This week, we'll have two blog posts from my friends from “down under.” Can you tell I've always wanted to use that expression? In all seriousness, though, this first one up is a guest post by David Robertson, a Canberra Wedding Photographer. Follow him on Twitter.

As photographers we’re fed this basic message that a bigger lens = better photos. Don’t get me wrong, I love shooting with good quality equipment but as soon as you replace a passion for knowledge with a passion for equipment you’ll find yourself frustrated when your photos aren’t improving and will get burnt out. As a young photographer I bought the gear that I had lusted after and spent thousands of dollars without even realizing that I can make some amazing photos when equipped with the right knowledge and understanding of light.

Lighting in photography is one of the most overlooked aspects by today’s photographers and even the ‘professional’ photographers. Amateurs and professionals alike are completely oblivious to the effects of light of the human body and how different lighting can reveal or hide things, tell a story and bring your subject to life. Through this article I’ll go over some very simple and basic natural lighting techniques that I use for 90% of the work I do.

Many photographers over chop their images to try to make up for their lack of ability to understand light. We’ve all seen those ‘professional’ wedding photos that really just make you cringe and die a little inside. The aim of my work is to provide a very exclusive and high end photography experience, not just great images and being able to utilize the available light to the best measures is absolutely essential to that.

Amateurs and professionals alike are completely oblivious to the effects of light of the human body and how different lighting can reveal or hide things, tell a story and bring your subject to life.

There are a few different factors to consider when you’re lighting for portraits; size, diffusion (hard or soft), color and angle. Before I take a single photograph I analyze the scene and choose one of the below based on the factors above.

Hard light – shoot into the sun with the subject in front of you. This prevents squinting, gives a great wrap around light and if exposed correctly can give you amazing results. If possible try avoid shooting with midday sun. I always get a few wedding clients every season boasting about how they’ve planned to have the ceremony at midday and how good the light is then. Truth is that it’s very hard to avoid making people look likes pandas when the sun is at its apex.

Soft Light – The easiest light to work with, there is usually no squinting of the eyes (important) and it gives really nice warm, soft skin tones. The clouds act as a massive softbox; it’s my preferred light to shoot with. Shoot with the subject facing the light source (sun behind clouds) to get the most of all the color in the eyes, catchlights from light source (sun) and the best skin tones.

Sounds too easy? Well, it kinda is really :)

I encourage you to buy a small mannequin or get a willing model and study the effects of light on the person in a room with a nice big window. Rotate around the model as you’re shooting and very carefully observe with your eyes all the subtle differences that occur when you change the angle of the light and position of yourself and the subject. You’ll soon find yourself being able to get familiar with the effects of light and in no time you’ll be a light connoisseur.

If I had known all the things I do now when I first started I could have saved myself a lot of stuffing around, I hope it helps you :)

Do you have a preference for hard or soft light? Sound off below and let us know. Tell us also why you like one over the other. What challenges do you face when photographing in different types of light.

This is a guest post by Andrew “Fundy” Funderburg, the creator of the Fundy Album Builder and Fundy Album Proofer. Please check out the free trials available at http://www.fundysos.com. If you were looking to design albums yourselves, I highly recommend Fundy's products.

I firmly believe that fine art albums are the finest representation of good photography available wedding and portrait market. They allow the photographer to to create a family heirloom that can be handed down through generations. In the age of digital where hard-drive crashes and the fact that DVDs and CDs erode over time, a fine art album is one of the few ways to truly preserve the story of the day. A finely crafted leather album printed on true photographic paper will last, literally, hundreds of years.

I want all of my clients to preserve their photos in fine art albums. Yet, with the cost of the album, plus the cost of design, these can be significant investments for clients. So, the question is, how can we help more of our clients choose these albums, which we firmly believe are the best way to preserve their story, their day and their family's memories.

Tip 1 – Show more albums

This may seem like a no brainer, but people only buy what they can see, touch and feel. I've hear of photographers complaining that they never sell anything beyond a 10″x10″ album. But, later I find out that they only show 10″x10″ albums and give the option to upgrade the size. But the client can't know what a 12″x12″ or 14″x14″ feels and looks like without holding that album. In the studio, photographers need to have samples of each and every size they want to sell.

