Steve and Rachel are seriously one of my favorite couples to work with. We spent the evening in Downtown L.A. at Union Station, which is a top location pick for me. I love the style of the buildings, and I say it every time, but there’s just something so old Hollywood about it with its Art Deco trim. The atmosphere of the train station is just magical, and sort of enchants me every time I go. It reminds me of when I practically live on trains for a few weeks while traveling around Europe. I stayed in some not so great train stations though. Union Station is really a cut above the other stations. It has maintained its mystique somehow.

When I met Steve and Rachel, I knew that Union Station would be the perfect location for our Engagement Session. They both collect vintage luggage. Steve’s Wedding present from Rachel is in fact the luggage in the images you see below. I don’t often get an engagement session where props are brought along, but I really enjoyed this. Not only did they bring the luggage, but Rachel’s florist made her a bouquet to match her dress, and Steve brought his classic Mercedes convertible as a prop. He called up a couple days before and said “Hey, what if I bring my classic Mercedes as a prop?” I was floored. I started picturing right then the shot you see above. I knew I had to get an amazing shot with the Benz. These are clients that truly appreciate what I do, and I’m enjoying every minute of it.

All in all we had a great evening. Sarah met us at Kings for some dinner after the shoot and they introduced us to some amazing champagne(sparkling wine?) called Sophia. I would highly recommend it to any champagne aficionado.

So here are my favorite images from the evening. Thanks Steve & Rachel for a wonderful evening!

This Last weekend was pretty crazy. My good friend Doug came into town for a last minute vacation to L.A. It was a lot of fun, I hadn’t seen him since my wedding a year and a half ago, and it had really been too long.

I had this wedding planned for a couple weeks. I assisted/shot second for Kelly Segré of Ventura. It was a very relaxing wedding, and the couple was a lot of fun. The venue, Fess Parker’s Double Tree was absolutely gorgeous. Right next to the ocean in Santa Barbara, and within walking distance of the pier. I’d really suggest checking it out for a your wedding venue. The staff is also top notch, very professional, personable, and on top of everything.

Anyway, the timing couldn’t have been better. Doug came out on Friday, we all spent the evening talking, hanging out, drinking mudslides, having my famous grilled chicken with a family recipe sauce, until early in the morning. Doug had some friends he wanted to visit on Saturday, so it was perfect, I shot the wedding, he hung out with friends, and everyone was happy.

I didn’t take any photos with Doug, but I did manage to take some at the wedding.

Enjoy!

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It was a last minute portrait session. Caitie was graduating from Crescent Valley High School in La Crescenta. Her mom Sunny set up the shoot about a week before graduation… I needed to do a really quick turn-around in order to get graduation announcements out. I don’t usually do that, but I was able to get Caitie’s images edited and ready for print over night.

We set up the Senior Portrait Experience at the Caltech campus in Pasadena. It’s a beautiful campus with a lot of different and great backdrops. The eucalyptus trees were in full aroma(how else could I phrase this?) and the atmosphere was relaxed and perfect for a portrait session. There weren’t too many people at Caltech since class was out, and not much was going on. Sunny was great and assisted me with supporting my lighting equipment.

We had a great time, and we got some great images… I hope you enjoy them.

Robert, this is directed specifically at you: Purchasing this camera does not make you a photographer. The use of this camera at a wedding does not make you a wedding photographer. Advertising on Craigslist does not make you a professional photographer.

P does not stand for “professional,” green does not mean “go”, and Kevin Kabota and other stylized actions or presets will not make your snapshots look good.

The lens and flash that come with this camera are not sufficient. An additional investment of at least $3000 will be necessary in order to bring the possibility* of your images up to par with other professionals. On that note, you will need to invest in a second camera body for when this camera “freezes” in the middle of your niece’s wedding. The freeze is actually a user malfunction; you pressed the 10 second self timer with your forehead, and can’t figure out how to get it out of that mode.

If you desire to make a living with this camera, remember the following principals: Quickbooks does not replace a good CPA, Facebook is not a replacement for a website, Federal, State, and local taxes are mandatory, expensive, and you have to take them into consideration with you pricing. Insurance isn’t just for your car or your health. You WILL screw something up, so be covered.

Everyone and their grandma wants to be a professional photographer. This is your competition, and in a market where the supply is higher than the demand, your images won’t be worth anything to anybody until you create value in your products and services. Not only will you need to be a cut above the rest when it comes to photography in order to bring in any decent income, but you will also need to learn how to be a marketing genius and small business guru. This is not a small undertaking. What makes you any different from the other millions of “professional” photographers out there? If a bank can’t seem to be able to stay in business, what makes you think that you have what it takes?

You will spend a minimum of 2 hours editing for each hour shooting. Figure this into your pricing. There is no such thing as shooting for free. Your camera costs you money, your CF cards cost you money, your computer costs you money, your external hard-drive costs you money, your time editing costs you money, dvds cost you money, the sharpie with which you label your dvd costs you money. Someone is paying for the images… It shouldn’t be you.

*possibility. The $3000 additional investment only gives you the possibility to shoot incredible images. It does not guarantee it, and furthermore, is extremely unlikely. The investment of a few years, learning, shooting, taking workshops, and trial and error are the only ways to actually create incredible images consistently.

Or this:

The use of this camera to earn an income will likely result in the following: Stress, Hair-loss, Tax problems, strained relationships with your spouse, high blood pressure, neck and back pain, nausea, IBS(Irritable Bride Syndrome), No savings or extra money in your bank account.

