I was one of those that scoffed at the idea of learning old-school lighting and posing. But guess what? I was wrong. Learning the fundamentals is so crucial to our success that when the Monte Zucker Lighting and Education bundle was being offered through PhotoDough.com, I had to jump in and get it.

Who was Monte Zucker? He was a master as lighting and posing. He was a teacher. At one of the first WPPI's I attended, I recall a room full of nearly a 1000 people sitting there watching this man teach his techniques. The minute the seminar ended, the crowd surged on towards the stage to badger him with more questions. I had absolutely no chance of getting close to him. I felt like I was at a rock concert. People like Bambi Cantrell still talk about him and what he taught her.

“Based on classical tradition, Monte’s portraiture has never strayed far from his original intent – to capture a moment in people’s lives and memorialize it for posterity.”

After battling cancer, Monte Zucker passed away in 2007. I know it was a huge blow to the industry he cared so much about.

Here is what Bay Area photographer Michael Corsentino says about Monte Zucker:

“Sad that some people don't know but at least they're asking. He was a great person and a passionate educator, definitely missed.”

Thankfully, his teaching lives on.

You can learn more about Monte Zucker's products here. But if you are quick, you can grab a good chunk of what the store offers and save $131 now through PhotoDough.com.

For $49 you receive a downloadable set of 4 CD-ROMS, including 6 slideshows with over 500 photographic examples with text descriptions. Also included are PDFs that you can tote around on your iPad and refer to often. As I said, I bought this bundle and I am looking forward to getting back to basics. Frankly, there are too many “teachers” out in the world now who are just winging it. If you want to learn from the best, this is your chance.

Get to know Monte Zucker and learn from him at your own pace. The PhotoDough.com deal is only on for a limited time.

Oh, one more thing – it's tempting to learn from a master and just copy what she or he says. That would defeat the purpose of photography for me. I intend to learn from Monte Zucker, but plan on adapting it to the way I work with my clients. Making that experience unique is key to everyone's success. Good luck!

Right around the holidays last year, just about everyone I know bought or received a camera. No, these weren't the point & shoot variety (hey we have our iPhones for that right?). These were DSLR‘s or digital SLR's. The excitement over opening the camera was palpable. I know because I received several emails soon after asking me … “So, I got a DSLR, but my images still suck. Why?”

My first response was always, “did you read the manual?” The silence at the other end was quite telling. Most of us, I know fail to read our manuals. When I bought my first Nikon DSLR, which I believe was the D70, I don't remember diving into the manual either. On the one side, there is a new toy to play with and on the other, my ego was saying to me: “Yeah, I can figure this out. No problem.” That's until I started seeing images I'd be ashamed to show my mom.

So, if the manual is way too daunting, or even boring, what do you do? Until today, you could have scoured the interwebs and patched together a bunch of the info that may have helped elevate your game. That too is time consuming and unless you are nuts about photography or pursuing as a professional, chances are slim you would be inclined to curate that information, digest it and then deploy it on your next go around with your DSLR.
Rob & Lauren Lim, the duo behind Photography Concentrate, have just published Extremely Essential Camera Skills. I was one of the few lucky ones to receive a review copy gratis. Having seen some of their earlier tutorials – Photo Editing Skills and Album Design Skills, I knew this one was going to be special.

Think of Extremely Essential Camera Skills as the foundational course you forgot to take when you started experimenting with your camera. It's exquisitely designed – consistent with their other tutorials and extremely engaging website (which you must bookmark). When you open up the PDF, you are presented with a set of colorful tabs for the different chapters such as: The Camera, Focusing, Exposure, Lenses, Depth of Field and Camera Settings. I found the built-in navigation to be very helpful as it makes it easy to skip pages or navigate back to the ones you want to read again.

Unlike other tutorials that teach but fail to train, what I loved about Rob & Lauren's latest offering is that they are serious about making sure you get the concepts they have just taught before moving on to the next chapter. They do this through tips, exercises, videos (more on this in a bit) and pop quizzes. Though it is incredibly thorough, Extremely Essential Camera Skills is not a read it and forget it kind of manual. The lessons you will learn, each one at your own pace, will stick with you for a lifetime. The definitions and demonstrations are easy to understand and absorb.

