CurrentPhotographer.com | The latest digital photography news, tips, tools, techniques, how-tos and reviews for beginners through professionals

iPhone 4 Available in 17 More Countries on July 30

Trevor Current — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 21:31:39 +0000

July 27, 2010 – Beginning Friday, July 30th, customers can purchase iPhone 4 in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Singapore, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. iPhone 4 will be available for purchase through Apple’s retail and online stores and Apple® Authorized Resellers.

Go Behind-the-Scenes of a Domino’s Pizza Photo Shoot

Trevor Current — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 14:10:36 +0000

I found a link to this video on Twitter today and just thought I would share it. This is a fun behind-the-scenes look at what goes in to a big budget commercial photo shoot. Take notice of the techniques they uses to get just the right look for the pizza cheese pull.

10 Tips to Grow Your Photography Business Locally

Trevor Current — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 12:36:32 +0000

Whether you’re just starting out or have been in the photo biz for years, one of the best sources of new clients are those living right in your own town. A lot of photographers are on a mission to get national or even international recognition for their work. While this is an admirable goal it’s also difficult to achieve. My suggestion is start local and work your way out to the rest of the world. Here are 10 tips that will help you increase sales while at the same time becoming the “go to” photographer in your town.

1. Contact you local Chamber of Commerce or Small Business Association. They often send out welcome packages to new town residences that offer information and coupons for local businesses. Being the first photographer to get your name in front of them will help to secure future business.

2. Connect with local Real Estate agents.

Most agents take photos of the homes they list, but high-end homes often require higher quality images than what they can create. Not only will you get paid for photographing the homes, but you can also get photo credit on the listing sheet giving you added exposure to the potential buyers and other agents in town who may want to use your services. If you want to take it a step further you could offer to design and print high-quality listing sheets, giving you another source of revenue.
Some agents will give new home owners a welcome package that includes information and coupons for local businesses. You could offer them a referral commission should one of their customers use your services.
All Real Estate agents have head shots on their business cards and somebody has to photograph them, it may as well be you.

3. Don’t forget about Commercial Real Estate. Developers want beauty shots of their building’s exterior, suites and lobby for their sales brochures and website. Real Estate Developers don’t get rich off one building, they often own many buildings which could offer you some additional work. If you can offer print and web design services you could really increase your revenue.

4. Get involved with local charities, community groups and clubs. They often need photographers to cover their events and it’s a great opportunity to give back a little while rubbing elbows with some of the town influencers. Networking is key here, you never know who you’ll meet and what opportunities may present themselves.

5. Gift Certificates offer many great opportunities for new business.

Local charities often look to local businesses to make donations to their cause. Offering gift certificates for a free portrait session is a great way to get people to contact you.
Give gift certificates to your loyal customers around the holidays as a thank you for their business. It’s a great way to keep them coming back.
Offer gift certificates for sale in your studio. It’s a perfect opportunity for the family to get together for their yearly portrait.

The biggest cost to you is your time and printing the gift certificates. Most likely the recipients will spend additional money on canvas wraps, framed prints, 8×10s, wallets, etc., but more than that you will have had the opportunity to build a new relationship.

6. Cross Promote with other local businesses. Look for businesses that have similar customers not necessarily similar services. For example, a wedding photographer could connect with the local florist, hair stylist, entertainers, catering venues, etc. then promote each others products and services to their customers.

7. Local sports photography. Go out and photograph the local games. If you’re using pro gear you’ll surely get noticed by parents, coaches and school officials. Let them know that the images will be available for viewing online and they’ll also be able to purchase prints. Rather than just handing out business cards try something different. Printed promotional items like lanyards, pens, mini spirit megaphones, letter openers, magnets, etc. will really make an impact. There are all kinds of promo items to choose from and they’re relatively inexpensive to have produced. Give them $5.00 off their purchase and in return ask them for their email address so you can contact them when the images are ready for viewing. Building your list of prospective local clients is very important and worth every penny you’ll spend on your promotional items.

8. Your window is worth a thousand words. If you have a store front, put large prints in the window showing the type of work you do. If your studio focuses on baby portraits, showing those cute faces will really attract the new moms and dads. Adding a backdrop behind the prints which will cut down on visual distractions, give your studio a little more privacy and entice potential clients to come in for more information.