I hope this was entertaining. I wrote this as a response to a discussion in the Pictage forums about regulation. The general consensus from most photographers is that regulation would be a bad idea. I think I agree. However, Proper education would go a long way to deter people that shouldn’t be going into business for themselves from trying to make a quick buck from photography. Either way this is purely satirical, I mean no harm or offense by it. And if you respond with any debasing comments, they will be deleted.

I met Jessica at a Habitat for Humanity gala. She was helping out, and serving appetizers to guests. Her mom asked me to get a few images of her and her boyfriend Jesse by the nice cars… So I did. Upon spending some time with them, I came to find out that they were Seniors at Thousand Oaks High School, and that they needed senior portraits. So, we set something up, and this last week, we went over to Orcutt Ranch.

The lighting was perfect, the location was nearly free of other people, and we got some great shots.For the most part, I was using an off-camera flash set-up to compliment the gorgeous lighting.

Stay tuned for Jesse’s photos…. We got some great ones of him too, and we’ll be going to the Venice Beach skate park for his Senior Portraits as well.

Enjoy:

Give me a call to set up your portrait session…. 818.439.5727

Kid Jam is this Saturday, May 22nd.

Every year my church – West Hills Church – puts on a carnival for the kids in the area. It’s free, and it’s a lot of fun, with games, face painting, Bible stories, and puppet shows. And of course, some good food.

Last year I started a new tradition, I set up a photo-booth for the kids to come and get their photos taken, and receive a free 4×6. Donations were of course accepted. I will of course be there this Saturday. Sarah will be helping me out this time, and it’s gonna be a ton of fun! Make sure you stop by, and say hi, and get a free photo.

LetMeSail is a great organization that helps disabled individuals live a more independent life

The mission of LETMESAIL is to provide therapeutic, social, recreational, and educational opportunities for differently-abled individuals with disabilities (and their family members) enabling them to maximize their potential to lead a more independent, healthy, and enriched quality of life through a wide variety of activities held on-site at its Lifestyle Enrichment Center as well as a myriad of community-based activities.

Thanks to Jen O’Sullivan for putting this together, she organized, planned, and got everything in order. The engagement photoshoot was held at the Sunset Restaurant in Malibu, Which just happens to be the same restaurant that I took Sarah for our first date, and first anniversary(not wedding.) It’s a really great restaurant with an incredible view, and very, very delicious food. The plan was to have about 50 photographers, and 50 engaged couples that hadn’t yet chosen a photographer for their wedding yet. That way, everyone had the opportunity to work with 4-5 couples or photographers.

I was truly lucky to have 6 great couples to photograph. The hard part was this: I had only 15-20 minutes with each couple. That barely gives me any time… Most of my engagement sessions last between 2-3 hours, and we get dinner afterward to get to know each-other better. To top it off, as a rule, I know that the first 15 minutes don’t count when taking photos, It takes a little bit for my subjects to get used to the camera. In general, 15 minutes. So, as you can imagine, this put me in kind of a pressure-cooker of a situation. How am I supposed to make my couples look amazing without the warm-up time? And without the time that I usually take before the shoot to build up my rapport, and get to know my clients? To be honest, it felt a little dirty and quick. Get in/ get the shot/ get out. But you know what? it somehow worked! I got some incredible shots of my couples, and I think they’re going to love them.

Thanks Lisa and Trace, Amanda and Chad, Jen and Tim, Allison and Branden, Gabriela and Yariel, and of course Kim and Vincent! I had a ton of fun with you guys, and you all did such a great job with the portraits!

So, with no further ado(did I use that correctly?)… Here some of the photos:

And don’t forget to leave a comment!

What can I say? I’m not one to give up. I tried to cook a good orange chicken last week, but the recipe was really lacking in quality. Needless to say, I didn’t make a GOOD orange chicken. It was just mediocre. Then I tried a beef and broccoli dish that turned out very poorly. So I decided to try again… I was a little worried, and rightfully so. I’m not asian. I’m a white boy. I don’t have training in cooking good asian foods. But I’m persistent. And when you try hard enough at something, hopefully you will eventually succeed.

Ginger Beef is one of my favorite dishes when going to a Thai restaurant. I love the taste: sweet, with a bit of a kick from a ton of ginger and garlic. It’s a veritable firecracker in your mouth. Not from the spice, but just the plethora of flavor inherent in the recipe.

Now, everyone knows that a good Thai dish has to have a nice cold Thai Iced Tea to go along with it, and how could I resist trying to make that too?

So I do what I always do when I’m looking for a new recipe: I google it! Now I generally look up a few recipes, and I do that for a few reasons. One is because not everyone thinks that a dish should taste the way I think it should. So I usually mix and match recipes to make sure that I get the right taste out of my endeavor. So I found a few recipes for both the Ginger Beef and the Thai Iced Tea, and I chose the ones that I though would turn out the best. Turns out, they were REALLY GOOD! I modified the beef recipe a tiny little bit. It’s a little sweet, and I’d suggest using maybe a 1/3 cup of sugar instead of a 1/2 cup. But to each his own.

Enjoy!