Tip 2 – Show big and fancy

Samples should be big and fancy. Have at least one sample of the largest album your album company offers. If they offer a 12×18″ album, get a sample of it. To keep costs down, only put in the minimum amount of pages (usually 20 pages). If your album company offers cool metal covers, get one. If you like those cool, expensive plexiglass covers, get a sample. By offering larger albums with fancier covers, it validates the cost of the regular leather albums. And it shows to the client, the fine art capabilities your studio has to offer.

Tip 3 – Tell clients what “most” people are buying

Clients usually only get married once (well maybe twice) in their lifetime. For the most part, they don't know how to get married. They don't know what they should do with their photography, they don't know how to preserve it, how to show off their day. For portrait clients it's basically the same. Senior photos are taken once in a lifetime. Families usually only have nice professional portraits done once or twice before kids are grown up and out of the house. It is part of our job description to let them know what we can do and what other clients are doing. Tell them that “most people are getting an album like this.” or “An 8×8″ cloth covered album is our most popular portrait album.” or “A lot of people are getting our new leather options.” Let them know this information during the consultation or on the day of the shoot. People need to digest this information and see pricing before viewing the images. If you design beautiful albums, they will want one, but they need time to justify the cost.

Tip 4 – Shoot for the Album

If we, as photographers, need to shoot differently if we want to sell more albums, versus, individual prints. Albums are all about telling stories. If we have one fantastic shot, we need to take supporting shots. This philosophy is ingrained in most wedding photographers, but the same philosophy needs to be adopted by portrait photographers. When you have “the shot” set up, also take accent shots from different angles and with different lenses. A shot with a long lens, cropped into the subject may have a great accent shot with a wide angle showing the landscape around the subject. So, shoot once, move around and take 3 more shots.

Tip 5 – Use albums as hooks in your packages

If you want to sell more albums, make them the centerpieces of your packages. In all of your wedding packages offer album credit. In wedding packages, album credit usually works better than actual albums (e.g. a 30 page 10″x10″ album). With so many sizes and options to clients for wedding albums, credit allows clients to create their own ‘dream' album without confusing upgrade options. For portrait albums, using different sizes in different packages works well. For example, a 5×5, an 8×8 and a 10×10 option in three different packages. Additionally, you can offer upgraded covers (e.g. leather) in larger packages.

Tip 6 – Break down your workflow

Albums are big projects, especially when you get over 40 pages. They involve not only the design, but also the proofing of the album to the client. When designing albums, I have pre-made folders with page numbers on them (e.g. 0203) and I drag the images for those pages into their own folders. This helps me organize each spread separately and speeds up the design process. For proofing the album, I realized that proofing needed an organized, visual solution and that is why I created the Fundy Album Proofer. I did the same with my Album Builder. I needed an organized way to make gorgeous, high-end albums. When you choose your software tools for albums, make sure that they fit your workflow and will not only help you produce and proof gorgeous albums.

Tip 7 – Know your profits

While this is not necessarily related directly to selling more albums, it will affect your ability to provide albums in the future. If you are not charging enough for your albums, you'll quickly get bogged down in the work of offering albums and they will quickly become a drain on your business instead of a boon to your business. Add all of your costs together, the cost of the album, the cost of the extra pages, the cost of designing the album (the cost of your time to design the album) and the cost of meeting the clients and proofing (again, the cost of your time). What most photographers forget is to do is charge for their time. But we don't want to work for free, do we? Take all of these and add them together. Now, the PPA recommends a maximum of 35% cost of goods. This means that for every $1 you make, it should cost you no more than 35¢ to produce. The easy way to calculate this is take all of your costs, add them together and divide by 0.35. For example, if it costs you $350 to produce an album, you should charge around $1000 for it. If you are on the higher end of your market, you can go smaller, for example 25% or divide by 0.25.

I hope that these tips help you sell more albums and helps your clients discover the joys of having a fine art album for generations to come.