9. Contact local business. Towns are full of small businesses and there are many opportunities to work with them. Reach out and see what their needs are, you may be surprised what you find. You’re not just shooting for prints anymore, the internet is here and everyone wants to be on it. You could offer interior and exterior shots of their stores for their website, product photography for online catalogs, head shots for social networks…

10. Offer workshops for new photographers. It’s a great way to build awareness for your studio, you can charge for the workshops and you’re providing a valuable service to the community. Also if your town has a camera club, contact the organizer and ask if you can come in and give a talk. They love to have guest speakers and it’s great exposure for you.

Next Steps…

Take just one of these tips and apply it to your photography business. Even if you only get one new customer, consider it a success. Then try another tip, and so on, and so on. There is no one magic technique, it’s the combination of many free or low cost ones. If each only brings in one or two new customers, that’s great. You’ll gain volume through repeatable efforts rather than one high-cost attempt.

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Three Reasons You’re Not Ready To Shoot A Wedding – And One Way To Fix It: by Angelo Stavrow

Trevor Current — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 15:17:59 +0000

With the advent of low-cost digital SLRs, the field of photography is being democratized — even the most entry-level version sports image quality and responsiveness that stand head and shoulders above the point-and-shoot cameras that reign supreme in the consumer market, offering the first-time photographer an excellent tool with which to begin learning.

Inevitably, newbies flood photography forums on the Internet, wearing their heart on their sleeve and putting their best work up for critique. A curious sequence of events then unfold for our newbie: She puts up a few colourful sunsets, maybe a few flowers, a couple of black-and-white portraits; since she love taking photos, her SLR is always with her. She gets to be know as The Gal With The Awesome Camera. And then, almost out of nowhere, it happens: some friend or acquaintance, having seen her photography, asks her if she’d be interested in shooting their wedding.

This was exactly my situation a few years ago. A friend of the family, looking for an inexpensive wedding photographer, asked if I’d be willing to take on the job. They couldn’t offer me much money, but that didn’t matter — I refused the job, because I honestly didn’t feel that I was ready and able to do it.

Little did I know how right I was.

As a relatively-new photographer myself (at least when it comes to shooting professionally, and especially at weddings), I often see the old guard either a) warning new entrants of the pitfalls and perils of weddings, or b) actively discouraging these newcomers from giving it a go. I don’t much care for the latter behaviour, but I’d like to offer some “newbie-to-newbie“ advice to those who would like to try their hand at the wedding game.

I shot my first wedding in the spring of this year, and even though it’s been years since I was last asked to shoot one, I still wasn’t as prepared as I thought I was. So, based on that experience, here’s why you’re not ready to shoot a wedding.

1. You Don’t Have Enough Gear

For an amateur, I consider myself well equipped. I showed up the day of the wedding with my Canon 5D Mark II, a couple of lenses, a couple of flashes, and extra batteries, and thought I’d be fine. And, for a few hours, I was. I was snapping away happily, until my go-to lens –a Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L– started throwing sporadic “ERR00” communication errors.

Great. So I could either just grin and bear it, fussing with the lens every time it went awry, or put it away for the rest of the night, and deal with switching between primes (I had a 28mm, a 50mm, and an 85mm with me as well). Both situations meant wasting time, and, worse, potentially missing The Shot. If I had a second body, I’d have just put away the 24-70 and slapped a prime on each — probably the 50 and the 85 — and been fine.

Then there were the issues with the flashes. Well, technically, the flashes worked fine, but trying to trigger them reliably via an ST-E2 transmitter when you’ve only got minutes to set up, pose, and tear down was an exercise in frustration. Proper radio triggers would have had made this far easier.

Despite these problems, I somehow made it through the night without tossing my gear in the trash bin (or hitting the open bar). I definitely have a much better idea now of what I should have brought, what I didn’t need to bring, and how to work gracefully around the problems that invariably crop up with gear.

2. You Don’t Have Enough Time

I spent about ten hours shooting the wedding and came back with nearly 700 photos. That’s actually not many, by professional standards — maybe half of what could be expected. And, hey, I’ve come back from vacations with just as many –if not more– photos, so it’s not like I’ve never had to deal with that many images at once before.

Except for one thing. Wedding photos have to be delivered to the client within a reasonable amount of time. My vacation photos? Yeah. I’m a couple of years behind.

