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!

Dustin Meyer is an internationally acclaimed wedding and portrait photographer with clients across the country. WPPI speaker, owner of MpactPhoto Blog, Collages.net CLASS leader, and contributor to the Pay It Forward Blog, Dustin is all about giving it back when it comes to marketing, social media, Lightroom, and sales techniques.

You’re nervous. As the barista brings you your latte, you glance at the clock in apprehension. The sound of your heartbeat fills your ears as you inspect your outfit yet again. Questions like “What if she doesn’t like me?” and “What if I sound like an idiot?” race through your mind as the door to the café opens and in walks the woman you came to meet.

Take a deep breath. You’re not on a date. You’re meeting with a potential bride. However, many times as we get prepared to meet with clients for the first time, it can feel just like your first date. Except, in the dating world, booking brides would be the same as competing on the Bachelorette. You’re not the only one hoping to shoot this wedding and therefore being yourself is more important than ever.

In most major cities, the wedding photography industry is pretty oversaturated. Everyone is grabbing a camera and calling themselves photographers. The frustration builds as the photo community begins to collapse on itself as we all try to compete with each other on pricing, style, and products.

In the beginning, our studio had booths at bridal shows and advertised in local wedding magazines. However, I couldn’t help but feel like a number as the overwhelming sea of brides passed our booth again and again. Identity can get lost as the crucible of marketing boils everything we have down to the numbers game. “How many images do you shoot per wedding” and “The guy three booths down can shoot my wedding for X dollars, how good can you do on that price” are questions that become so common it makes you want to just put down your camera and walk away.

But you’re not a number. You’re a photographer. Pricing and even photographic style don’t have a face attached to them. This is why it’s most important to get your personality out there.

Your personality is the one thing that other studios cannot copy. It’s who you are, along with the style and portfolio you’ve developed over the years. By letting go of the copycat game (mimicking another photographer’s Photoshop effects or stealing someone’s price sheet at a wedding expo) you free yourself to just be you. And that’s exactly what brides are looking for.

It’s easy to feel like the guy next to you must be doing it better than you, hence why so many people are doing the same thing. However, it’s far easier to just stand out by being yourself. By putting as much of your personality on your site, in your work, or in your presentation, you’ll find that the quality of your clients will increase dramatically.

As we all probably know, it was much better to be yourself back when you were dating. It’s the same when it comes to booking brides. The more you just act like you, the more compatible you are with your clients. So relax, have another sip of your latte, and be a pro at being you.

Got something on your mind after reading Dustin's blog post? Sound off below in the comments. We love to hear from you.

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?

If you are anything like me, it's been ages since you read a real page turner. Busy photographers we all are but that doesn't mean we get to stop learning and perfecting our craft.

Photographer and author Ed Verosky is running a special Halloween SALE on all of his books.

If you have been on the fence about getting his books (see the big fat images below as well as in the sidebar of this blog), this is your chance to save 25%. But the sale ends October 31. So hurry!

If you have enjoyed the posts here on Tiffinbox and want to find a way to say thank you, simply click the images below to order your e-books. Yes, those are affiliate links. But they are of e-books I have read and found very valuable.

THE DISCOUNT CODE IS: “PHOTOBOOKS”

Buy 100% Reliable Flash Photography:

Buy 25 Amazing Boudoir Photography Techniques:

If you do buy one or both of the e-books, do chime in below with your comments about them. I do want to hear your feedback. Did you learn anything from them? Were they priced just right for you? Would you feel good about letting your friends know about the e-books being available here? Your comments are valuable. You have a voice.

Thank you again for your support!
Seshu