As a professional, most of the concepts were familiar to me. But that's only because I use my camera every day, so it does become intuitive. Having a guide like Extremely Essential Camera Skills will help you get to that point where you too can easily make images you are proud to show your family and friends.

If there was one area where I could see the authors develop more content, it's the section on using an alternative to that pesky flash that everyone insists on deploying. To their credit they do say this: “The built-in flash on cameras generally sucks.” So true. May we see a sequel to this guide that will dwell on off-camera flash? I hope so, but I do believe this guide will lay the foundation for better images using flash. So, I do urge you to get this one first.

The 7 videos by Lauren are fantastic. Her even, conversational tone and excellent examples helped me better understand the concept behind exposure compensation. So, the take aways are many. With Rob & Lauren's permission, I am considering using this guide book for photographers (I really don't want to call it a manual) in the beginning photography class I teach high schoolers. Yes, it's that good and it is perfectly fitted to meet the demands of amateurs and semi-professionals too.

As I have already stated, I received a review copy Extremely Essential Camera Skills and loved it. If you are struggling to use your DSLR, this guide book will help you get comfortable. For the next two weeks starting today, Rob & Lauren are offering a launch sale. You can get Extremely Essential Camera Skills for $29.97, that's 40% off the regular price of $49.99. In addition to the 89-page PDF and videos which you can view on your computer or your iPad, you will receive the Extremely Essential Camera Skills Field Guide, which you can print and tote around while you are photographing.

Full disclosure: As an affiliate, I receive a commission on the sale of this PDF to support Tiffinbox. If you enjoy the content on this site, I ask that you use the links in this post to buy Extremely Essential Camera Skills. Thank you!

I am honored to have Glyn Dewis as this week's first guest blogger. He is a UK based Photographer, Workshop Instructor and Adobe Community Professional specialising in Conceptual Portraits both location and studio based. An avid blogger, Glyn thrives on sharing his photography and editing techniques through his Workshops, YouTube Video Page and Blog. Follow him on Twitter.

When I was approached about writing a post for Tiffinbox I have to admit that at first I was a little stumped as to what I should cover. I changed my mind more times than I care to remember but that being said I always came back to the same starting point …‘Style’ and by that I mean ‘the unique, defining look to your photography’.

But when it come to style how do you get it? How do you develop you a look that makes you stand out from the seemingly saturated market of photographers?

I have my own blog that I update several times each week covering such topics as recent photo shoots, editing techniques, latest news plus hints and tips. In addition to that each month I interview prominent photographers from around the world; such names as Tim Wallace, David E Jackson and Matt Kloskowski to name but a few, and post the content of the conversation in full on the blog.

One question that I always ask is “How does someone develop a style?” and the answers always intrigue me:

Tim Wallace says “Your style is influenced by your life experiences and every time you press the shutter, in a way your photographing yourself.”

David E Jackson says “You don’t find a style…your style finds you.”

Trying to make your name as a photographer and have a style that is recognizable as unique to you is no easy task that’s for sure but one thing that is, is that the process is alot harder if you’re not picking up your camera on a daily basis.

So what do I mean by “having a style”? How do you define it or more to the point, how do you get a photographic ‘style’ ?

In today’s current climate where photography has become so much more accessible and people are setting themselves up as photographers almost as soon as they’ve unboxed their new DSLR, the need to separate yourself from the crowd and get noticed is more important than it ever was!

Now just to clarify, what I’m not saying here is that I believe your ‘style’ is set in stone, but what I do believe is that the more you use your camera, each and every day getting out and shooting something…anything, then your photographic style will evolve.

Up until a few years ago I used to compete in Bodybuilding Shows. For the life of me I can’t recall who it was said this to me but it rang so true …

“Photography and your ‘style’ is like your bodybuilding. You can’t expect to go to the gym just occasionally if you want to develop your physique to a level where you can compete. It takes dedication … training hard every day, putting in the hours and even when you’ve built your physique, continuing to train.”

Copying someones style is financial suicide.

Much like photography, it takes practice, constant practice to get good and even when you’re at the top of your game you still keep practicing. Look at Joe McNally, for example. He is without doubt amongst the best in the world but again someone who continues to practice, day after day and even attends workshops!