Like many of us, I have a full-time job, and other obligations besides photography. Frankly, finding the free time to go through and process these photos for the newlywed couple within a few weeks was simply not going to happen, unless I decided to forego things like, well, sleep. The day of the wedding is only a portion of the entire time you spend on these jobs — you’d better have an efficient workflow to get it done in a reasonable period of time.

3. You Don’t Have Enough Experience

I’ve shot concerts and art show openings (as an amateur) and figured that a wedding wouldn’t be much different. I mean, heck… it’s basically just event photography, right?

Wrong. So very, very, wrong.

None of these events will adequately prepare you for the ten to twelve hours you spend on your feet, coupled with barely having time to inhale a granola bar, dealing with friends and family of the newlyweds ruining your shots to get their own photos, guests taking advantage of the open bar (luckily, that wasn’t an issue for my first experience), and trying to get wedding portraits in the middle of one of Ottawa’s most popular museums (where the reception was held) before closing hours.

The Fix: Mentorship

So, how did I manage to not make a complete arse of myself?

I was offered a great opportunity by a pair of wedding photographers, Caitlyn Bom and Saad Khan: Tag along on a large wedding that they were going to be shooting, as an apprentice. I wouldn’t be paid, but I’d be there as a third shooter. They’d seen my work, and felt confident enough about my professionalism, and thus invited me to join them. It was a win-win situation: I would get to try out wedding photography without the performance anxiety, and they’d get additional coverage of a large event.

So what if I didn’t have enough gear? If my stuff failed, there were still two other photographers there, with their own equipment, to cover the event.

So what if I didn’t have the time to process all the photos I shot? They took full control of the deliverables, so all I had to do was provide the images — they’re the pros and thus have their workflow down.

So what if I had no experience? I had theirs to draw upon. I learned a lot from the event, sure, but the most valuable lessons came from watching professionals in action: dealing with the clients, dealing with the guests, dealing with the venue management, and dealing with each other.

So, you may not be ready to shoot weddings — but there is a fix. Talk to pros. Seek out mentors. You can learn plenty from a photography website, but nothing beats learning-by-doing.

Many thanks to Saad Khan (Toronto, http://saadkhan.ca) and Caitlyn Bom (Syracuse, http://caitlynbom.com) for the opportunity to learn.

Angelo Stavrow is a freelance photographer and writer in Montreal, Canada, who takes photos because he’s rubbish with paintbrush and a canvas. He prefers to enjoy the big picture, rather than examine the individual pixels.

Website: http://angelostavrow.com
Twitter: @angelostavrow
Facebook: http://facebook.com/angelo.stavrow

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The White iPhone 4 Still on Hold

Trevor Current — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 03:51:01 +0000

July 23, 2010 – Apple released a statement today saying “White models of Apple’s new iPhone® 4 have continued to be more challenging to manufacture than we originally expected, and as a result they will not be available until later this year. The availability of the more popular iPhone 4 black models is not affected.”

HDRphotog.com – Where Photographers Go To Share HDR Images

Trevor Current — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 21:37:09 +0000

July 22, 2010 – My friend and fellow photographer Scott Wyden has created a great new website called HDRphotog.com. High dynamic Range Photographers is a collaborative blog where HDR Photographers can contribute their photographs to share with the community. You can also share links to other great HDR work found on the web.

HDRphotog.com is built on the Posterous.com platform. By signing up for a free Posterous.com account, you’ll have the ability to login to HDRphotog.com to submit your images rather than going through email. Posterous.com users can build their profile with links to their websites and social profiles giving them some added exposure.

The rules for submission are pretty simple:

Submissions must be HDR photographs
No vulgarity
No slander
All peace, love and happiness
Spread the joy of HDR photography

Once your first submission has been approved and you’re added to the community, you’ll be able to post images on your own. This is a moderated community so you don’t have to worry about inappropriate images or links.

I recommend giving HDRphotog.com a look. It’s another way to share your images, get some feedback and maybe even find a great HDR resource, video or tutorial.

Beta Testers Wanted for Teradek’s New HD Video Encoder, the Cube

Trevor Current — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 18:03:15 +0000

July 22, 2010 – About a month ago I posted about an new camera-top HD video encoder that will stream HD content over a Wi-Fi network, called the Cube. Teradek, manufactures of the Cube, is offering a great opportunity for you to get in early and become a beta tester. There are a limited number of positions available so you’ll need to act fast.

