Related Posts

• 
  Knowing your gear

  As a photographer, our gear is our livelihood.  It is what we use to make the money that pays our bills and pays for more gear.  It is one of the most vital if not the most vital possession we have as photographers.

  Because of this, we need to take all necessary precautions to protect this asset.  Our gear is not cheap.

  I have known photographers who have had gear stolen at weddings, or shoots.  They turn their back for just a couple seconds, and it is gone.  Gear has been stolen out of cars and houses.

  What happens if your gear gets stolen?

  First you need to have Insurance.  If you are taking photographs for anyone, you need to have insurance.  I am sorry but this is not negotiable.

  Do not think it can't happen to you.  That you won't get sued, because you are shooting for free, or only charging $50 or that your gear won't get stolen.

  There will also come times that in order to shoot at a specific location your clients want, the venue will require proof of insurance.  It has happened to us and it may happen to you at some point as you grow in your photography career.

  We use Package Choice. We love them.

  When you do get insurance, they will ask for some of this information.  So it is good to have on hand and ready.

  Also I take photos of all my gear with the serial number showing.  I keep those for my records.  That way there is never any dispute that the gear was in my possession.

  It is also good to register all of your gear!  If you are Canon go HERE. If you are Nikon go HERE.
  

  If your gear is stolen, trying to frantically file a police report and trying to gather all the information about your gear is not something you want to worry about.

  I have a spreadsheet that I created that lists the Make/Model/Date Purchased/Price Purchased for/ and most importantly the serial number of my gear.

  I have uploaded this for you to have for free. :)  Start the new year off right!

  Even if you are just a mom with a camera, you never know if your camera will get stolen or lost and this is a good resource to have.  :)

   

  
  

   

  To find where your serial numbers are located on your gear, you can Google "Where is my serial number located on such and such lens or such and such camera".  I have uploaded a couple of photos of my gear, and where the serial numbers were located to give you an idea.  I only shoot Canon, so I am not sure if Nikon is the same.

  
  

   

   

   

  
  

  To use this download the zip file by clicking on the spreadsheet above or by clicking HERE. 

  I am sure that there are many other ways to keep track of your serial numbers and your camera gear. :)  This is just one of the many ways.  It works for me, and if it isn't broke don't fix it. :)  I love spreadsheets, and use them for everything!  From balancing our checkbook to all the bills for our house and when they are due and payments made, to photography expenses, keeping track of millage and all kinds of stuff.  If you find this helpful, maybe we will share our other spreadsheets in the future. :)

• 
  Traveling with your Gear!

  So you booked that ever-sought-after destination wedding!!! Congrats! It is a lot of photographers' dream! How amazing is it to not only get to shoot a wedding, but get paid to travel and shoot?!

  But now the big question....

  How do you safely travel with your gear and also protect your clients images while traveling? You don't get to drive from your house to the wedding, and throw everything into your trunk, nor do you get to drive straight home after the wedding, and download your images.

  Well, here is how WE travel with ours.

  Tomorrow we head out to shoot an amazing wedding in Honolulu. We couldn't be any more excited then we are, but also every time we travel with our gear, we get nervous.

  (photos taken with our cell phones)

  We have our two carry-on rolling camera bags that holds the majority of our gear. (Yes, I know a lens cap was missing. I took the lens off of my camera and replaced it with the 50mm 1.2 as I was using the 16-35mm, to fit it into my camera bag to take the photo, and forgot to put the lens cap back on)

  
  

  
  

  Between Rachel and I, we check 4 pieces of luggage. 2 of them have 4 lightstands, large diffuser panels, chargers for the AA eneloop batteries and other photography related items. The other 2 pieces of luggage are obviously personal items, like clothes and such.

  The gear above may look like it is overkill, but I promise you it is not. We are paid to get the shots no matter what, even if we don't know the lighting situation we are going into. We also are paid to make sure that our clients' images get home safe.

  Now imagine that you are boarding a plane and find out that they can not accommodate your rolling bag with all your camera gear. They are asking kindly for you to check your bag. First don't freak... because after this blog post you are prepared!

  In my personal item that they allow you to carry on (usually a very large purse or backpack), I have my wallet, my ipad and other things necessary to travel on the plane. I also have a couple of tshirts. However, we also have either our Shoot Sac on us, or another bag of some kind stuffed into the bottom. Usually they are asking you to check your bag because there is not enough room for your suitcase in the overhead bin. (Reason #1 to check into your flight as early as you are allowed--to get a better boarding position and lower the risk).

  I then quietly inform the flight attendant of what is inside my bag, and ask if there is any way they can make it work. If they say no, I then proceed to remove my 2nd bag or Shoot Sac, and start stuffing cameras and lenses in that bag. I will not let my gear go under the plane and out of my sight.

