In advance of his presentation at the monthly CTPPA meeting, I spoke with Professional Photographers of America‘s (PPA) national president, Michael Timmons on a range of topics about the PPA and how it serves photographers.

I also spoke briefly with Tina Timmons, about her role in leading PPA Charities. Find out about a wide array of opportunities that await you where your business and a charity can partner up and help each other out.

Learn more about the CTPPA gathering on May 27th with Michael and Tina Timmons. It runs from 2 pm to 10 pm at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, in Cromwell, Connecticut.

Today's guest post is by Tony Urban‘s second guest post for this site. He is a high school senior portrait photographer based in Western Pennsylvania. Read his first post here.

If you're a photographer who is giving your clients their images on a disc, you don't care about your business or your clients. Sound harsh? I'm sure it does but I believe with every fiber of my being that it's the truth.

When I started my photography business, I began in wedding photography. At the time, including a disc of images with the digital photos was pretty standard. I was new to the business so I assumed if everyone else was doing it, it must be right. I gave a disc of high res images to every client whose wedding I shot and never looked back. It was nice to not to have to bother with album designs or ordering prints from the lab. Instead of having Aunt Ruth coming to me for a 5×7, I could simply tell her to have the bride and groom email it to her. I was happy, the clients were happy because they got “all the photos” and all was right in the world, right?

Wrong. I stopped shooting weddings a few years ago as my portrait business exploded. In portraiture, at that time, images on a disc was unheard of, so I sold print collections, albums, wall portraits, etc. to my new clients. They loved the high quality products I was giving them from a professional lab and I liked knowing that the images they were showing off were printed well, not by some kid making minimum wage at the local department store.

Over the past few years, the “pics on a disc” business model has invaded portrait photography like a virus. New photographers have latched onto the idea and coupled it with dirt cheap prices. They think it's is a superb idea. Their clients, who are seeking a “good deal” like it too. After all, they can take their disc to Walmart and print out a plethora of 4x6s for a couple dollars. What could go wrong?

Everything is going wrong. Giving your clients their images on a disc is giving them “half” a product. It would be like going to the car dealership and having them sell you the body and wheels, but no engine. It would be like going in for surgery and paying the doctor for the operation, but having him tell you that you need to stitch yourself up. Why does anyone think this is a good idea?

At one of the last weddings I shot, I happily bumped into former wedding clients. I had photographed their wedding a few years earlier and loved catching up with them. During our conversation, the husband mentioned to me in an off handed way that they had lost their disc in a move. They had never got around to printing their photos even though they loved them. I was happy to burn them a new disc, but what if I would have moved or gone out of business or even died? They would have had nothing left of their wedding but memories.

In a related anecdote, I was recently contacted by another former wedding client asking me if I could have some large wall portraits printed for him and his wife from their wedding photos – a wedding I had shot 8 years prior. He explained that they looked at their pics on their computer all the time, but with kids, jobs, etc. never got around to printing anything. Now that they were ready to get some large photos, they didn't know where to go to have them printed and, quite frankly, didn't want to be bothered with it. So, their disc of photos, which they had paid me good money to create, was basically worthless.

Stories like that are bound to happen even more frequently in portraiture. If you hand your clients a disc of images and expect them to do all the work of printing the photos or making collages or designing albums, you're showing them that you don't want to take the time and make the effort to give them a true finished product. You're being lazy and cheap and you're justifying it by telling yourself, “That's what they want.” but the customer doesn't know any better. You're the pro – you should.

What your clients don't need is a disc of dozens of files and to be left on their own to figure out crop ratios, to find a good printing lab, to figure out whether the prints they get back are too dark or have a magenta color cast or if the paper is of low quality and will fade in a few years. Why should your clients be forced to go to Shutterfly or Blurb and design their own albums? Why are you telling them that your doing “half” the job is good enough?

If you're basically a hobbyist who takes photos for fun and a little money, maybe giving “pics on a disc” is the right choice for you. But if you're professional photographer who is going the disc route, you're sabotaging your business and cheating your clients out of the professional product they deserve.

As wedding or portrait photographers in business, we wear many hats. We are marketers one day, networkers the next. On some days we have sales and ordering sessions, on others we are busy coming up with blog posts or communicating with our clients. At our core, though, we strive to make images that mean something.

There are some things I know I do better than others. What I have no time or inclination for, I typically outsource. I'll confess when I was starting out, the draw of doing it all was much greater. I was convinced I could design my own website, business cards, logo and marketing materials. But I soon came to the realization that designing was simply not my forté. I know great design when I see it, but I can't say I know how to go about creating a concept or crafting it. So who does? Well, a graphic designer who has dedicated their life to that pursuit usually is the best option.

