Michelle Loretta is a consultant for wedding and event professionals and writes daily for the Sage Wedding Pros’ business blog. She blends her past as an accounting nerd, sales vixen, and stationery entrepreneur to help photographers better their businesses.

If you have second shooters or are considering hiring contractors to assist you on photo shoots, there is one important tax form you’ll need to supply them with this January 2013. It is form 1099-MISC. This isn’t a new form, but the IRS is being a lot more diligent about ensuring that contractors are reporting income.

Here’s what you need to know regarding the 1099:

1) You’ll need your contractor’s vital information (name, address, social security number or tax ID) before filling out the 1099. You can get this from them any way you want but the IRS’ W9 form gives you the ability to get the info from them in a systematic way. It also shows your contractors that you will be filing 1099s for them in the off-chance they were hoping to illegally not state the payments you made to them. (Note: The W9 is NOT a legal requirement and you do not need to send it to the IRS.)

2) The IRS 1099-MISC form is one that you have to fill out for any contractor/vendor to which you paid $600 or more.

3) The misunderstanding of this form is that you only need to submit it for independent contractors that you’ve hired to do work (second shooters, for example). But ANY non-corporate business (sole proprietor, partnership, LLC, etc) that you hired to do any work that totaled more than $600 in the year will need to receive a 1099-MISC form. If they are an incorporated business, you do not need to send this. (There are a few types of 1099s. The one that typically refers to miscellaneous contractor income is the 1099-MISC.)

4) This would include (but not limited to):

– graphic and web designers hired to do your branding
– rental services
– attorneys
– commissions paid to non-employees
– mileage reimbursement paid to non-employees
– weekend assistants
– second shooters?and the list goes on …

5) In 2011, the IRS added a statement to the income return (1040) that will ask you if you are required to file any 1099s and if you already filed them (or, are planning to do so).

6) The 1099 has to be issued from an official IRS 1099 3-part form. (This isn’t a form you can download from the IRS site.) You can get the official IRS form by requesting one from the IRS or buying forms at an office store (Staples or Office Max, for example.) A copy of the 1099 is given to the contractor and it is their responsibility to submit to the IRS with their tax return.

Lastly, make sure that the person you’ve hired as a contractor is INDEED a contractor and not employee. Visit our blog to learn more about contractors.

Need more help? Make sure to check out The People Plan, our easy-peasy hiring and training tools. www.thepeopleplan.biz

Please reconfirm this information with a tax attorney or CPA or both! Better to be over prepared than under, right?

This is a guest blog post by Trevor Dean Rideout, a lifestyle and family photographer based in central Newfoundland.

So you’ve conquered exposure, you confident in your ability to shoot in manual or priority modes and your getting some great feedback on your photography. What next? Well here are three things to apply to your craft, that don't cost money, you can apply in-camera, and will improve your photography overnight!

These techniques are simple in theory but take time to become second nature. Don't fret and as the saying goes, “practice makes perfect”.

1. Focus On The Eyes

You've probably heard this expression more than once and may be wondering to yourself, “well what does that mean?”. The concept is simple. Set your focus mode to center focus. Most if not all camera's today have the ability to move your focus zone around between those little squares in your camera, but for now let's just focus on the very center. When shooting portraits, it is usually the most ascetically pleasing to shoot with a wider aperture. This helps to separate your subject from the background and gives you nice creamy backdrops. The biggest issue here, is that the result of opening your aperture nice and wide, decreases you “depth of field” (DOF). Wherever you zone in that focus point, is where your subject will be most in focus. To guarantee the best results you need to focus on the eyes. As humans, our first instinct when viewing a photograph is to look at what's in focus, and in portraiture, the most important element is the eyes.

So, have a look through your viewfinder, line up that little square right over the eye that is closest to you and press your shutter half way down. This will lock in that focal area and give you nice sharp results on the eye that you've chosen. Whatever else falls outside of the DOF at this point is irrelevant. Sometimes, you may not be able to frame the scene exactly the way you want it, if you just focus and shoot in the one spot. This is where locking in your focus (half press of the shutter) and then recomposing your shot, comes in to play. As long as you do not move the camera forward and backward, you will stay within your focal plane, and the chosen point will stay in focus. This is absolutely essential when shooting at anything wider than f5.6 but should become common practice whenever your photographing people.