Ginger Beef:

Ingredients

• 1lb sirloin steak (sliced into thin strips)
• 1 tablespoon canola oil
• 1 1/2 teaspoons sesame oil
• 1/4 cup chopped ginger
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 4 green onions, chopped
• 1 carrot, shredded
• 3 tablespoons Soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons cooking wine or apple juice(I used wine)
• 2 tablespoons rice or white vinegar(I used white)
• 1/2 cup sugar or Splenda®(I used sugar)
• 1/2 tablespoon cornstarch
• chili flakes to taste

Directions

1. Saute steak in canola and sesame oil with ginger and garlic. Barely brown both sides of the meat.
2. Add onions and carrot. Cook for 2 minutes.
3. Add sugar, stir constantly and allow to caramelize for a few seconds.
4. Combine Soy sauce, wine, vinegar, cornstarch and chili flakes. Add to stir-fry.
5. Bring mixture to a boil. Serve immediately. (with rice, or noodles. I used rice.)

Thai Iced Tea

Ingredients

• 6 cups water
• 1 cup Thai tea
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 6 tablespoons cream
• 6 tablespoons condensed milk

Directions

In a kettle, bring the water to a boil. Place the tea in a teapot or glass container. Pour the water over the tea and let steep until bright orange in color, 3 to 5 minutes. Strain into a clean container, such as a pitcher (or, if in tea bags, remove the bags). Add sugar and stir to dissolve. Let cool to room temperature, then cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Fill 6 tall glasses with crushed ice and add tea to 3/4 full. Add 1 tablespoon cream and 1 tablespoon condensed milk to each glass.

Serve with iced-tea spoon so guests can swirl the mixture themselves. I suggest providing straws with which to serve this drink.

Edit: After making it a few times, I like it better without the condensed milk….

Meet Eli.

Eli is my little cousin Gillian’s brand new baby. Born on the Ides of March, at almost 10 pounds. He’s huge. Which isn’t surprising to me; his dad, Ricky, is over 6 feet tall. The other reason that I knew Eli was going to be large was because EVERY time that Gillian had anything removed from her medically; Teeth, Tonsils, etc….  The doctors looked at her and said, “Those are the biggest (fill in the blank)s I’ve ever removed.” So you can imagine the anxiety of giving birth to a baby that, in all likelihood, would follow suit.

Either way, Eli is now here, and a party of our big, happy, weird family. And seriously the cutest newborn that I’ve ever seen. Gillian brought him over for his 1 month portraits, and they turned out great. Check them out below:

Don’t forget to leave a comment!

I’m just gonna start off by saying that I’m completely bummed about how poorly this recipe turned out. Really disappointed. I’m a big fan of Chinese food. I grew up as a little kid, going to Chines food restaurants and learned how to use chopsticks. My parents would always go to a place called Unam with us, but now unfortunately it changed owners, and frankly I’m a little scared to try it. My new favorite place for some good Chinese is Szeschuan Garden on Roscoe and Topanga… Great stuff. Sarah introduced it to me a few years back.

I’ve been craving Orange Chicken for a while now, and so I decided to make it. This recipe takes about 30 minutes of prep, a couple hours to marinate, and then a little bit longer to cook. So it’s a 3 or 4 hour long process. Not a problem, if the food turns out well. But in my case,  and I’m not a bad cook, it turned out just o.k, or mediocre… Which after slaving away and waiting patiently for 3 hours, is NOT o.k.! So I’m not gonna give you the recipe that I got. But if you really want to know, I’ll send you the link… Just PLEASE don’t make it. I even made everything from fresh ingredients, even home-grown oranges…. Sarah bought the chicken at costco though. It just turned out kind of bad, and the sauce clumped together too much.

The problem started here: Whenever I make a new meal, I look up the recipe online. I’ll look at 4 or 5 recipes, and take a little from each that I know will go well together, and work it that way… This time, I was a little pressed for time, and I only looked at one recipe… BIG mistake!

“So what’s this doing on my blog?”  You might ask??? Well, I planned on blogging about this, and when it turned out poorly, I was really bummed. I expressed my disappointment on my Facebook page, and was told by multiple people that they still wanted to see the images…

So here goes! I hope to have a better dish to share next time around… enjoy!

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I have a good friend Robert who is one of the strongest advocates that I know for helping out the underprivileged. Every time I talk to him, he’s telling me about a a different project he’s working on. But there is one specific corporation on which I’ve worked with him multiple times: Habitat for Humanity. This is such a great company. They help people, that wouldn’t qualify for it otherwise, get into a new home. The family helps build the house, and puts a ton of sweat-equity into it. And they are given a special interest rate. The Habitat homes have an incredible impact on the families. A nine year old girl can now have her own room, when she used to share one with her 3 older brothers. A mother can now wash clothes in her own home. They can now have a garage(in Ca.), where their cars won’t be Vandalized It’s not just a hand-out, it’s a hand UP.

Meet Jessica. She is the daughter of Donna Deutchman, CEO of Habitat for Humanity. She’s a High School Senior, and I will be shooting her senior portraits in the coming week. During the annual Builder’s Ball, which was located in the Universal City Marriott, Donna wanted a few photos of Jessica, and Jesse(Jessica’s boyfriend) by the cars. There were a few nice cars there. One was an original ’65 Shelby Cobra, and a Stingray Corvette. But they wanted photos by the RED one. Along with all the other photos I was taking during the event, I was able to capture some great portraits of Jessica and Jesse. I think I outdid what Donna was expecting, And they absolutely loved the images.

Here are my favorites:

It’s an exciting time to be starting out on a new venture. As I wrote before, the High School Senior Portrait market is pretty much completely un-tapped out here in Los Angeles. And since our high school seniors deserve to have a great portrait, and a great experience with the photos and photographer, I’ve decided to do some research, and find out the best ways to reach out, and help shape Los Angeles’ Senior Portrait market into what it can be.