You can work with a graphic designer who will custom design your brand or you could opt to buy a template created by a graphic designer, that you can modify to fit your needs. The first option is an investment with great returns IF you know what your brand is all about and you are willing to stick to that brand for a few years. Downloading a template and changing it to fit your needs, however, gives you the flexibility to change things around as often as you would like, at a reduced cost. Just as there are a great many graphic designers, there are also a great many online options to download templates.

The one I have trusted to deliver the very best products is Design Aglow.

What makes Design Aglow special is that it was co-founded by Lena Hyde, a children's photographer based in West Palm Beach, Florida. As a successful photographer, she knows what works and what does not. She is also acutely aware of what the market (in her case moms) are looking for, in terms of products. In addition to offering design templates, Design Aglow has a bevy of sales tools (like their ProSelect plugins) for professional photographers and productivity applications to keep your studio's workflow in check. For a while Design Aglow was publishing a truly awesome magazine. Perhaps they'll get back into the groove again. The magazine, which is how the site got its start, showcases studios and leaders in the industry through in-depth interviews. I recommend checking out the first 11 issues of the Design Aglow magazine. I am hoping that one of their future issues will be dedicated to photographers who document multicultural weddings. [grin]

As you can tell I am a fan. Nothing more. If Design Aglow has an affiliate program, I am unaware of it, so rest assured this post has not been solicited, nor does it contain affiliate links. As a fellow photographer, I just thought you should give Design Aglow a look-see for your own studio's needs. The downloads are instantaneous and should you hit a glitch, the customer service is top-notch. They are quick to answer questions and engage with you through their very active blog.

If after reading my recommendation, you do buy a product through the Design Aglow site, please come back here and share with us what you bought and how you intend using it. Good luck!

An Adobe Community Professional, you can find A.J. posting video tutorials & reviews on his website, when he’s not creating content for Layers Magazine or GeekBeat.TV. This is his second guest blog post for Tiffinbox. Read his first post as well. Then follow him on Twitter.

First, I want to thank Seshu for having me back on his blog. My schedule is such that I really try to make time for these guest articles; it's truly a privilege to contribute to the community.

For today's post I wanted to discuss copyright, and what you're not doing about it. I'm constantly surprised at the number of photographers who don't register their image copyrights. If you consider yourself a professional photographer, act professionally for the sake of your business and register your images. It's easy and affordable ($35), especially when compared to the insane amount of money you spend on your equipment. It can also be done online through the Electronic Copyright Office (eCO).

As I re-read the above paragraph, I can see how I'm coming off a bit harsh. Not my intention, it's just lately I've come across more photographers who have seen their work used by someone else. It's easy for you to register, it's even easier for someone to grab your image and use it. Consider this recent example in which Will King Photography was blatantly ripped off by 367 Media. What I find interesting is the folks that stole Will's images are located in the same geographic area. Usually, when I hear of these cases, they occur in other countries or different states.

In a previous post Seshu suggests you secure your images, and provides a link to David Riecks security page. Those are all good suggestions for discouraging infringement.

Registering your copyright is going to be your go-to solution if infringement happens.

Copyright is a civil matter handled in federal court. Without proper copyright registration you may be entitled to actual damages, e.g., standard licensing fees, profits received from infringement, and little else. You will not receive any statutory damages without proper registration. Considering most photographers reading this are using some sort of DAM (digital asset management) for organizing photos adding registration to your digital workflow wouldn't be too hard. For Lightroom & Photoshop enthusiasts I've recorded two videos on adding metadata to your images. Not only is this a good idea for SEO purposes, it's also a great way to ensure your copyright info is embed in every image you post. Did I mention most thieves are lazy? Yup, you shouldn't be surprised how many times your image is reposted as is, without even a name change, metadata intact.

Lightroom SEO

Photoshop SEO

Here are some additional resources to learn more about copyright registration:

1. The PPA helps photographers educate their customers on why copyright is important.

2. Ken Kaminesky interviews Carolyn Wright aka The Photo Attorney who answers photographers burning copyright questions.

3. Jack Reznicki & Ed Greenberg produced the Photographers Legal Guide on DVD, which you can purchase through Kelby Training.

DISCLAIMER – I am not an attorney, nor is this article to be considered professional legal advice.

Do you copyright your images? Tell us about your process down below! You may want to consider a company like MyOWS to help you copyright and then manage and protect your images.

This is Dr. Dhiraj Kacker's second guest blog post here. Read his first post on album manufacturing too. He is the CEO and co-founder of Canvera, an online digital photography company based in Bangalore, India. Dhiraj can be found online on Twitter, his company blog or his personal blog.