2. Watch Your Crop!

I see this mistake made probably more than any other when photographing people. If you're not careful about where you frame your subject, you may end up cutting off fingers, toes, limbs, etc. While this is probably something you may have never noticed, it is commonly accepted rule in Art. There are though, what we call “crop points”. The general rule you need to remember, is don't crop at anything that bends. Most commonly you will see fingers cropped at the edges of the frame. Standard crop could include about midway down the bicep, above the waist (midway between the sternum and waistline) and about midway between the waist line and knees. When you crop at other sections of the body it tends to make the subject look amputated and is not considered ascetically pleasing.

3. Watch Your Backgrounds

This is also one of those things that you need to become completely aware of when photographing people. It requires what you might refer to as “situational awareness”. When you’re composing your photo you may want to include some of the background to help better portray the story you’re trying to tell. What you need to watch for is objects passing through your main subject. Commonly it would end up being power lines, tree branches and other architectural features; although I have seen some instances that involve much more hilarity. You have to keep in mind that we see in 3 dimensions, but our camera's only have the ability to convert that scene into 2 dimensions. This means that you may see your subject in front of a very compelling backdrop with lots of people and things behind them, but your camera may tell a different story. Deeper in the frame, objects tend to shrink, in relation to your subject. This could mean that although you see a person walking down the street, once compressed, that person could be walking right into your subjects ear (as a less likely, but more comical example). So keep your eyes open and make a habit of scanning the entire viewfinder area. When we're first starting out, we tend to focus on one thing … whatever the main subject we're trying to photograph. Try to make a conscious effort, whenever you’re composing your shot, to take a quick scan around the entire area of the viewfinder. This will also help to better express your vision. Think about what you want to include in the frame and what you don't. Even though our higher resolution sensors allow us to do some pretty heavy cropping in post, it is always better to nail it, in camera, and have the ability to work with the entire resolution of the photo.

So there you have it! Three simple techniques that you can apply right now. They don't cost any money, don't require any special software but they will take time to perfect and make second nature. Practice these techniques daily and before you know, you won't even know you're thinking about it!

Since this blog is all about learning and sharing, how about dropping a link to one of your images (use Flickr if you have to) that uses one or possibly all that Trevor has talked about in this post? Don't spam the comment box. One entry per person please. So, what are you waiting for? Let's see some of your images! If you do post anonymously, I reserve the right to delete your comment.

I am a huge fan of photographers who can teach. Ones that do it with clarity and wit are a minority, however. Jason Groupp is one among them.

The first time I met Jason was at a photography convention where he patiently looked over my sample wedding albums, and played mentor for about an hour. It was a memorable discussion and we soon stayed in touch, especially as I attended workshops that his New York City studio hosted. More recently we have been in touch via Twitter. While we go back and forth about the Jets and Patriots (he is a Jets fan for some unknown reason – Ha!), he let it slip that he was producing a DVD about off-camera lighting. Now, if you have followed this blog along for some time you already know how crazy I am about learning to light – people, objects, scenes, whatever. I was intrigued but Jason kept a tight lip about it, until recently.

25! from Jason Groupp on Vimeo.

From Jason Groupp's website about his DVD called “25 Kick Ass Lighting Scenarios”:

“In this DVD, I will demonstrate 25 easy to remember, simple to complex, lighting setups on a LIVE SHOOT! Did I mention it will all be done with equipment that won't break your budget?

Have you ever struggled to take great portraits of your clients because you don't have decent light to shoot them in and are not comfortable with off camera lighting?

I will break down these 25 easy to use lighting setups that you can adapt and call your own. This DVD isn't about fancy hard to understand ETTL techniques, I'll show you my easy to use “shoestring TTL” techniques and how you can create your own “no excuses bag”.

Here is another clip from the DVD:

#12 – “25” DVD || Setup: “St Marks” (low res) from Jason Groupp on Vimeo.

Well, today happens to be Jason Groupp‘s birthday. He won't tell me how young he is, but he did say he would offer Tiffinbox readers a great deal on his new DVD.

How would you like 50% off? Here is the code you need to use: “imaging2011” to buy 25 Kick Ass Lighting Scenarios TODAY! The deal saves you 50%. Original price: $150. Your price: $75.

It lasts through 12 midnight tonight, that's EST. So hurry!

