Related Posts

• 
  Setting Yourself Apart with Professional Lighting

  Shooting weddings is so much fun, isn't it?  All the giddy anticipation of shooting all of those fabulous wedding moments.  A beautiful bride in her stunning dress.  A dapper groom gazing lovingly at his new wife.  All those well-thought-out details.  It's enough to make a photographer's heart skip a beat.

  The other thing that can make a photographer's heart skip a beat is talking reception lighting.  Only this time, it is usually in fear.  A lot of photographers are very comfortable working in natural light, but when flash is added to the equation, their hands go clammy, their mouths go dry, and they get hives.  Even if they don't fear the flash, they might be stuck in a bit of a lifeless style of lighting.  But it doesn't have to be that way.  

  We want to walk you through our four flash set up for receptions.  It makes lighting much simpler and gives your images a very polished look.  Brides and grooms spend a lot of time and money planning their receptions, so we believe in capturing those moments in the best way we can.

  Here is a pullback of our flashes towards the end of a reception.  If you look, you can see where all four are placed. 

  

  We personally use 2 580exiis in this set up and 2 430exiis.  We have an arsenal of about 10 flashes, so we can set up almost anything, but we really like this set up.  We alternate the flashes so they go 580, 430, 580, 430 and we start at about 1/8 power and adjust to get the light we want.  Why do we alternate the lights?  Well, the power output of the 580 and the 430 are different so we get a nice lighting ratio with this, so the images are not as flat.  Also, depending on where people stand and their angle, we will get different variations of key and fill and hairlight and kicker.  The variation is not strictly needed, but it is a nice nuance.

  

  The great thing is we can get this clean, textured light with very little effort on our part throughout the entire wedding.

  We get a lot of questions about this lighting, so let me give you the rundown on what you will need.  

  We point the flashes up to the ceiling and diffuse the light.  We usually diffuse the light with collapsable Fong diffusers.  They work very nicely for throwing the light over the venue and also for canceling out any colored ceilings.  The diffusers will also help the spread of light if you are working outdoors at night with no tent.  Fongs are ideal for large event photography.  The omni-directionality of their light makes for a very pleasing lighting pattern for receptions.

  

  Our first preference is to use Manfrotto Justin Clamps (see above) for attaching our lights to the corners.  It puts them up and out of the way of accidents.  But if there is nothing to clamp the lights to, we will use a regular light stand, above the heads of the guests in the corners and usually behind something (so the legs are behind something and the flash head is above the crowd.)  People who have not seen this set up in action worry that the flashes will bother guests. Actually, having the flashes away in the corners is less distracting than having a flash on camera and going off in people's face.  The light is high up to avoid unwanted shadows.  

  To trigger the flashes, we actually prefer to use the Cactus V5 triggers.  I know they are not one of the industry-standards, but we have spent THOUSANDS on another system and we were so disappointed with that system.  It was delicate and SO finicky.  The slightest thing would cause misfires.  The Cactus, ironically, have been the most reliable and the price can't be beat.  

  We don't shoot with a flash on camera as well.  We find that unless we do a VERY wide (i.e. 16mm) shot, we don't need the extra fill.  

  When dancing starts, depending on the size of the room, we will turn off 1 or 2 flashes to give a more dramatic feeling.  

  

  As you can see, the polish that having that hairlight really make the image.  The dimensionality of the light also gives wedding dresses and all of their texture a chance to shine.  

  Based on how you set your camera, you can also capture the colors of the lights a DJ brings (having a lower shutter speed and letting that ambient light enter the camera) or drown it out a bit, if it is causing a significant color cast to your guests (by raising your shutter speed to allow less ambient light to enter your camera.)

  

  The great part is that when moments happen, you can capture them very easily and stylishly, because your lighting is all set up beforehand.

  Which leads to another question.   Many people fret that they just don't have time between the wedding and reception.  If that is the case, just bounce the flash for the grand entrance and then while people are getting settled in for dinner, etc. set up your stuff.  It takes about 10 minutes total.  It is not hard to do.  We also recommend (even if you DO decide to just bounce your flash) having a battery pack and/or spare batteries for your flashes.  We have a few large battery chargers that charge 16 Eneloop batteries at a time.  We load it up and then change out the batteries and let the charger keep refreshing our batteries as needed.  It keeps our recycle times very short.  If your flashes are getting sluggish, swap out the batteries for new ones.  If you have notice before big events (cake cutting, bouquet toss, etc.) swap the batteries preemptively.  (Do this with any flash, really.)