Travis Williams is a Tucson based senior portrait artist, and a friend of mine. I drove out to Tucson to help out with my parents because my dad was coming home from the hospital with a fractured pelvis. I called up Travis to see if he had any photo-shoots that I could help out with. He had a senior session, and asked if I could assist for him. That was the Perfect opportunity to learn first hand what established senior portrait artists were doing. I learned a ton, and I’m looking forward to implementing what I learned during that time. We held the shoot in Downtown Tucson in a parking garage, and it provided an awesome urban backdrop.

I was able to get some shots in, and had a great time…. Here are some of the shots:

The Noah Camera Holster is now Shipping!

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Holster

Noah Camera Holster

The Noah Camera Holster slides onto your belt, and allows you to carry your Professional DLSR with any glass(including your 70-200 f/2.8) with the weight resting on your hips, rather than dragging your neck down and causing neck and back pain.

More Details

This Holster is made out of 100% billet aluminum. Made in the U.S.A. No outsourcing here.

The clip attaches to the tripod mount of your camera, and slides into the Noah Camera Holster, securing your camera as you walk or run around. The groove that holds the clip is precision milled to exacting specifications, and deep enough that there is no chance of your camera falling out.

The Noah Camera Holster is perfect for the event, and wedding professional, and even for press. Not a professional? That's ok too! It works great for your vacations to Europe or just down to the local nature trail.

I stopped using Neck straps due to the excessive weight around My neck. So I carried my camera around with just my hands. I needed a way to carry the camera with a system that wouldn't be too big, or prevent me from using the Vertical Shutter release. So I created the Noah Camera Holster.

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Noah Camera Holster DUO

The Noah Camera Holster DUO. Perfect for the professional 2-camera photographer. Comes with 3 clips to hold a third lens or camera.

More Details

This Holster is made out of 100% billet aluminum. Made in the U.S.A. No outsourcing here.

The clip attaches to the tripod mount of your camera, and slides into the Noah Camera Holster, securing your camera as you walk or run around. The groove that holds the clip is precision milled to exacting specifications, and deep enough that there is no chance of your camera falling out.

The Noah Camera Holster is perfect for the event, and wedding professional, and even for press. Not a professional? That's ok too! It works great for your vacations to Europe or just down to the local nature trail.

I stopped using Neck straps due to the excessive weight around My neck. So I carried my camera around with just my hands. I needed a way to carry the camera with a system that wouldn't be too big, or prevent me from using the Vertical Shutter release. So I created the Noah Camera Holster.

Product is now shipping!

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You know how they say that no-one is actually FROM Los Angeles? I’m one of the few that can actually say that I was born and raised in L.A. I grew up in Woodland Hills in the San Fernando Valley. When I was 10 my family moved to Tucson Arizona. I lived there until I was 20, when I moved back to L.A. I now live about 2  miles from the house where I grew up. I went to High-school in Tucson. I graduated, got a class ring, and ad my Senior Portraits taken. I in fact had two senior portraits. One in studio that my school required for me to take if I wanted my photo in the yearbook, and my REAL senior portraits. The ones on which my parents spent a lot of money, bought a nice big framed print, and sent to my relatives. I figured that this was standard procedure. As it turns out, it seems that every state in our great country has the tradition of getting REAL senior portraits, EXCEPT for California!

I know this sounds ridiculous, but it’s true! I’ve talked to a few seniors about this, and they had no idea that the studio session, with the boring, 1 pose, shot wasn’t what the rest of the country did. When I talked to them about doing senior portraits they weren’t interested. I though to myself, what’s wrong with them? They don’t want photos that they’ll actually like? Photos that they’ll enjoy taking, and not feel uncomfortable with all the big photography gear and the studio Where they’re just a number, and they have to pay $30 for a portrait that they won’t love? I didn’t get it. But upon further review, I found out that the senior portraits that I was used to weren’t at all part of the market out here in L.A.!

So I have started a very tough endeavor. I need to educate L.A.’s seniors(and Juniors) about the REAL senior portraits. So I started off with Jeth. She’s my friend’s little sister, and has 15 weeks of school left before she graduates. We went to Orcutt Ranch for the Senior Photos, and brought along her friend Flo, who is also graduating shortly. We had a great time, and spent about an hour and a half taking photos. Jeth and Flo were awesome, and the session went flawlessly. Check out the photos below, and leave some love in the comments section.

Enjoy!

The Haitians weren’t in good shape before this earthquake, and unless somebody steps in and helps out, they never will be. I wish it was more common to pay attention to the needy people in 3rd world countries and even our own country. Unfortunately it usually takes an earthquake, or a tsunami or a hurricane to open our eyes to the horrible living conditions that make up a large existence of our world.

We are blessed in this country, yet we can barely make it ourselves with all of our financial and social obligations.  I know that we tell ourselves, “I’ll help out next time.” or “I don’t have anything to give.” But that just turns into a vicious cycle of non-action and regret.

So here’s a call to action: Donate to the relief efforts in Haiti.
I know it’s difficult to find any spare income to give, and your next paycheck is probably already spent, But money isn’t the only resource that you have: You have time, and you have God-given talents that you can use to make an impact.

I personally don’t have anything monetary to give, but this is what I can and will do: For anyone who donates any amount over $50 to the relief efforts in Haiti, I will offer them a complimentary portrait session worth $150. I really wish I could give money, but this is all I can give. I can help by giving my time to help those in need. On top of the portrait session, I will donate 25% of the print sales to relief efforts as well(World Vision).