Yes, Fundy does have a Black Friday sale. So, click the image below to get 30% off of all his cool album making products. {affiliate partner}

This is a guest blog by Jessica Lewis, co-owner of KRAFT and JUTE, which provides personalized kraft-sleeves and wedding favors using 100% recycled paper. Co-owners Melisa and Jessica are hard working wives and mothers; Melisa is due with baby #2 in December! She is a professor of business and marketing at Edinboro University and is currently working on her doctorate. When not running around after toddlers, Jessica sews sample CD sleeves for clients and runs her own photography business – Live: Beautiful Photography. Melisa and Jessica happen to be cousins who grew up together in northwest PA and have fond memories of playing in the tractor-tire sandbox on their grandparent’s farm.

The process of starting a new photography business is overwhelming for many new photographers. Many get weighed down with setting up a website or blog, finding a proofing site, creating a good workflow, managing a business, designing a logo, developing their brand… oh yeah – and taking and editing pictures. It is a lot of work and with so many different options, it is easy to lose track of time and become frustrated with trying to find the best solutions.

This process of being overwhelmed and frustrated is what led us (Melisa and Jessica) to develop Kraft and Jute. Jessica, photographer of Live: Beautiful Photography, wasn’t happy with the choices of Digital Negatives/DVD Slideshow packaging. We tried using the standard slim jewel case, but it screamed “cheap.” We thought about buying a 5×5 trifold from White House Custom Color, but were overwhelmed with trying to put together artwork and figuring out a nice layout. We knew we couldn’t spend a fortune on really nice custom packaging, but at the same time, we understood the value of a great presentation to the client.

So what better way to solve your own problems – create something for yourself! And that’s just what we did.

We created our own custom, eco-friendly, packaging for digital negatives in which we drew a lot of inspiration from two different websites: Caroline Ghetes and The Paperieboutique

The whole process was organic. We had tons of different ideas swimming around in our heads, but decided (encouraged by economics) to use the resources that were around us – kraft paper, our printer and a sewing machine. The feedback and ideas from friends and family were also key in developing our own professional packaging solutions. We knew that whatever the end result, we wanted something that was simple, yet beautiful.

You can see where we are now in the process by visiting our website, KRAFTandJUTE.com. Yes, this is still a process! We first posted some listings of the packaging products we had created in our Etsy shop. The response from fellow photographers was overwhelming. We were very excited to see their logos and brands printed on our simple CD/DVD sleeves. They looked amazing! We strive to fulfill custom packaging requests from professionals like you that need something that will make their brand stick out (but not lose a fortune in packaging costs).

We continue to build on our standard packaging solutions but also work on a one-to-one level with photographers all over the world to make something that is unique, simple and beautiful for them.

Kraft and Jute products have expanded from the simple CD sleeve to now include: CD/DVD sleeves, double sleeves, custom printing, print sleeves, print folders, and deluxe gift bag packages (for the total presentation). There are so many more new product ideas in the works – just not enough time to do it all at once!

We have produced over 5,000 CD sleeves for photographers and brides since July 2010 and were just featured in the latest addition of Design Aglow's Issue 11, “Presentation Perfection: Packaging That Inspires.”

Our clients LOVE the eco-friendly kraft and jute packaging. We hope you will be inspired to discover or create something beautiful for your treasured clients too!

SPECIAL OFFER: Receive 10 free Simple Stitched CD sleeves with every order of $15 or more until November 30. Mention the following code: “PicSeshu”.

This is a guest post by Phyllis Cheung, co-founder of My Wedding Concierge, one of the hottest iPhone and iPad applications to help engaged couples find their perfect local wedding vendors.

What is My Wedding Concierge?

My Wedding Concierge is a one of a kind wedding blog search engine that allows brides to search for wedding inspiration in a visually stunning and relevant manner. She no longer has to filter through irrelevant posts from popular search engines nor does she have to visit multiple blogs looking for a certain idea.

How Can My Wedding Concierge Help Photographers?