  So I put as many lenses as I can in my Shoot Sac, and then the rest of the lenses or cameras and memory cards in my purse/backpack. I will stick a flash or two in my pockets if need be. I will then give them my nearly-empty bag.

  I can then almost always find a spot for my backpack in the overhead bins.

  I just refuse to let them take all that gear under the plane where it is out of my sight and control.

  We have insurance on our gear (and also insurance on us as a business) through Package Choice, but by the time I land and realize that my gear was either broken, or stolen and I file a claim, I won't have my replacement gear before the wedding or shoot that I was hired to shoot. I try to take every single precaution necessary.

  So what do we do to protect the images we shoot? Obviously we can't run home and back up immediately, and we need to run the gauntlet of packing and unpacking and airline travel between the wedding shoot and getting home to download. So, I bring my laptop and we each have external hard drives that are made for traveling (they have little hard cases they sit inside) and we download immediately to each of these each evening. (That way Rachel has a backup of Crystal's images and Crystal has a backup of Rachels images) (This external hard drive also sits in our carry on bag). We also bring a TON of memory. Over 260GB worth of cards. So we shoot to these cards and we do NOT reformat or erase ANY. Plus, we shoot Canon 5D Mark IIIs and we shoot to two cards, so there is a back up inside the camera, as well. So, we have at least 4 backups of every image. Two externals, the original cards, and the back-up cards that stay inside the cameras. We travel with these in separate bags. So we are as insured as possible against corruption of data, loss of images, etc.

  And finally, we bring all of this so that we can easily tackle any situation possible. If something breaks, it's ok. We have multiple back-ups. If the situation is not what we anticipated, it's ok, we have as many options as possible to come up with a good answer. It might seem like overkill to some, but we're paid to capture this once-in-a-lifetime day, and we take it very very seriously, and we don't accept or offer any excuses for ourselves.

  P.S.
  On top of all of our gear, we also bring a 2nd shooter. (Yes there are already two of us, but we shoot as a team, not 1st and 2nd shooter, so we bring a 2nd shooter to help out at most weddings, so we can team shoot. That will be explained in another post.)

  Our seconds also come with their gear.
  
• 
  Small Studio Set Up with Big Results

  Studio Photography.  Lighting.  Backdrops.  Umbrellas.  Soft boxes.  It all gets so confusing and overwhelming and a lot of times photographers just eschew it all and choose to be natural-light-only photographers to avoid the headache.  But really, having at least a simple studio set up that you can use in your home or take to other's homes, even if you don't get a full studio, will give you much greater versatility.  This is especially true for when you are shooting in the winter in a colder climate or shooting small children.

  We have a studio, but it is not as close to our homes as we would like, and as a result, we don't use it often.  Yet, even though we are not known as in-studio photographers, we still get a lot of requests, especially in the winter.  I also love to use my simple set up to take pictures of my children.  Would you like a peek at how I set up my studio images?

  

  I will write another blog post outlining how I use seamless paper and get reflections under the subject.

  For this set up, I use boards that have been sanded and stained.  Simple, but very classic looking.  I use my background stand to keep the boards from falling forward and hitting anyone.  I have used this set up for years and never had an accident, but I would always recommend using the restraint, just in case.  Safety first.

  I use an Alien Bee 400 for my light.  I also have an 800 and a 1600, but I prefer my 400.  Why?  I can shoot at a more shallow depth of field because I have better control of the lower end of light output.  If I was shooting OCF outdoors, trying to overpower the sun, I would not prefer an Alien Bee 400 (rather a 1600), but for indoor portraits, I love the 400.

  I use the 60x30 softbox and I feather it.  Notice how it is not pointed directly at the subject in the image above?  Rather it is pointing past him?  That gives a softer quality of light with fewer hot spots and more gradual shadow transitions.  

  To trigger my light I use Cactus V5 triggers.  I find them to be very responsive with very few misfires and the price is very impressive.  We have spent thousands on other systems that have not worked at all with indoor strobes, so the Cactus have won our hearts.

  I tend to start out at 1/125 shutter speed (remember not to go above 1/200 if you are shooting strobes, because of sync speed.  If you go above this, you will get a black line in your image from the shutter.)  I like this to give a little more prominence to the subject and less attention to the background, but if you want a brighter background, drop your shutter speed.   I like to shoot at about 2.8 aperture, so I know I will get decent focus and not too much light on the subject.  But sometimes I open up even wider (but I also make sure to turn down my light power.)  I use 125 ISO and start my strobe at about 1/8 power.  Since I always put my light in the same place, these settings work bang on almost every time.  Remember when using a strobe (or any light) the Inverse-Square Law is at work.  Which means every time you half the distance between your subject and the light, you are doubling the power of the light.  It also works in reverse.  Every time you double the distance between light and subject, you halve the power.  VERY IMPORTANT.