We’re all individual and we will all develop our own unique style. Going back to the bodybuiliding analogy, we could all start training doing exactly the same exercises, with the same weights, eat the same, get the same amount of sleep but still our physiques would look different; just as our styles will be different in photography.

Of course there are those that try to ‘copy’ to the letter other people’s styles. I remember a year or so ago when I was looking for a company to build my new website. Sure they seemed to do a great job with the design and functionality but what really shocked me was that in their ‘samples’ section, there were a large number of sites, all with slightly different designs but what seemed like all the same photos. Clearly there were/are a large number of people ‘cloning’ a style from photography training they’d received in the UK but weren’t putting their own ‘style’ into it.

Copying someones style is financial suicide. Our goal should be to attract clients that want us for our ‘style’ and quality of work but ‘copying’ a style will only lead to getting clients on a cost basis i.e. everyone is doing the same, so who is cheapest? Does that make sense?

Style is vital if we are to stand out from the crowd and attract clients, but don’t stress over it. Just get out and shoot more and more often and let your style find you. But the less you’re out shooting, the longer it’ll take and the more you’ll feel frustrated.

Talking of getting out and shooting more, some might say they would do but they have no one to photograph. Well in that case dare I say it, shoot for free! Get people in front of the camera on a time for prints basis; i.e they give their time and you give them a disc of edited images. This is something I did to build up a portfolio and is something I continue to do.

The big advantage here is that you can choose what you shoot and how you shoot it and those images can be used in your portfolio so you then start to get more of the same type of clients but who will pay you!

Just to finish off, this topic came up yesterday when I met up with a friend who mentioned something valid:

Your style won’t show itself until the technical side of shooting is second nature. Know your camera controls inside and out to the point you can change settings, and know why you’re changing them, without really looking at what you’re doing.

Do you feel like you have a defined style? If so, what is it? If you are struggling with it, do you think the steps Glyn has outlined here will help you? Chime in below in the comments section.

This is the second guest post by Leon Sandoval, Colorati's CEO. You may recall his first blog post here was about digital file naming conventions. Based in Carlsbad, CA Leon and his team provide the very best post production services in the business for photographers.

In this post Leon has two short video tutorials on how to keyword your image files using Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Bridge.

Using Lightroom to keyword your files:

Using Bridge to keyword your files:

So, tell us, how do you keyword your digital images? Do you keyword them at all? By watching the video tutorials above, do you see the benefit of using keywords? Do you use Apple's Aperture or any other program to keyword your digital files? Please comment below!

Buy Adobe Lightroom or buy Adobe Photoshop and get Adobe Bridge for free! [aff]

Stuart Little, our next guest blogger, is a Photographer, Writer, Blogger and Photoshop Educator with over 18 years experience in the field. Stuart has been teaching both Amateur & Professional Photographers since 1998 and he is based in the Scottish Coastal Town of Ayr in the West of Scotland. Visit Stuart's website http://www.alittlephotoshop.com.

Thanks to Seshu for giving me the opportunity to share with you a really cool and utterly simple technique for creating a rounded border from within Lightroom 3.

When Adobe brought out Lightroom 3 they added 2 new features to the post crop vignette that made creating vignettes even better than before. So much so that the older paint overlay style has kind of been forgotten until now.

You can watch the video for all the juicy know-how but for those of you who just want to get stuck in via your RSS reader then slide all the post-crop vignetting sliders to the left for a black rounded border, job done, nuff said. Yep! its that simple But here is the another cool thing. If you want a white border then just take the amount slider all the way to the right.

Best thing of all. You can save the whole lot as a simple preset so that one click will take care of it all in future. Fire up the print module and set the background colour to compliment the border colour. Make sure you are using custom layout and then you can drag n drop the round images directly onto a layout ready for printing. Although if you are going down the inkjet route I would go for a white border and save yourself some ink. Enjoy the video tutorial and dont forget to swing but alittlephotoshop.com for more Lightroom 3 training and free workflow actions for Photoshop.

Stuart has offered to send me another blog post, this time about creating a tilt-n-shift effect in Lightroom 3. Here's the deal, though, for that to happen I need to see at least 20 comments from you. Ask questions or suggest an alternative way of creating round corners. But I do need to hear from you. So, will you chime in? If you liked this post by Stuart, I think you will enjoy the next one too.