We are always looking for new photographers to add to our search engine. The only way to get added to our search engine is by blogging. We index your entire blog back to the day you started and upload everything onto our site. You can easily do a search on My Wedding Concierge and see if popular locations in your area have been blogged about. If not, you’ll be very easily found on our site because brides are searching for everything from reception sites to different types of veils. You should have a minimum of one article on your blog titled “Wedding Photographer in City” – that will cover the brides searching for you in your city. All other articles pertaining to engagement shoots and weddings should be titled “Engagement Session – Location, Sam and Kelly.” A huge mistake photographers typically make when titling their posts is by naming it, “Sam & Kelly.” No bride is ever going to search for “Sam & Kelly” in Google and if they do, they probably aren’t looking for wedding photographers. Also, the more you blog, the more content you have indexed on our site increases your chances of being found by brides.

What is the Inspiration Engine App?

We’ve created an iPhone and iPad App for our search engine titled “Inspiration Engine.” They can be downloaded from the iTunes store. In the apps, we’ve removed all bias so when brides search for say, “Marriott Hotel in Los Angeles” and you have an article titled “Marriott Hotel – Los Angeles Wedding – Sam & Kelly,” you’ll probably show up near the top. The key to drawing the bride in is to have stunning photography because she won’t know who the vendor/blogger is until she clicks on the photograph.

In our apps, we also have location based advertising through our interactive map. Brides can click on a camera icon (for photographers) and have revealed to her your ad and blog. She can easily tap “blog” and have your entire blog feed added to her reader for future reference instead of finding your business via our search engine. Because our apps are available worldwide, it only made sense to make our map global as well. Thus, you can choose to advertise in any locale throughout the world and brides can easily see at a quick glance where our advertisers are located.

We are limiting the number of photographers per market to 10. This allows us to give our photographers the best exposure to our brides. We currently have 3 versions of the app out – a paid and free version of the iPad app and a paid version of the iPhone app. We will be releasing a free version of the iPhone app in the next two weeks. An app for the Android OS will be available early next year.

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 just launched a new line of affordable all-in-one WordPress portfolio sites designed specifically for professional photographers at PhotographyBlogSites.com.

Early in 2009, Marty Thornley and I sat down to discuss a more efficient way for photographers to display their work online. We had both, separately, been working with photographers, and discussed the idea of an all-in-one portfolio blogsite that looks and feels like a flash site, with all the SEO benefits of a WordPress blog. We made our wish list; social media integration, customization, easy-to-use backend, unlimited galleries, and integration of fantastic photography tools. After developing many, many custom blogsites for photographers, we saw our theories in action and set out to develop Photography Blogsites.

WE STARTED THINKING ABOUT WEB PRESENCE

Creating a web presence from scratch is simply too much work. You need a hosting account, a website, a blog, facebook, twitter, etc. etc… That's already 3 or 4 places to login and update. If you have a second or third branch of your business this could be multiplied over and over. Like any software, WordPress needs to be updated from time to time. While WordPress itself has become pretty easy to automatically upgrade, sometimes the theme and/or plugins you have been using are not up to date with the new version. So you go through the automatic upgrade and your site breaks. To do this correctly you would backup your database and all your files in case something goes wrong. The problem is, do you know how to backup a database and restore it when something goes wrong? And if you do, you know this process takes a while. Again multiply this by all of your sites. It's not fun.

We set out to make this faster, easier and less expensive, while still providing all the SEO benefits, the support, the security and backups, and the upgrades. All the difficult stuff becomes much easier because we are offering sites on a networked system. We can fix any problems, answer any questions and best of all, release exciting new features to everyone at once. You will always have the latest features immediately.

THEN WE PERFECTED THE FEATURES

a) EASE OF USE

Our system is a networked installation, called WordPress Multisite. We backup everything twice daily and upgrade all of our plugins and themes, as well as the core WordPress files ourselves to make sure they are up to date and will continue working without a hitch. The process is totally seamless to site owners, who will never see the upgrade messages or worry about backups or upgrades or broken sites.