I hope that you take advantage of this. And I hope that It’s not just because you get something out of it. I just want to be able to make a difference, and I hope that you join me. God has blessed me with certain talents, and I want to share them and use them. Will you help me? Will you help the Haitians? I pray that you will take this chance and join me in making a difference.

God Bless,
Let’s help out Haiti!
Call me today: 818.439.5727

Here’s a list of organizations that will take your donations: The links will take you directly to their donation pages so you don’t have to search.

• World Vision – Haiti Earthquake Relief
• American Red Cross Haiti Relief and development
• Unicef – Haiti Children’s relief

I, for some reason, enjoy traveling. I’m not just talking about traveling to some foreign country, or even visiting family. I’m talking about sitting on airplanes, waiting for hours or even sleeping in airports, traveling by train, or even by car or ship. I can’t explain it, but I have always enjoyed it. Sarah and I went on a cruise for our honeymoon. The part I enjoyed most? It wasn’t walking up to the top of Dunn’s River Falls in Jamaica, or the Tequila factory in México. It was our days at sea, going to our destinations.

This weekend was no exception, Sarah and I flew up to Arlington Heights(Chicago Area), Illinois, along with Sarah’s mom, to visit Ryan, Jenny(Sarah’s Sister), and Tanner(Our nephew). We were supposed to go to Chicago a month ago for Tanner’s 2nd birthday, but a ton of stuff got in the way, and we had to postpone our flight to this last weekend. Well, wouldn’t you know it, Chicago decided to get to 20˚F and snow 12 inches the very day that we were supposed to go. I always have a can-do attitude, so I said to the family, “let’s go anyway.” My reasoning was that if our flight was cancelled, we would be stuck in our layover city(Phoenix) and my mom could pick us up and drop us off the next day. Well, we somehow got all the way to Chicago with no problems at all. and were able to spend the whole weekend there with no delays or problems!

Tanner is one of my favorite subjects to photograph. I know, I’m probably a little biased, but I just think he’s the cutest thing ever. He recently started talking A LOT… and he LOVES Elmo and chocolate. He’s always asking for chocolate(shoclate) milk.

So here are the photos from this last weekend. There were so many  great photos that I had to narrow it down to my favorites.

I’ve been talking a lot about building up your web traffic without spending a ton of money, and actually doing it yourself. If you are just starting this 5 part article right now, go back and read Part 1-3. You’ll see the links below:

• Part 1: SEO – Why your web traffic sucks(The Bad News)
• Part 2: SEO – 5 simple steps to improve search engine ranking(The Good News)
• Part 3: WordPress
• Part 4: Noah Photo Blogsites <—You are here.
• Part 5: Social Media and Networking.(How twitter and facebook can change your life)

Well, I’m really hoping that you installed WordPress, and maybe tried out a few themes. I’ll be talking about the Noah Photo Blogsites now, and how they can be beneficial to you.

This part isn’t really geared to getting people to visit your site, it’s more about getting them to interact and stay on your site longer. What I love about my blogsites, well one of the things that I love is the elegant clean layout. I’ve talked to A LOT of people about what they do or don’t like about websites, and tried to incorporate the good stuff into the blogsites. People like ease of use. They want to be able to get anywhere with a couple clicks of a button without having to search everywhere. They don’t like confusing layouts, or scrolling for a mile and a half. The Noah Photo Blogsites have passed the MOM test. Can YOUR mother go to your website and navigate the content?

Another thing I really love about these blogsites is that all you need to do is upload your own header image, background image, bio image(if your blogsite has a bio section,) and change some colors  around. It’s amazing how much you can really do with these sites. It really is limitless. What can your imagination do? That’s the limit.

Although there are only two designs right now, I’m in the planning stages for a few more. So stay tuned. Also the beauty of these blogsites is that they are 100% interchangeable. If you see a new layout that I designed that you want to change/upgrade to, just ask, and it’s yours for no charge. You have to have purchased a Noah Photo Blogsite in the past of course, but all the same, these come with a full lifetime of free upgrades.

I love the fact that they’re so easy to install and work with. In the video below I show myself installing the Noah Photo Blogsite theme onto the wordpress blog that we created yesterday. The video is 10 minutes, and apart from uploading the theme, that’s about how long it takes to install, and change a few things around… can you beat that? That means that if you put yesterday’s video and today’s video together, I installed WordPress, a few plugins, installed the Noah Photo Blogsite theme and imported our old blog in about 20 minutes. Now I do realize that I’m a pro, and have been doing this for a while, but I show you how to do everything here, you just need to try it out… I realize this isn’t for everyone, and that’s why I offer installation support which can be purchased separately.

Now what should you do to keep people on your site longer? Well, content, content, content. You need to have interesting content on your site. Whether that be videos, photographs that you made, captivating articles, or anything really that can keep and hold people’s attention. I wish it was as easy as “if you build it, they will come.” But it just isn’t. You have to work hard at creating top notch blogs, or showcasing your incredible images. And another thing, keep on updating your blog. I’ve seen too many great blogs go to waste because their owners stopped caring for them. Remember that this is YOUR space. This is your virtual storefront. You don’t want people to come to your virtual storefront and come to the conclusion that you haven’t been in for over 5 months. Would you go to a business that the owner or manager hadn’t actually visited the store in over 5 months? I wouldn’t want to invest my time into a company that is an obvious dead end.