  For a smaller venue, 3 lights or even two will work very nicely to give more dimension and professionality to your reception flash set up.  We recommend using a flash off camera whenever possible for these events, because it will set your work apart and more effectively capture your client's wedding preparations.

  And finally, even if your venue is not the Four Seasons, this can really let your clients' reception shine.  This image was take in the church gym which often doubles as a basketball court at times.  It was a beautiful, well-decorated wedding, but sometimes the gym can overpower even the more carefully detailed wedding.  But good lighting let the lovely planning shine.

  One last note:  Having good quality, clean, consistent light will make editing your reception images a breeze.  Usually I can just apply one of our workflows (most often for me Basic Workflow from Pure Presets 1) and I can simply tweak it to fit the lighting and then apply it to most of the reception images with very little changes.  THAT is a HUGE timesaver.  

  

   

   

• 
  Five Steps to Greater Productivity

  We all only have 24 hours in the day, but sometimes it feels like other people MUST have more.  How else can they get so much done?  There are a lot of strategies for saving time and being productive, but these are Rachel and Crystal's top five.  

  Since there are thirteen kids between the two of us (Rachel has 8 and Crystal has 5) and we have teens and toddlers, plus two busy businesses, and factors like autism and epilepsy in our families, we have to make the most of the time we have, because nearly all of it is spoken for.  When we first started working together, we were so busy and didn't have a very good plan in place for getting our photography lives together, so the top of our list in the early days was "Don't Sleep."  That is not a very effective long-term solution, so we nixed that and added in these solutions.

  1) Get it right in camera

  I really can't stress this one enough.  It might take a little work at the outset to learn your camera and exposure well enough that you can truly nail the basics when you hit the shutter button, but believe me this is a big one.  Know how to shoot in manual, so YOU are in charge and not your camera.  In fact, we recommend not venturing into business until you have this one well in hand.  Once you hang out that shingle, you'll be so busy with serving clients, shooting, editing, marketing, office work, financials, etc., that taking the time to truly LEARN is an incredible luxury, but not one that you'll always have time for.  So this one is top of the bunch.  If you hit your exposure right and know how to shoot in Kelvin, so you're not having to fiddle constantly to hit the right white balance in post, you will have a MUCH easier time when you sit down to edit.  Suddenly the days required for a session will fall into a few hours.  So learn exposure.  Learn white balance.  Understand how to get the best focus you can so that you can use ANY of your images, not just the handful that are in focus.  Read books (Understanding Exposure is fantastic), join groups (our Facebook group is wonderful), and practice, practice, practice.  

  2) Learn to batch process

  We love using Lightroom and ACR.  Once you edit an image the way you like it in Lightroom or ACR, you can then sync this edit across all of your images that are in the same lighting scenario.  So one edit is suddenly 20.  Bam.  This is a big reason that tip #1 is important.  If your exposure and white balance are all over the map, syncing will never work.  So having a consistency in your shots is so important.  We'll be creating more and more content to help you get all of these right in camera.  But we have some fantastic tutorials on how to batch edit.  It's easy to get bogged down in touching the minutiae of every image, but get that batch process down, and you'll have cut out a huge chunk of time in your post work.  Easily saving yourself the equivalent of days or weeks each year.  Of course, we recommend our fantastic presets and actions to help with this process.  Amiright?

  3) Organize yourself

  Look, I have 8 kids, and Crystal has 5 kids, so I am not talking about some intense level of white-glove perfection.  No no.  I just mean you need an order to your workspace that you can understand.  You will feel more at peace if there is an order to your surroundings and you know how to find what you need.  Obviously, this applies to your physical workspace, but it also applies to your digital workspace too.  Keeping your files organized and at your fingertips is freeing.  Crystal and I load all of our images into external hard drives (and a Drobo and to the cloud...for safety), but from there we load them organized by date and then client name.  If it is a wedding client, within their folder we have the Engagement, Bridal, Wedding, etc.  This saves a lot of time hunting for the right files.  Also, in Lightroom, I (Rachel) make sure to keyword my files as I download them.  That way I can quickly search through images by client name, date, location, interesting features, color, etc.  Just in case I remember an image I want to use and can't quite remember all of the specifics.  Keywording is along the right side of the Library module, and you can quickly and easily start keywording as you upload images.