  I like a little defining and shaping shadows to my studio work, so I rarely add a reflector.  But if you want lighter shadows, then by all means, add a reflector to the other side.

  I can easily edit my images from this set up because of the consistency of the light.  I put it in Lightroom and use Basic Workflow  from Pure Presets 1 and then I go into Photoshop and use the Meshelle Newborn Designer set.  It works amazingly on studio set ups and gives wonderful results.

  Here are some examples of work in this set up.

  

  

  

  

  

  

   

• 
  Thoughts on Pricing Yourself

  We've all seen it.  The price wars that rage for photography.  Session prices drop and drop, until pretty soon we all wonder if photographers will be paying their clients to take pictures for them soon.

  But it is hard to be new!

  How do you get your name out there, without trying to compete to be the lowest price around?

  That is a conundrum, but here are some reasons that leading on price alone is not the way to a sustainable business.

  I have seen the price of $50 floating around for sessions a lot lately.  This is historically VERY low.  It might not be the $5 sessions that Walmart and the like offered in times past, but those studios (even with the backing of huge megastores using them as a loss-leader) are out of business.  

  Why is $50 not a workable price for photography?  I mean, that seems like a decent wage for an hour of shooting, right?  Sure!

  Oh, but wait.  Usually there is all of the time to set up a session with clients.  Emails back and forth, schedules to coordinate, locations to select, timing to reconfirm.  Ok, so add on an hour or so, right?  And then the drive to the session.  Greeting clients, shooting, small talk, driving home, downloading cards, uploading to editing software, editing, communicating the fact the session is finished to the client, and delivering the session.  (This assumes there is no physical product involved, but ordering and delivering and paying for product would also fit here.)  Hmmm, so, maybe that $50 an hour is more like $50 for 4 hours or so, if you're pretty fast and the location was close.  That's getting pretty close to minimum wage here.

  And then...waiiiiit.  That's not all folks.

  What about your camera?  Not just the fact you had to buy one, but really the wear and tear on it from that session?  All the more clicks closer to the end of the shutter life.  Wear and tear on your car.  Baby sitters?  Gas?  Yep and yep.  These apply to JUST this session.  And of COURSE, if you are collecting money you have paid your taxes right?

  Those are the variable costs that happen per session.  But there are also fixed costs that need to be spread out over multiple sessions too.  Cameras, lenses, and miscellaneous gear.  Computer for editing, programs for editing, and backup systems for editing.  INSURANCE.  (This should NOT be negotiable if you are shooting for payment.  A lawsuit could ruin you financially.)  A calibration system for your computer.  Any advertising or marketing.  Props, if you use them.  

  There can even be things like studios and furniture, etc., but we're not counting those.

  So, what we can see is that from $50 for a session, you're in the hole.  You really HAVE paid to shoot your client.  If you're starting out and just learning, it might not seem like such a bad thing though, right?  Invest a little to learn?  The issue we found is that when we did sales when we first started to get clients was that they felt they were paying me and *I* felt like I was paying to shoot them.  Both of us felt entitled to more than the other did.  The $50 client wanted to be treated as a client.  So every little change or tweak felt onerous.  A

  And here's the big issue.  The more clients see photographers advertising for a $50 photography session over and over, the more they become convinced that photography is regularly priced at $50.  If they see someone charging even $75, they will feel like that is an expensive session.  Someone charging a more liveable wage will be outrageous.  Now, as photographers are starting out, they might think, "Eh, my competition will have to deal with it.  I am just a beginner."  But it does affect everyone.  It changes the market perception.  As you grow and learn and progress and get better gear, have insurance, etc., you will find that while you still love photography, you can't pay the bills on love alone.  You will find that having to leave your family over and over (and have to pay to do it!) will become a chore.  What you once loved will become something that you dread.  It is a sad cycle.

  Now, I am not proposing that you charge a full fare, taking into account every expense you have and giving yourself a cushiony wage from the get-go.  Because, afterall, we DO all start somewhere.  We do all have to learn the ropes.  Crystal and I did most of our learning on family and friends for free.  They were people we were not going to be charging anyway.  But when we were ready to start charging, we let people know that we were having a limited time discount for our charter customers.  When we presented the bill, the top charge, in bold, was the amount that we were planning to charge.  Then below that was the discount their session was receiving, because they were a charter customer.  And then the final total they were paying.  We wanted our customers to know that they were getting something of great value.  Our customers that we did this with always afforded us much greater respect.  We still usually do this when we send out model calls for when we are trying new products or ideas.  When people know the value of something, they are much more respectful.  People don't respect cheap and free nearly as much.  