There are people that have decided to blog every day for a year. EVERY DAY! Can you imagine? I’m having a tough enough time creating fresh content over this week of articles alone. But every day for a year? Could you imagine what that could do to help your business grow? Remember what I was saying about search engines loving text? Imagine having a years worth of text talking about all the places you shot a portrait session, or would like to shoot a portrait session. Imagine if somebody searched for a photographer at Leo Carillo beach, and just because you visited the beach with your sister, took some photos and posted them to your daily blog, you just booked a wedding at that beach. Wouldn’t that be amazing? It happens all the time.

Should you create a daily blog? Maybe. It’s not for everyone. I lack the discipline to do it at the moment. But do you think you could put forth the effort to writing interesting content? You’ll be happy you did, and so will the people visiting your site. At the very least, take 1 photo a week, write a blog post highlighting it, and talk about how you created the image. Where you were, what is in the image, what you would do differently. And ask for people to take part in a discussion, and let them leave comments and even critique your photo if you want.

So here’s the bottom line. You want the people coming to your site to stay more than 10 seconds. In order for that to happen you need to make sure that you 1. have a great looking site. The Noah Photo Blogsites are the perfect fit for that. And 2. Create fresh and interesting content.

That’s it for today, and I hope to hear what you think… Also make sure you get yourself a Noah Photo Blogsite, and take control of your site’s image today!

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s article.

Over the past two days I’ve talked about SEO, what NOT to do and what TO do. If you are just starting here, make sure you read Part 1& 2[link] first.

Here’s what I’ll be talking about over the next few days.

• Part 1: SEO – Why your web traffic sucks(The Bad News)
• Part 2: SEO – 5 simple steps to improve search engine ranking(The Good News)
• Part 3: WordPress <—You are here.
• Part 4: Noah Photo Blogsites
• Part 5: Social Media and Networking.(How twitter and facebook can change your life)

I’ve talked a little about WordPress, and how it can be beneficial. The incredible coding structure and integrity of the XHTML. Along with the plethora of tools available for free. But I haven’t really talked about what it is, or how to use it. I’ll be discussing that today and showing you how easy it is to do anything on it. I won’t get into the Noah Photo Blogsites yet… we’ll have to wait for Part 4, but I will be referencing them a little here and there.

I finished Part 2 with a call to action: GET A BLOGSITE! Now I’m gonna assume you didn’t… if you did, then Congratulations, you are on the road to Web Traffic Recovery. But for those of you who didn’t, I’m gonna conclude a few things:

Either

1. You have no clue how to do such a thing
2. You just spent a bunch of money on your beautiful new Flash site
3. You think it’s gonna cost you money, or
4. You don’t want to put forth the effort to improve your web ranking.

Well I’m gonna clear up a few confusions… If you already have a URL, you can install wordpress free of charge. All you do is set up a subdomain(blog.URL.com) or a new folder(www.url.com/blog) upload wordpress to it, configure a new database(in your cpanel,) and plug in a few figures. I’ll even show you how to do this in the video. Now I know that number 4 isn’t true, otherwise you wouldn’t be at part 3.

Now I do understand 100% if you don’t want to get rid of your flash site. I really do. But I just want you to realize that you won’t be getting any search traffic on it. If you decide to keep WordPress separate from your site, then that’s fine, but the beauty of the Noah Photo Blogsites is that you can either use it as a traditional blog, or as a blogsite. Either way, you’re fine. But whatever you do, if you have a domain name already, get rid of your free blog and install wordpress on your site today!

Are you worried about your old blog or how you are going to recreate everything? Well, wordpress has a nifty import tool that allows you to import your old blog with a couple clicks. That’s it! now all you have to do is forward your old blog to your new blogsite!

WordPress and it’s plugins

WordPress is an open source project. It’s constantly being updated with new improvements. But honestly, it’s so amazing now, that I’m not sure what else they could want to do. WordPress was designed to be a standalone blog engine that you could install on your site. It has an administration section that makes adding new posts and pages super simple. It has a pretty decent media system that makes uploading photos, audio, and video easy. You can download and install plugins with the click of a button, along with new themes and templates. It’s 100% configurable to your heart’s desires. If you want something, there’s a way to do it.

Now, I think it’s obvious why this is better than any static html site. Every page on an html site needs to be designed and coded individually. Sure you can use css, and copy and paste, but everything from menus to uploading and updating everything has to be done manually… There is no easy way to do it. Also if you want to have any kind of extra special thing, like a blog, there’s no easy way to go about it… And don’t even get me started on trying to build an xml file for your html blog… forget about it…

WordPress takes away all of the hard, difficult parts of running your website.

WordPress can look however you want. If you want big images to impress your clients, that’s possible. If you want a simple, clean, full 1000 pixel design, that’s doable. In short, WordPress IS all it’s cracked up to be, and more.

This is a list of my favorite plugins and what they allow me to do. They range from eye-candy, to nitty gritty seo tools.

1- All-In-One SEO Pack:

This plugin allows you to have control over every page’s title, description, and keywords(if you decide you need them for some reason.) It also has some advanced uses, like turning on and off canonical links. This prevents you from having duplicate posts. For example, you have a blog post under blog, but also under favorite photos, google will mark you as spamming. The Canonical links tell google that this other blog is just a copy… The original is at such and such a link. This is a MUST HAVE plugin.

2- Featured Content Gallery:

This is the slideshow you see on the front page of my site. This let’s you select a certain blog category as the FEATURED blog. You upload an image, and paste the url(provided) into a custom field, with the name of article img. It sounds difficult, but trust me… it’s easy. A lot of people want just a slideshow that has nothing to do with their posts… I have a couple options for that.