(Want the deadline extended? Jason has this challenge for me. If at least 10 people buy the DVD today – leave a comment below saying you did and I'll verify with him – then he will have the code available to us for at least one more day. But the catch is, 10 people need to step up and buy the DVD today! Personally, I think this is a terrific deal.)

Still not convinced? (You gotta be kidding me! LOL!) Jason is offering this exclusive viewing of another episode for you to check out:

Please let me know if you purchased this DVD. I do not make a red cent off of the sale. I just think it is valuable, useful information you can put to use right away in your photography. If you did buy it and watched it, please comment below with your thoughts. I'll try and get Jason to respond to them. Thank you!

This is a guest blog by Miki Johnson, a former editor of the RESOLVE Photo Blog and social media strategist for liveBooks. Before that she was a senior editor at American Photo magazine. She currently lives in San Francisco where she continues to support photographers and journalists through writing, promotion, programming, and consulting.

With so many photographers taking publishing into their own hands these days, there seem to be a lot of questions and more than a few misperceptions about photobook publishing floating around.

I never would have considered myself an expert in photobooks until this February when I collaborated with Andy Adams of FlakPhoto to create the Future of Photobooks project, a month-long, cross-blog discussion about how photobooks would be made, read, and sold in the future.

Over the course of the project, more than 50 photo professionals and publishers wrote posts on their own blogs about where they saw photobooks heading. I read them all, organizing them and pulling out highlights for three final discussions hosted by guest bloggers. I felt at times like the blogosphere was giving me my own private class in photobook publishing :)

With any project like that, my greatest reward was getting to redistribute that knowledge back to the community, connecting with so many new people, and seeing people get excited about the discussions. Personally I have also been asked to speak publicly about phtoobooks, most recently on a panel at the inaugural Flash Forward Festival in Toronto — along with highly respected colleagues, Alec Soth, Stephen Mayes, Darius Himes, Jason Fulford, and Andy Adams.

A number of important questions were raised during that discussion, ones I thought it would be helpful to share with anyone thinking about publishing a book or seeking a publisher for one. I’ve listed three big ideas below, but these are only starting points. It would be great to hear what you think about these, since the future of photobooks, now more than ever, truly is ours to shape.

1. Don’t expect your photobook to make money.

Aside from the very rare exception (things with large general appeal like Full Moon and A Child is Born) photobooks rarely turn a profit — in fact, many fail to break even. Darius Himes, founder of the non-profit Radius Books, pointed this out in his post for Future of Photobooks and again in Toronto. Photographers looking to have a book published often expect the same experience of lucky novelists, who receive an advance check before the book is even written. Photobooks are a completely different model. Novels cost a tiny fraction of a photobook to produce, and they have a much wider audience. Photographers (aside from Annie Leibovitz maybe) DO NOT get advances, and even top photographers with several books in publication admit they haven’t made any money from them.

2. Decide what you want to accomplish with your book.

Once you get over the idea that your book is going to make you any money, do you still want to make it? If so, why? Do you want it to be a culmination of a specific project, essentially a hand-held exhibition? Then you might need to work with a publisher that can help you find professional designers and editors. Or you could consider working with a printer directly, and producing a small editioned run of artists books. If you want your images to achieve a specific outcome, to be seen by lots of people or a few of the right people, partnering with a non-profit organization is a good option. Or you might even set aside the idea of a physical book for a viral video that can travel much further. If you simply want to be able to share your images in a tangible way, perhaps with friends and family or editors and clients, then a self-published book is great. All of these decisions and more will depend on your ultimate goal for your book — so figure that out first.

3. Be prepared to provide your own capital and, ideally, audience.

During our discussion, several photographers expressed chagrin that they had been asked to make an initial investment in order to publish their book with a publishing house. Although that may seem unfair, Darius and Jason both said that finding funding for a book was an important first step for them as publishers — as non-profits they worked together with the photographer to do that, but it’s not uncommon for publishers to ask the photographers to do it themselves. Funding may be the area that new technology can have the most effect on, through online pledge drive software like Kickstarter, or pre-sales through social media as with Lay Flat and Publication. And even when the actual funding isn’t provided online, that can still be an important place to build support and audience for a book project. For instance, look at Phil Toledano’s Days With My Father, which drew over 1 million hits as a website and allowed Phil to approach publishers with 15,000 emails from people who said they would buy the book in hard copy. Or Simon Roberts, who enlisted his fellow Brits through his blog, asking for ideas for photos to include in his We English book, thus creating an automatic base of support: Fans who were involved in the project were more likely to buy the book and share it with friends.

