This is a guest post by SnapKnot, a website dedicated to helping engaged couples find their perfect wedding photographer.

We have been very pleased with the response from the wedding photography community and engaged couples since launching SnapKnot in February of this year. Now that we are in our 10th month of operations, we are considering the next steps to improve the site with the goal of making SnapKnot the go-to choice for brides and grooms just starting their search for a wedding photographer.

We have a few ideas of our own that we are planning to implement in the coming months, but we thought it would be fun to create a contest around the next Big Ideas for SnapKnot here on Tiffinbox.

We want to reach out to the vast community of photographers who visit this blog and ask –

How Would You Improve SnapKnot?

What would you like to see?

What would you change?

What would give photographers and/or brides a better overall experience?

Leave a comment below with a few sentences describing what you'd like to see on the site. In return for sharing your opinion with us, three photographers will win free SnapKnot Premium memberships. We will consider all the ideas and we will select the ones we like the best as winners. Also we encourage people to comment on which ideas they like – this will help us make our final decisions.

The 3 Best Ideas Will Win:

1) Grand Prize: 1 year of SnapKnot Premium membership
2) 2nd Prize: 6 months SnapKnot Premium
3) 3rd Prize: 3 months SnapKnot Premium

Contest Rules:

1) Minimum of 50 ideas needed to activate the prizes
2) Current Premium members are not eligible for these prizes. Only new members and current Free members are eligible.
3) 1 entry per photographer
4) Please include a valid name and email address so we can contact the winners
5) Contest ends at midnight December 31, 2010
6) Winners will be announced in January

So, hop to it. You have only TWO weeks left before we call out 3 winners. Keep those ideas coming. We want to hear from YOU!

This is Ingrid Spangler's second guest blog post for Tiffinbox. She is responsible for all the social media, as well as copywriting, promotions and marketing for AdoramaPix. She has been an avid photographer from the time she was a child, and studied film at Temple University in Philadelphia, where she learned about film theory and visual aesthetics. Her first post was about finding the perfect photography printing lab.

Hardcover photo books are fast becoming the best choice to present and distribute your portfolio. It’s a more permanent way to display your images, and while that is a definite plus, it also requires much more care when organizing and designing than just slipping your prints into the plastic sleeves. There’s also something about having your images in a book that leads the viewer to believe that the images should hold together and tell a story more than a traditional portfolio.

Here’s a general portfolio tip from my buddy Joe Holmes of joe's nyc focus on one style or genre of photography that you do best, such as landscapes or street photography or portraits. You can always do separate portfolios/books for each genre.

Another tip: Don’t let the design of your book overwhelm your images. Keep it simple. This rule goes for any photo book you make, but is especially true for portfolios.

From speaking to photographers and photo editors, it seems that the general rule when organizing your images into your portfolio is “put your best images in the front and the back; make a strong first impression, then give them something to remember you by.” While you can still use this tenet to start to set up your book, what do you do with all the prints in the middle?

Here are some suggestions for how you can sequence the images to have them hold together as something cohesive.

Organize Your Images By Color

Allow the dominant color in one image to dictate what the next image will be. This is very subtle and works very well for images that are largely disparate. Take for instance these images with lots of red tones, the next images could be something with orange or deeper red as the dominant color and so on.

Keep moving through the color spectrum until you are close to the end of the book, where you’ll place your second set of strong images to leave a lasting impression on the viewer.

Organize Your Images Graphically

Look for the strong, dominant lines in your images and pair them accordingly. This image with strong diagonal and horizontal lines is matched by an image with similar lines. For diagonal lines that go off the page, try as much as possible to have them point to the center of the book. This pairing also works because of the similar colors.

Or these circular shapes:

*Images courtesy of Brandon Remler: Fall Trees, Boys on Beach, Bridge, Guggenheim and Tunnel. Red Table courtesy of Ingrid Spangler.

Group like with like: black and whites together, images that depict the same subject, etc.

Above all, choose a high quality lab to make your photo book portfolio! AdoramaPix photo books are printed on real photo paper, so they are the closest thing to a traditional portfolio. Unique lay-flat bindings ensure that none of your images are lost to a gutter in the center, plus you don’t have to worry about matching up halves of an image that you want to span both pages. PixPublisher, the online book creation and editing program, is easy to use and powerful, you can design your portfolio exactly the way you want, sizing and positioning your images precisely on the pages, down to the pixel!

Remember, it’s your work, don’t gamble with the presentation. You may only get one chance to impress someone, make it count!

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 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?

This isn't a plug for the Fuji FinePix X100 camera. I am just posting this video clip up here just in case you are a street photographer like I was back in the day. This camera will quite likely be THE camera to have with you at all times. No, it doesn't look like it will fit in your pocket, but then again, what camera would you want at the ready – one that is slung over your shoulder or the one tucked into your pant pocket – to capture your next great image?

Tell me this doesn't look like an early Leica rangefinder camera. Yes, it's all digital. How I wish Fuji will come out with an all-black version of it. That would really bring back memories of my Leica M6.

So, what do you think? Will you consider buying this camera? Word is it won't be out till Spring 2011. As I told my friend Jigar on Twitter – I want it NOW! Brace yourself, though, as the retail price is likely to be close to $1000 or more.