3- WordPress Gallery Slideshow:

This is a slideshow that you use on individual pages. It makes inserting photos super simple. All you do is upload images to your blogpost or your page, and type [ slide ]….  and when you go to that page, you have a slideshow with your images. It’s really quite amazing.

4- Slideshow Gallery:

This slideshow is like the featured content gallery, except that it’s not dependent on blog-posts. All you do is insert the URL of an image that you want in the slideshow, and click save slide. It automatically adds that slide to your slideshow. This is great if you have an extensive portfolio. I prefer using the Featured content gallery, just because I like to have a headline image.

5- cforms:

This plugin allows you to have very flexible mail forms. On your contact page you can insert a form so that anyone can send you an email without having to copy and paste your email address into their mail program. Don’t leave home without this one.

6- FeedBurner FeedSmith:

This plugin allows you to redirect your rss feeds through feedburner, so you can get accurate statistics as to who is reading your blogs… pretty cool.

7- WPtouch iPhone Theme:

This plugin is just cool. It reformats your wordpress blog so that if you have traffic that visits your site on an iphone, or android, or a few other smart phones, it works perfectly for their little screens. Another one to not leave home without.

8- Twitter Tools:

If you’re like me, and you spend a decent amount of time on twitter, this little guy is great. Not only will it tweet your latest posts for you onto twitter, but it will also allow you to tweet from the admin menu, or directly onto your twitter widget. So if your job doesn’t allow twitter, you now have a workaround(without going over the text limit on your phone.) I would never actually suggest this, and I personally wouldn’t do that… but it’s there all the same.

9- Subscribe2:

I love this plugin… It allows people to subscribe to your blog with their email address. It also allows you to schedule how often, and at what time you will deliver updates. Per blog entry, up to a weekly digest.

10- Ultimate Google Analytics:

This one is just cool… All you need to do is paste your google analytics code into the settings menu, and you’re good to go. I always make sure to turn off tracking for the admin user. that way I don’t get false reads. I did actually create a space on the Noah Photo Blogsites where you can paste in your Google Analytics code… which in effect allows you to not have to install this plugin… but either way it works great.

And last, but not least:

11- Smart Youtube:

When you want to blog about, or include a youtube video on your site, all you will need to do after installing this plugin is copy the full URL, and past it into your blog post. next you just add v to the http://www.— so that it looks like httpv://www.—. Pretty easy, and once you define video size that you want, it takes care of everything for you.

That’s it for you today. I hope this shed a little light on what wordpress can do for you. Other than SEO-wise…. WordPress is just an incredible platform that is ever expanding in capabilities… install it today. and in case you still think it’s too hard, or don’t understand what’s so great about this…. just watch this video:

Make sure to read part 4 here:

Part 4: Noah Photo Blogsites

Yesterday I talked about what NOT to do for SEO. There is a list of common mistakes and practices that will actually harm your search engine ranking. If you missed it, go back and start there. here’s the link: [link]

Here’s what I’ll be talking about over the next few days.

• Part 1: SEO – Why your web traffic sucks(The Bad News)
• Part 2: SEO – 5 simple steps to improve search engine ranking(The Good News)
• Part 3: WordPress
• Part 4: Noah Photo Blogsites
• Part 5: Social Media and Networking.(How twitter and facebook can change your life)

I’m gonna skip over the introduction to SEO talk that I gave yesterday, and assume that you either already know it, or just read about it. I’ll talk instead about a simple well-known marketing concept: Know your audience. I know it sounds simple enough, and everyone knows it, but what have you done to implement it? Yes, It is important to run your business in a way, and present yourself in a way that holds true to your personality. But when you are building, or re-building your website, you need to take into account what you are actually selling, and to whom you are selling. Can you identify with your client? Can your prospective client identify with you?

In an ideal world we would be able to do business with people just like us. We wouldn’t have to change, we would be able to do whatever we wanted. But since we don’t live in this ideal world, we have to make compromises. We actually need to draw in the clientele that pays the bills. And how we represent ourselves, and what we know about our clientele is paramount.

When I was developing my Noah Photo Blogsites I made sure to talk to multiple photographers. Ask them what they wanted in a website, and took all that data, and tried to make it as best as possible. I found out that they wanted to be able to control the look of their site without having to touch a single line of code. An easy to use admin section that they could change a few things here and there easily. WordPress was the obvious choice for the platform(this is what I use, and the platform is incredible.) But I was able to make the blogsites to the standards that photographers desired and required.

Step 1: Keywords(not the meta tag ones)

You might be wondering why I’m talking about marketing and branding when I should be talking about SEO. Well this principle applies with SEO. Especially what KEYWORDS to be using. Now I’m not talking about Meta tag keywords, I’m talking about the search words with which you want your clients to find your website. You need to find out what your future clients will be searching. Are they looking for “unique family portraits in Canoga Park”? Well, you need to actually write those exact words inside your website. Whether they be in an introduction, or inside of the text in your site. Refer to them a few times. Mention Canoga Park at about 3-5 times. But no more than that. If you write that you make unique family portraits in Canoga Park a bunch of times in a row, you will be marked as spamming keywords, and your search engine ranking will drop.

You’re gonna want to sit down, and write a list of keywords that you will be using. Call past clients, and ask them what they would search if they were looking for a photographer. This might take a little time, but it will definitely help clarify what you will actually be writing in your website.