What steps are you taking to publish your photography book? If you are working on a book project and want to share it with us, please comment below! Thank you.

This is a guest post by Jen May Pastores, a lifestyle photographer and portrait photographer based in Los Angeles, California.

There’s a window by my desk and outside are two elementary boys peeking in with their smiles eagerly anticipating my returning glance. “Teacher! Study? 4?” is the question I heard everyday from them. “Chaa, chaa,” I reply with a nodding yes. The boys run over to their friends practicing headstands on the side of the center’s building and bring them over to my window. “Can I study, too?” asks a new student. “I’d love that,” I say to him. I check my watch to see I have only a few minutes to prepare the cameras for the next class, so I quickly download the rest of the memory cards to my laptop and head upstairs to the classroom.

This was my typical afternoon at the Tiny Toones center in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Three times a day 15-20 students met me in a classroom to learn and practice photography with each class split among age groups from as young as 10 to 24-years-old. The majority of the youth barely knew English, so the center hired a local translator to communicate for me. Imagine trying to explain f-stops and shutter speed to a translator who was new at photography, then having her explain it to the class! It was a month-long experience with lots of picture drawing on the chalkboard and grand gestures, but it led to creating images and capturing stories that no language barriers could trap.

One of my students once asked me, “Do you take pictures and get money for it?” My class knew I was a photographer in Los Angeles, but they were curious as to why I was there teaching them for free. “Yes, people do pay me to take their pictures. Why do you think they’ll want do that?” I asked. “Because they want to remember something important or special. They want you to tell their story,” answered a student. “So why are you here?” they asked. “Because no one wanted me to tell their story this summer. And, I love teaching others that photography is more than making money. It’s about showing who we are and what we care about.”

Last summer, I ran into my first season where I had no weddings or sessions booked. I decided to look at it as a season of opportunity instead of as a failure. I had never considered visiting Cambodia before, but–as timing can work out perfectly–I was invited by Tiny Toones to offer a photography program at their center. The only thing asked was that I needed to provide everything, including cameras and my airfare, and do it all voluntarily. I looked into who the organization was and discovered that Tiny Toones uses the elements of Hip-Hop like break dancing and djing as creative tools to empower the youth, especially so they could live healthy lives apart from drugs and violence. I then realized that photography could be a complimentary, creative class to educate the youth.

My decision to go happened only a couple months before my program start date. A season with a seemingly bleak outlook turned into one of the busiest, but fulfilling season I’ve lived out so far. My main obstacle was raising funds to buy classroom supplies like digital cameras, memory cards, rechargeable batteries, and chargers for the batteries. This led me to announce my first workshop held in L.A. (which so happens to be the same place where the L.A. Smug group meets every month) where all proceeds went directly to my endeavor. I also reached out to industry professionals requesting donations and out of this Shootsac, Dane Sanders, and local camera stores and photo labs gave items for my workshop and program in Cambodia. In less than a month I was able to raise enough money to purchase 10 cameras, my airfare, and other necessities to main the program for a month.

After the completion of my program at Tiny Toones a gallery in Phnom Penh invited to exhibit the student’s work where 100% of proceeds from sold prints were donated to the center. This began the international tour of what is now known as, “The World Through Our Eyes.” Since last year, the exhibit traveled to Philadelphia, is currently in California, and has plans to continue in Hawaii this fall. None of this would have happened if I didn’t take advantage of an opportunity to give back, especially during a time when I could have easily given up.

The program covered the basics of photography such as composition, lighting and finding good backgrounds for portraits. More importantly, the workshop encouraged students to exercise their voice in telling their story and how they see the world around them. A series of photographs taken during that workshop, “The World Through Our Eyes” is a vibrant statement by youth countering stereotypes of artistic, emotional and urban desolation in the developing world.

To further read up on this cause and how you can help please visit http://cambodia.jenmayphotography.com. You can also watch a documentary on the site that interviews students who participated in the photography classes and find out about upcoming exhibits to see the photos in person.