  

  4) Set small goals and reward yourself

  Mindset counts for a lot.  A lot of times being a small business owner is a lot of work.  We know it.  We hear you.  Sometimes there is a lot of stuff that is pretty thankless that just needs to get done.  This is where we like to set small goals and reward ourselves as we achieve them.  Got the client emails all answered?  Yay, you get to check Facebook!  Finished editing 30 images?  You get to walk to the mailbox in the sunshine to get the mail.  Before lunch, make your social media posts for the day and then enjoy your lunch, guilt-free.  Sometimes being the small business owner is hard because there is not a lot of recognition in just how hard you're working and how much you're hustling to get it all done, so it's nice to remind yourself how many things you are accomplishing each day.

  5) Keep lists, use Google Calender, etc.

  This is along the lines of being organized, but this is mentally.  Whether you use a paper organizer,  your phone, Google calendar, pop-up reminders, Post-It Notes, etc., give yourself a map and a plan.  We all have those days where we are on fire with ideas of what we want and need to accomplish for our business.  And we probably all know those days are not EVERY day.  So when you have those amazing days, capture them.  Lean into the passion, the joy, and the excitement.  Let it flow.  Capture the ideas.  Then map it out.  Write lists of what you need to do to accomplish these goals and give yourself manageable chunks.  Organize your time so that you know, ok, today I need to make 2 Instagram posts and one Facebook post, and I want to be sure that I check up on potential clients that I have not heard back from who requested quotes.  Tomorrow, I need to post to my Pinterest board, send out client orders, etc. 

  Having a schedule in writing both keeps you accountable, and it also takes the burden of having to freestyle every day.  Sometimes it's nice to have someone tell you what needs to be done...even if it's you.  (Just a you that is on fire with excitement and passion and vision.)

  We use Google Calendar for Pure.  We keep it color coordinated.  So each day, I can look and see the colors and know exactly what tasks I have to do.  (blogging, fb, Pinterest, Instagram and so on). 

  

  BONUS
  6) Actions and presets save lives!
  
  Being stuck behind your computer editing can be rewarding for some photographers and a nightmare for others.  Speed up that workflow so that you can be out shooting, marketing, and building relationships with your clients and other vendors!  If you are stuck "hand editing" every single image, you will get burnt out, very fast!  Especially if you are editing weddings!  (Seriously take it from us, you don't need to hand edit that picture of Aunt Sally eating her salad!  No one is going to look at that image more than once, unless they want to post it on Social media to embarrass Aunt Sally).  Apply a clean editing preset, batch that crap and move on!  (our favorite is Basic Workflow from our 1st set of presets for both ACR and Lightroom!)  and with the code it is only $50!  SAY WHAT??!!!!)
  
  We are currently offering 50% off!  YES YOU READ THAT RIGHT!  50% OFF our entire store, using the code  NEWYEAR
  Hurry.... it ends in a week!   So hurry and grab your actions/presets HERE! We promise, they are pretty rad!

• 
  Law 101: Protecting Your Art--by Rachel Brenke

  We are so so pleased to have photography law and business guru, Rachel Brenke as a guest blogger. Her knowledge is so very valuable and we are grateful to have her sharing her insights on how to run a safe business and how to protect the art you create.

  Law 101: Protecting Your Art
  Rachel Brenke, Esq

   

  With the onslaught of social media and digital files/products comes the true reality that ethics and law are not always followed. In fact, while ignorance is no excuse, often the masses are misinformed as to what is allowed in the digital age. The most prominent issues photographers face include the illegal downloading (or screen capture) of unpurchased photographs for print, sharing of digital items, stealing of photographs to pad portfolio and posting of another’s work as an example to clients.

  What if I want to share someone else’s picture for inspiration?

  There has been a recent trend where photographers have taken to sharing photographs of photographers that inspire them to demonstrate to the clients their vision for an upcoming session. This has been done through sharing on social media sites including pinning on Pinterest. There is a grey area of danger in this sharing as it is misleading to the client, often done without permission of photographer, and many times the proper credit is not attributed. When in doubt, don’t share it. When in doubt, don’t pin it.
  All photographers should look to others that provide inspiration, but if you’d like to collect an inspiration board of other photographers ensure it is specifically labeled as separate from your own work and/or create another profile.