Teradek is looking for enthusiastic and experienced HD video users who are interested in participating in the development of this exciting new technology. Beta testers are an important part of the development process, and your input will have a direct influence on the final product. You will receive your Cube at a deeply discounted price to compensate for your efforts (discounted pricing only applies to preproduction units).

Here’s a link to Teradek’s, Cube Testing Program. Let me know if you get in on the program and what you think of the product.

Canon EOS 7D Firmware Update Version 1.2.2

Trevor Current — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 17:24:19 +0000

July 22, 2010 – Canon just released a firmware update for the EOS 7D. Firmware version 1.2.2 incorporates the following fixes:

Fixes a phenomenon in which the set aperture moves when shooting movies in manual exposure mode using some Canon lenses (such as macro lenses).
Fixes the AF point-selection behavior of the C.Fn III-7 (Manual AF pt. selec. pattern) custom function when set to [1].
Fixes the AF point display for the viewfinder electronic level when shooting in the vertical position.
Corrects misspellings in the Spanish and Thai menus for applicable products.

The Version 1.2.2 firmware is for cameras with firmware up to Version 1.2.1. If the camera’s firmware is already Version 1.2.2, it is not necessary to update the firmware. Note that cameras with the Version 1.2.2 firmware (and also Versions 1.2.0, 1.2.1) cannot be downgraded to a previous firmware version (such as Version 1.1.0).

Here’s a link for more information and to download the EOS 7D firmware update version 1.2.2.

Apple iPad Available in Nine More Countries Friday

Trevor Current — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 17:07:53 +0000

July 22, 2010 – Apple announced that the iPad will be available in Austria, Belgium, Hong Kong, Ireland, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand and Singapore this Friday, July 23. Customers can purchase all models of iPad through Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers. iPad will roll out to many more countries later this year and Apple will announce availability and local pricing for these additional countries at a later date.

Do You Have a Google Profile?

Trevor Current — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 13:15:10 +0000

Google is the largest search engine out there and odds are pretty good that if someone wants to learn more about you or your company they’ll go to Google to search. Real quick, click on this link to go to google.com and type in your name. What did you see? Were you in the top 10 search results? Were you in the top 20? If your name is John Smith you may have difficulties getting in the first 10 search results but more importantly you don’t want to be mistaken for a John Smith that may have a bad online reputation.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could control how you appeared in those search results and possibly push the other John Smiths of the world to page 2? Now you can by creating a Google Profile. Similar to a Facebook profile, a Google Profile lets you add:

a profile photo
contact infomation
your interests
a bio
links to your website, blog, social networks, photo-sharing sites, YouTube channel, etc.

You can provide as much or as little information as you feel comfortable sharing. My recommendation is to provide at least a bio and links to your sites and online profiles. If you share your photos publicly on Picasa, Flickr or some other photo sharing network, link to those as well. If you run a photography business you should fill in the Contact info with an email address, phone number and if you have a retail location, enter that address as well. The more “real” information you provide Google the greater their ability to validate your identity and rank you higher in the search results.

Online Activity Matters

One of the most powerful things you can do to rank higher in Google is to just be active online. In its simplest form, Google is not a search engine but rather a content provider. Users come to Google looking for information (content) and by entering in a term Google provides a listing of content providers. Simply put the more quality, original content you create, the more Google has to index and point users to. By linking your website, blog, Twitter profile, Facebook business page, etc. you are letting Google know that you are the creator of that content. Google will compile all of that content under your profile thus giving you more clout and ranking you higher.

Next Steps…

1. Go to http://google.com/profiles and login to your Google Account. If you don’t have a Google Account you can create one for FREE.

Tip: Your Google account name will be used to identify your profile and will be used in your unique URL. If your Google username is something like SexyPhotog you may want to think about changing it to something a little more professional.

2. Once logged in start filling out your profile with as much information as you can.

3. Upload a profile picture.

Tip: Profile pictures are used to help easily identify you online. I suggest using an image of you rather than a company logo or something else abstract. Your photo should represent you and the image you want to project. Smiling happy faces are always more inviting than a dark sinister ones.

4. Link to all of your sites and online profiles.

5. If you’re not already, get active online. Tweet or post on your Facebook page some useful information daily. Try to write a blog post at least once a week that would be of interest to your clients or potential clients.

Creating your Google Profile is a great way to get noticed online. In an upcoming tip I’ll show you how your Google Profile will be of benefit in Google’s new Social Search.

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