your blog brand
– Run actions before your Storyboard saves (perfect for running web sharpening actions)
– Save your Storyboard's automatically and have them close out for quick workflow speed
– Choose your destination/save folder and filename
– Handy archive to folder feature moves images you have already used into a folder of your choice
– Visual re-ordering of your images in your Storyboard by seeing thumbnail order of your images (get the most visual impact by choosing the image order)
– Loop Mode: Storyboard will prompt you to keep making boards – the fastest way to create a blog post

Check out this video on how to configure Storyboard for your blog:

Availability

Storyboard is available at an introductory price of $54.99. Get your copy here and to learn more about Storyboard visit us on the web at http://www.storyboardrocks.com/

Win! Storyboard is generously offering ONE free license to a Tiffinbox subscriber. Here is how you may be able to win this awesome Photoshop Script.

1) Subscribe to the bi-monthly Tiffinbox newsletter

2) Tweet the following:

I just learned about an amazing new Photoshop Script for blogging @Storyboardrocks on @PicSeshu’s Tiffinbox.org Please RT!

IMPORTANT: Don’t forget to mention your Twitter handle so that I can make sure you have done both. I need to see a minimum of 50 real, honest, entries before I can give this away on January 20, 2011.

David and Sean also want to mention that anyone can enter this contest. If you have previously purchased Storyboard, you can still enter and they will just refund you.

This is a guest post by Stuart Sipahigil. He is an amateur photographer in the traditional sense of the word; that is, he does it for the love of the craft. His photographs have won awards, appeared in publications, and have made their way into homes and businesses around the country. Stuart also teaches workshops to help other amateur photographers find great photographs close to home. Stuart’s work can be found at TheLightWithout.com.

So, you're “just” an amateur photographer… but you've discovered that you have a love for making photographs and you seem to be pretty good at it. Your friends and family are telling you they love your photographs and several have said you are “good enough to be a professional.” Maybe you've entered a local photography contest or two, and you've done pretty well. Or perhaps you've even sold a few prints of your photographs to the local coffee shop or restaurant.

Now you're thinking to yourself, “maybe I could be a professional photographer,” and then, “how would I do that?” So you check out a couple of books about being a pro photographer — David duChemin's VisionMongers: Making a Life and a Living in Photography or Dane Sanders' Fast Track Photographer, for example — and discover that it's actually quite a bit of hard work. You already have a career right now and well, it's paying the bills and you're doing okay, even in this economy. Shifting gears to becoming a pro is a big change and would disrupt your life quite a bit. It might be doable, but it would be painful, and you're just not sure it would be worth it.

So now what do you do?

Traditionally, there were the only two paths available to you: turn pro, with all of the responsibilities that entails and the costs associated with it. Or remain an enthusiastic amateur, occasionally selling a print or two at your local art fair, or maybe shooting your cousin's wedding for a few hundred bucks (and thus, pissing off an entire group of professionals—but that's another story). However, I think there are several other choices you can make; several other paths you can trod that don't involve becoming a traditional “pro” to find satisfaction as a talented amateur photographer.

The Internet has changed everything. You have many more outlets for your work now than ever before. Traditionally, if you wanted to get your photographic work out into the public eye you had only a few choices; magazines, gallery showings, or stock photography, for example. Today, you can sign up for a blogging service and start your own photography blog, publishing your work to a worldwide audience in about five minutes. If you're a little more ambitious, you can self-publish your own “coffee table” book of your photographs using services like Blurb or Inkubook. Or publish a photography ebook, either on your own or through a publisher like Craft & Vision. All of these things were prohibitively expensive and perhaps even impossible to do on your own only five years ago.

There used to be an old saying, “Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.” That's simply not true these days (and it never really was). Many professional photographers like Joe McNally, David duChemin, and Zack Arias — all terrific photographers — offer workshops and seminars about the vision, the craft, and the business of photography. But not everyone is ready for (or can afford) workshops with these big names.This can create an opportunity for you to step up and use your skills to help others that are as passionate about this craft as you are. Is there a local arts center in your town? This can be a great place to start and to hone your teaching skills. If you don't have that opportunity, why not just try leading a few photo walks, either on your own or in concert with Scott Kelby's Worldwide Photo Walk in July? Signing up to be a walk leader is easy and can get you started on the path to becoming a photographic instructor.

Are you good at talking about photographic tips and techniques? Do you think you can interview other photographers? Maybe you should start a photography podcast. In a few minutes, you can set one up in Apple's iTunes and publish it to a worldwide audience on a regular basis. The folks at Faded & Blurred have done just that, combining it with their own regular photo walks and a lively online community to create a terrific resource for passionate photographers.

If you are currently a professional photographer, you too can benefit from “going amateur.” I don't mean that you should give up your business and find something else to do, but to try to carve out a little time in your life to do some work for yourself. Personal projects are your connection back to why you started in the field to begin with: your love of photography, the feel of the camera in your hands, and the joy of seeing something that moved you appear on film or in the LCD. There is enormous value in removing the pressures of running a successful photography business and just do it for yourself.

Maybe there are other opportunities that you could use to expand your business (and reputation) as well. Matt Brandon, a professional travel and humanitarian photographer, publishes regular interviews with other pros like Ami Vitale, Gary S. Chapman, and Chris Orwig on his Depth of Field podcast. David duChemin created the Craft & Vision eBook publishing business by starting with a few of his own ideas about photography. Chase Jarvis has added The Best Camera, a best-selling book and phone app, as well as the Creative Live educational video series to his successful endeavors. Many other pros are adding to their repertoire of services by taking advantage of these new avenues.

And if your photography business isn't very successful, why not step back and take a fresh look? Is it just a production job for you now: prepare, shoot, post-process, deliver? Have you lost that love for the art that you used to make? Perhaps it's time to re-think photography as a professional career. That may seem a bit harsh, but I'm simply saying your photographic life might be more rewarding without the pressures of trying to make a living at it. Or perhaps you just need to shift gears and, like some of these other pros, add some new roles to your career, such as broadcaster or teacher. There may be opportunities available to you that you just haven't considered.

There are great rewards to becoming a professional photographer if you're willing and able to put in the time and effort it requires, but there is no shame in trying to be a great amateur photographer. Making money with photography doesn't always equate to making exceptional photography. If you love photography and want to do more than just make slideshows for your friends and family, there are more opportunities now than ever before. Overcome your doubt and hesitation, step out and see what you can accomplish as “just” an amateur.

Please support this site and buy Stuart's awesome e-book, Close To Home, through the Craft & Vision website. [affiliate link]