  What can I do to protect myself?

  Stealing is such a nasty word but that is what it is. Whenever clients download files from the website without permission it is stealing. Whenever a photographer claims another’s work as their own it is stealing. There are a few different ways to protect yourself. Sometimes it is simply a grey area of sharing a photograph, even with appropriate credit, or another photographer using the same business name or tag line. There are several options for protecting yourself and your business.

  One option is that of a trademark or copyright. Trademarking is the act of identifying and distinguishing the source of goods of one party from that of another (i.e. words, phrases, designs, symbols, etc.). Copyright is the protection an artist has over “original works of authorship”. Both of these are tools to protect yourself, however, must be distinguished to understand whether you are protected or need to take action. Ownership of copyright for a photograph is created at the time the photograph is created. Trademarking is not acquired until submitted formally through the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Link to Trademark Office: http://www.uspto.gov/
  Copyright is typically done for photographs (although no formal process required) while trademarking is typically done to reserve your company name, logo, catch phrase or slogan.

  The second option is to embed copyright in your photograph/product. This can be done in the processing program of choice. The following pictures are how to embed copyright/ownership information into the photograph. This will sometimes work to prevent labs from printing these files outside the guidelines embedded in the photograph’s data.

  #1 Open Picture
  #2 File > File Info
  #3 Enter Info
  #4 Click OK

   

  
  

  
  

  The third option is to watermark your photographs. Simply placing a watermark on the photograph may deter some individuals. This option, by itself, does not fully protect you nor keep others from stealing. Just as social media is in every house, editing programs are increasingly common, making the tools to remove a watermark readily accessible.

  The fourth option is to include your information and copyright information on picture captions whenever uploaded to the Internet. This, again, isn’t full protection but may deter or remind individuals of the copyright laws.

  The final option, which is primarily for clients, is to provide a Copyright Informational Card with their order as a gentle reminder of copyright laws and your reproduction guidelines.

  What if they continue to violate my copyright?

  The most simple answer, ask them to stop. Many times clients are unaware their actions violate your policies and copyright, despite being outlined in the signed photography agreement. Citing the appropriate copyright law and policies in a politely written communication will often encourage someone to cease their actions, especially if they were “unaware” that what they are doing is wrong. If this communication fails to achieve this a formal writing of a Cease and Desist letter may be required. These can be written informally by simply citing the actions, citing the appropriate copyright laws, demanding they quit these actions, providing consequences for failure to comply, and institute a deadline. An alternative is to utilize an attorney drafted Cease and Desist form and/or hire an attorney.

  Cease and Desist
  

  No matter the method of protection you choose, be true to yourself and your business. Inform others, inform yourself. This does you, others and the photography industry a great service.

   

  Rachel Brenke

   

  
  

  Rachel Brenke is a photographer, lawyer, business consultant and social media marketing strategist based out of El Paso, Texas.  She has helped over a thousand photographers start up, market and maintain their businesses through online eWorkshops, 1:1 consulting and the free resources on her blog. She also has contracts for photographers that were designed for photographers by a photographer and attorney!

  Snag your free copy her free Legal Lens eBook by Rachel Brenke.

  Note: These legal tips are based on United States legal principles. Please seek out advice for your country.

• 
  Google+ FAQ: Removing Your Home Address from your Page and Business/Personal or both?

  
  

  Google+ is growing!  If the number of serious questions we are getting about the long-term impact of choices users making now is any indication, there is a huge movement afoot and people are settling in for the long haul.  Kind of exciting to see this movement.

  So we find ourselves answering a few questions over and over.  So, I will be gathering questions we get each day and compiling them into blog posts to help new users navigate the new social waters of Google+ with ease.

  Today there are two I want to address.

  1)  "ACK!  My home address is showing on my business page!  Make it stop!"
  