This post has been on my mind for a long time as I think a lot about the changing role of pro-photographers in the digital age. But in some ways I got beaten to the punch by a much more spunkier take on the issue by Allen Murabayash, CEO of Photoshelter, on his blog post “Rant: I Love Photography”. Please go read it. My post here will be much more sedate and boring! With that warning, let’s dive into it.

I have much more insight into the market where pros get hired for personal or corporate events (such as weddings, portraits, bar/bat mitzvahs, etc) so I will focus on that and not on commercial, editorial and stock photography which has its own set of dynamics in the digital world.

What do we all hear and say everyday: DSLRs are getting cheap, everyone has a camera, it’s getting tougher to earn a living being a pro! A lot of it is true. Digital Photography combined with the internet and cheaper and cheaper capture devices have made it simpler for all and sundry to take and share images like never before. Unshackled from the physical limitations of film and the cost of taking each picture everyone today can pretend to have some proficiency in photography. There are weekend wedding photographers who are taking business away from full time pros just based on price. There are pro-sumers who are building online galleries, showcasing their work and in fact selling their work.

But here’s the funny thing:

– For the first time in the history of pro-photography we have celebrity wedding photographers! Celebrity status was limited to fashion and editorial photographers, never to wedding photographers. How did this happen?

– Family portraits on the wall look like model shoots today, not just people saying cheese into a camera and accepting whatever came out. Perfect lighting, perfect smile are must!

– Corporate mug shots make management look like celebrities and anything lower quality doesn’t speak well of the company

– I am hearing more and more that right after a wedding date is fixed the first or second service provider that gets booked is the photographer; this used to be an afterthought

– Senior shoots are blurring the line between model portfolios and what was considered just pictures of the teenage years

– Parents want their kids’ sports pictures to look like shots from pro sports

– Never before have engagements & boudoir shoots been taking place in such large numbers. The smart photographers have also created the “trash the dress shoot” as well!

I don’t believe any of this was common a decade ago.

So what’s really going on? Let me talk a little from my personal experience. I had a run of the mill point and shoot film camera in the 90s and in 2000 bought my first 3MP digital camera – an Olympus 3000 for a $1000 (yes, a thousand bucks for a 3MP P&S camera). I remember the excitement of getting pictures back in the film world and just being able to relive those memories was amazing. At the time the pictures looked great but today, they look mediocre (and I am being generous). Too much sharpening, probably done by the minilab and too much contrast because of the film I bought. And of course I had no eye for composition or lighting. Initially I really liked my P&S digital camera – it was quite simply the excitement of digital. But my appreciation of photography kept going up and at some point that quality was just not good enough.

After my first kid was born, I finally invested in an SLR and for a few years managed with the default lens. And then I got fancier with the lens. It is safe to say that today with two young kids I shoot a lot of pictures, but here’s the kicker: unlike in the film world where I did not know any better, I can immediately tell how many decent shots I got. It takes me possibly 100 shots to get one really good one! I don’t have an eye for light or composition, and I rely on sheer volume to get lucky. So much so that on a recent birthday party I did the unthinkable: I called up a pro friend of mine to hire him to take pictures. By playing around a lot I have come to realize just how difficult it is to consistently take good shots. It is kind of like playing sports and developing a greater appreciation for the professional who plays the same sport. Isn’t it true that the omnipresence of little leagues and minors grows the business for the majors?

Here is what is happening: never before have average consumers been exposed to this much high quality imagery – web, mobile, magazines, hoardings, blogs – you name it. The quality of images on Pinterest or Tumblr is just mind blowing. Sub-consciously consumers have developed a greater appreciation for good images. Everything I’ve listed above is happening because of this trend. I believe that today consumers (like me) are experimenting a lot more with photography trying to reproduce the quality they observe. And like me they are coming to appreciate how difficult the art and craft of photography is. So when it comes to important life events (operative words being “important life events”), my prediction is that over the next decade pros will be hired in record numbers. Consumers will be spending in record amounts.

None of this means that things have not changed and pros can simply fall back to what they did in the 90s (which was essentially to build a physical portfolio and get referral business). Like a pro-sportsperson, they have to be savvy business people. I am writing on a photographer’s blog so I know that this audience is aware that from building a brand, to marketing to sales and operations, a pro has to do a lot more; a pro’s life has become lot more complicated. But boy, I don’t think there has ever been a greater appreciation for the art and craft of photography as it is today and I think we are at the start of a golden age of professional photography fueled by the omnipresence of images in our lives.

So, what do YOU think? Pen your thoughts below!