There is no need for hosting. No need for installation of anything. Ever. You don't even need to check your email for a confirmation link. The signup process takes about thirty seconds and your site is ready to start using. From there, our free trial period lasts 7 days. You won't even be asked for any payment information from us unless you decide to activate a subscription plan.

b) ALL IN ONE SITE

One login gives you access to the portfolio site, the galleries, and the blog. Everything is all one. We offer unlimited galleries, unlimited informational pages, your blog, plus a hub for your social media marketing efforts. One address, one place to maintain so you can get back to taking photos, your passion, and the reason you got into this in the first place.

c) SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a huge, often misunderstood, topic. What it comes down to is making sure that your site is as visible and findable as possible. While search engines like Google are a big part of this, you also need to be found on Twitter and/or Facebook. You need to be visible to iPhones and mobile devices. This means that your site should built 100% using HTML, and not Flash. There are varying arguments in the whole Flash vs. HTML debate. The only way for Flash sites to compete in the SEO world is to have secondary version called mirror sites for search engines, and a third site for mobile devices. Not only do visitors potentially see three different sites but these are three different pieces of code to maintain and worry about upgrading. Add to that a separate blog, sometimes on a different domain that opens in a different window.

One more argument for a Flash-free portfolio site, just last week Google announced a new feature called Instant Preview, which adds a snapshot of your site to the right of your search results. Unless, your site is Flash, which previews as a grey box. This will revolutionize how potential clients will do their searching. You can find out more information on our blog.

WordPress takes care of 90% of the on page SEO. We have put in some extra features to help take care of the rest. All of the standard SEO plugins are installed automatically: All in One SEO PAck, SEO Friendly Images, XML sitemaps are automatically generated and sent to Google, Yahoo and Bing. We have also developed a plugin in house specifically for photographers called SEO Image Galleries. The only WordPress gallery that uses 100% HTML (no Flash) and automatically adds valuable ALT attributes to every images.

d) EASY TO CUSTOMIZE

Out of the box, WordPress is not an automatic website/blog. You need to hire an outside programmer/designer to work a theme to your liking. That is where we come in. We created themes where just about every aspect can be easily customized by uploading patterns, logos, favicons, social media icons, blog post separators, your photos, or choosing from the options we have included in each theme. You can change the color or fonts on your menu, change the color the menu rollover the background. The possibilities are virtually endless.

e) COST

These sites replace a portfolio site, a blog and any hosting you might need for both. Our lifetime plans are a one-time payment, nothing else to buy ever, no monthly fees ever. Our monthly or yearly plans include everything – your full site, built in blog and hosting. For anyone totally happy with their current website, we also have a blog only versions of all of our themes.

f) SUPPORT

We have put together a support site focused on our sites, but is also a great resource for anyone using WordPress. We have detailed documentation, tutorial videos and a forum. If you have a question or concern, we have a built in ticket system that can be accessed directly from your site.

g) SECURITY & BACKUPS

To help prevent problems, we have enlisted a number of plugins and settings to make sure spam is kept to a minimum and the security of the site is as solid as possible. In the worst-case scenario that something does happen, the best way to protect a site is to have a good backup plan. We backup our database twice a day and all of our content once a day. The backups are stored both locally on our server and remotely.

h) AND FINALLY WE LAUNCHED

We are proud to announce our first three themes in both blogsite and blog-only forms: Latte, Espresso and Cuppa Joe. Because we believe in our product so much, we offer a 7-day free trial. Take our sites for a spin. You can upload your work, writes some posts, link your Twitter and Facebook, and even seamlessly switch between all our themes.

We are offering an introductory lifetime membership for $499. That includes all our themes (now and forever), 4 GB of hosting on our screaming fast servers, our support, maintenance and much, much more. For a full list of features visit our features section. This offer will end on November 30, 2010.

We’d love to hear your thoughts as we will keep developing our sites to be the best they can be. As always, thank you so much for your support!

Win on BLACK FRIDAY 11/26/2010! Photography Blogsites is generously offering ONE LIFETIME MEMBERSHIP (Worth $499) to a Tiffinbox subscriber. Here is how you may be able to win:

1) Follow @photoblogsites on Twitter

2) Tweet the following:

“I just read about Affordable WordPress Portfolio Websites @Photoblogsites on @PicSeshu’s Tiffinbox. #photoblogsites Please RT!”

3) Comment below and tell me WHY you deserve to win. Don’t forget to mention your Twitter handle so that I can make sure you have done both. We need to see a minimum of 50 real, honest, entries before I can give this away on Black Friday 11/26/2010. So whatchawaitinfor?