  Most photographers set up local business pages on Google+.  There are some great reasons for doing this.  They are integrated in Google maps.  They get a nifty little pin when people search any Google Map in their area.  This also is pretty important for Google's growing interest in "Semantic Search."   What is semantic search?  Google is moving towards evolving their search engines from answering short queries to being abe to decipher longer, speech-like questions.  With the advent or SIRI and other devices that search Google via your natural questions, Google is trying to nimbly adapt.  So the more Google knows about you and your business, the more comfortable it is to use it as an answer to people's queries.  So, "Who is the best children's portrait photographer by me?" will use your Google+ profile, looking at how many people have +1ed you and are following you and like your images, the fact you say you are a children's photographer and have hashtagged yourself as such on Google+ and tagged your blog posts, which are linked to your G+ site, and finally, it will use your local information and compare it to the searchers' IP address location and BAM, there you are as Google's top pick.

  OK, so those are some of the reasons that people choose to have their service area available to Google.  But some people do not want their entire home address shown, if they work from home.  According to Google, you will need to go into your listing editor, beneath your address information in your page dashboard and check the box that says "My business has service areas where I visit customers at their locations."  This will allow you to put in your city, state and zip code so that you can still be located locally.  Do not check the box that you serve customers at your location if you do not want your address to be displayed.

  2)  "Should I be using my business page or my personal page on Google+?"

  Both.

  No really.

  Obviously having a strong brand page that represents your brand and shows your work and answers questions and networks with people is wonderful.  But you can also be a point of contact for clients in a personal way too.  It is easier for people to befriend and understand a person sometimes vs. a logo.  At Pure, we try to be very friendly and sociable on our page, but we are even more personal and human on our personal pages.  The beauty of circles is that I can keep aspects of my life separate.  I can put my friends in the friend circles, my family in my family circle, and people I am following into a following circle.  For people who are following me, I can post publicly.  Then all my circles and followers (those who follow me, but are not circled) can see my content.  If I want to share a cute image of my baby, or share an interesting blog post I read I can post publicly and everyone can see.  If I don't want people I am not following to see, I can post to JUST my circles.  If I want JUST my friends and family to see, I can close it up even tighter.  If I am posting about the annual family picnic location, I can JUST share to my family circle.  And if I am JUST posting a little love note to my husband, I can share it with JUST him.  Easy peasy to do right in the composition box.

  Keeping business a little personal helps to build trust and relationships.  But posting socially also provides a cushier landing place for clients as they investigate Google+ to meet their social needs.  So, putting yourself out there a little and being friendly on your personal page is important.

  Another thing to note:  Google Authorship is tired to your personal page and Google Publisher is tied to your Business page.  I will go more deeply into these, but they can augment your perceived trustworthiness and authority in Google search as Google will give you a little byline and image alongside some search content from you if Google feels you pass muster.  So clearly, Google is giving signals that they think you should have both pages.

   

• 
  What is our favorite lens and why

   

  Ever wonder what our favorite lens is or what your next lens purchase should be?

  There is a consistent theme to the most common questions on our groups, our page, in our email, and on our blog. See if you can spot it. 

  "What lens did you use to shoot this?" "I'm looking for a new lens, what is the best one?" "What lenses do you need for weddings?" "What lens is best for (fill in the blank) sessions?" 

  They're straightforward questions with convoluted answers. There are so many lenses with lots of price points and a lot of this depends on what you intend to shoot and your budget.   So instead of just guessing, we are here to give our thoughts on the most common professional lenses. 

  We go over the (many) lenses in our bags and outline what we use them for, which we love, which we can't live without, which we wish we would have done something different, and our feelings on which are critical to have for different sessions. 

  Check out our discussion below.

   

  Here are links to the lenses we talk about above!  

  The links below are affiliate links, which means if you purchase one we get a small commission. However, we use these lenses on a daily basis and in your business and wouldn't suggest them if we didn't love them and highly recommend them.   

  • 70-200mm 2.8 
  • 135mm 2.0
  • 16-35mm 2.8
  • 24-70mm 2.8
  • 100mm 2.8 macro
  • 50mm 1.2
  • 85mm 1.2
  • 35mm 1.4 Sigma

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• 
  How to Import into Lightroom and more

  Ever wonder how you can keep yourself more organized in Lightroom? 
  

  Here are a few tips to keep you organized, starting at Import!

   Also don't forget about our massive Sale!  55% off ending on Friday June 17th, 2016!!!!  CLICK HERE!! 

   

   Also don't forget about our massive Sale!  55% off ending on Friday June 17th, 2016!!!!  CLICK HERE!!