  It also helped our clients to understand that when the wanted images from us next year (and many did), they needed to anticipate a higher price tag.  It also helped us feel like we were not devaluing our colleagues.  One thing that we have found is that the photography industry is small.  It feels huge, but the more we can help each other and respect each other, even with little things like not devaluing each other, the stronger our industry can be.  Right now there is so much infighting and cattiness and the industry is suffering.  Hopefully, the more we can try to see the other side, the more respect we can give to each other and the more respect we will be able to get from clients.

• 
  Simple Seamless Paper with BIG Punch

  Hi guys!  I am back with my simple in-home/portable studio set up.  This time I am going to explain how to use seamless paper and get a little extra punch from adding plexiglass on top of the seamless paper to get that reflection of your subject.  It is great for grounding your subject and giving a professional polish to your images.  It's quite simple, but does require a little more time in post-production, but not bad.   Here's a pull back of the set up.

  

  If you have not read my last blog post on my studio set up, here is the meat and potatoes of the lighting.  If you've read it, feel free to skip over the next little bit.

  I use an Alien Bee 400 for my light.  I also have an 800 and a 1600, but I prefer my 400.  Why?  I can shoot at a more shallow depth of field because I have better control of the lower end of light output.  If I was shooting OCF outdoors, trying to overpower the sun, I would not prefer an Alien Bee 400 (rather a 1600), but for indoor portraits, I love the 400.

  I use the 60x30 softbox and I feather it.  Notice how it is not pointed directly at the subject in the image above?  Rather it is pointing past him?  That gives a softer quality of light with fewer hot spots and more gradual shadow transitions.  

  To trigger my light I use Cactus V5 triggers.  I find them to be very responsive with very few misfires and the price is very impressive.  We have spent thousands on other systems that have not worked at all with indoor strobes, so the Cactus have won our hearts.

  I tend to start out at 1/125 shutter speed (remember not to go above 1/200 if you are shooting strobes, because of sync speed.  If you go above this, you will get a black line in your image from the shutter.)  I like this to give a little more prominence to the subject and less attention to the background, but if you want a brighter background, drop your shutter speed.   I like to shoot at about 2.8 aperture, so I know I will get decent focus and not too much light on the subject.  But sometimes I open up even wider (but I also make sure to turn down my light power.)  I use 125 ISO and start my strobe at about 1/8 power.  Since I always put my light in the same place, these settings work bang on almost every time.  Remember when using a strobe (or any light) the Inverse-Square Law is at work.  Which means every time you half the distance between your subject and the light, you are doubling the power of the light.  It also works in reverse.  Every time you double the distance between light and subject, you halve the power.  VERY IMPORTANT.

  I like a little defining and shaping shadows to my studio work, so I rarely add a reflector.  But if you want lighter shadows, then by all means, add a reflector to the other side.

  

  The plexiglass is simply the largest sheet I could find at the Home Depot.  It is about 3 feet long and 3 feet wide.  I WISH I had a little bigger, so if YOUR Home Depot offers a larger size, get it.  It will save you having to fix edges and will allow for more people on it.  It's not the end of the world that mine is the size it is, but it would be nicer if it was bigger.

  The trickiest thing is that blending the plexi can take some doing.  A shameless plug here...for the best results, see our Pure Retouch Technique Video/mini action set.  That will get you blended naturally in no time.  

  

  Here is a quick before/after.  Pretty natural and seamless.  (Ha ha, get it.)

  Other images using the seamless/plexi--

  

  As you can see, it is a simple trick for a lovely and polished image.

• 
  What's In Our Bags?

  One of the questions we get asked MOST is what gear we use.  Nearly every photo we upload asks about cameras, lenses, flashes, or some combo of the above.  We get asked about bags for flying and travel, and bags for shooting weddings.  We get asked about lots of things.  So here's a quick peek into our simple bag set up that we take to most shoots.  We also will keep reflectors, stands, and simple umbrellas in the trunk of the car, just in case.

   

  

  Here is Rachel's rolling camera bag, labelled.  It is smaller in profile, but it is pretty deep and the wheels sink in a little, so that there is more room than the small looking exterior suggests.  It uses space very well.  It can fit, standing up, in the overhead of an international flight.  The wheels also rotate all the way around, which makes traveling with the Think Tank Airport 4-Sight a breeze.

  

  Here is our secondary flash bag that I carry for shoots.  I can add in extra Justin clamps and usually have more Eneloop rechargeable batteries when I go for a wedding.

  

  Crystal's camera bag.  It is a bit bigger and works for most domestic flights (it fits about 2 more lenses than Rachel's travel bag.)