Then you are going to want to actually sit down and write your website content in a way that makes use of your keywords. I could go into a ton of detail about keyword saturation and proximity and such, but until you get the basics of SEO down, that would be pointless.

Step 2: Is your site clean?

I want you to go to http://validator.w3.org/ and see how many errors or warnings your website contains. You are going to want to fix these. The cleaner your website is, the better your SEO ranking will be. Mind you, this is not the end all to SEO. This is simple just a step that you want to take to improve the health of your site. The incredible thing about WordPress, is that it is such a robust engine, and that it has the cleanest mark-up, and coding of pretty much anything around. That’s why blogs or blogsites hosted by wordpress far outweigh the competition in search engine friendliness.

Step 3: You URL (www)

What does your URL say about you? Is your web URL simply http://www.yournameherephotography.com? Yes, this is good for ease of use, and I’m not gonna tell you to get rid of it. But what about forwarding it to a more search friendly name like www.noahphotographyincanogapark.com. Basically you would be hosting your site at www.noahphotographyincanogapark.com but keeping your url for email purposes and for ease of use. Nobody wants to type in a huge URL, that’s why I send everyone to http://www.losangelesportraits.org it’s easy to remember and fairly short.

The reason that you want your site hosted on a URL that is search friendly is because the spiders love text correlation. They want to see that your URL has a correlation to your Page title, which also correlates to the page description, which correlates to the actual text in your website. Which I’ll get into in the next step.

Step 4: Page Titles, Descriptions, and Text.

Just as important as your URL, if not more so, is how you use your page titles and description, along with how relevant they are to your text. you could have the perfect url, title, and description, but if they aren’t relevant to the text that’s actually on the page, you’re kind of screwed.

I go to a lot of websites where I look at the page title, and see “home” or “about” or “blog” as the page title. That’s good at describing where you are, but honestly this isn’t usually a thing that people look at. I usually use my page title to quickly, in a few words, describe my page. Each individual page. not just a generic “noah photography, weddings, portraits and products in Los Angeles.” Although that is a good title, and it describes what I do… it will usually only work well on the about pages, or pages that describe what you do in your business. So for each page or post that I write, I will create a custom page title that quickly sums up what the page is about. for this page I wrote the following as my title:

“How to optimize traffic to your website, and get them to stay longer. SEO, WordPress, and Noah Photo Blogsites.”

So along with the page title you’ve gotta have your description. This is where you describe your page in 160 characters or less. for example:

“A 5 part tutorial on driving traffic to your website and getting them to stay there longer. SEO, WordPress, and Noah Photo Blogsites. (SEO for photographers)”

You see how this describes what I’ll be talking about in these articles? What you want to do is make sure that these two have a good relevancy to your actual page. So Ideally, If you want people to search “unique family portraits in Canoga Park” you want to have Canoga Park, or Portraits in your URL. Then your title would also contain “unique family portraits in Canoga Park” and then your description would be something along the lines of “Noah photography specializes in  unique family portraits. Located in Canoga Park, we serve the whole San Fernando Valley.” Now the content of your page needs to reflect the search words. If you use this foursome(URL, title, description, and content) wisely, your search engine rankings will improve drastically.

I know that this sounds difficult, but with WordPress, there is a plugin called “All in one SEO Pack” that makes this incredibly easy. Each page or post can have it’s own title, description, and obviously you control the content. Next turn on your WordPress permalinks, and you’ve got your URL working for you too.

Step 5: Get a Blogsite

I know this might seem out of order, but the other 4 things you can do without getting a blogsite.

What can a blogsite do for you and your SEO? Well like I said before, WordPress has a plethora(yes I said plethora) of tools at your disposal to implement and create a unique blog. In my opinion, the blogsite is the best bet for SEO. It brings everything together under one umbrella. Now, like I said yesterday, a free blog hosted NOT on your site will do nothing for your search engine optimization. You want to go to WordPress.org to download and install your self hosted blog. It’s absolutely free.

As you know, spiders LOVE text. And with a blog, you are continuously adding more and more text to your  website. The more and more search relevant text you have on your website, the better.

So you ask, why a blogsite rather than a blog that is separate from your site? There are a lot of reasons, but in short here’s a few.

1. If you have a flash site, the search engines will have a harder time finding your blog unless you have a landing pages… and don’t get me started on landing page… Web traffic HATES landing pages.
2. You are going to have to duplicate everything that’s on your flash site to your blog anyway. A lot of people don’t have flash installed on their computer, and they aren’t gonna install it just to view YOUR site.
3. If you still have a static HTML site why not just make your life easier every time you want to change something or add a little bit of text, or just add a whole new page?
4. You have a lot more consistent look and feel. You don’t have to worry about branding your website and blog the same…. it just happens automatically.
5. They’re free! what more can I say? if you can follow a few fairly simple instructions, you can install wordpress in under an hour, and be blogging by dinner. YOURSELF!
6. You can get great pre-designed themes for your blogsite. Specifically the Noah Photo Blogsites. While not free, they are a cut above everything else that’s out there(I might be a little biased.) I don’t say this without caution of course. I can back it up. The reason they are so great, is the static front page and the incredible customization that is possible with them. Look around at other blogsite themes that are available, and you’ll see what I’m talking about. You go to the front page, and it’s a BLOG. and it scrolls on forever, and it takes a minute and a half to load. Sure, it’s great looking, but it’s not a true blogsite. You are looking for a blogsite, where you can have a slideshow on your front page, or a promotional video(coming soon.)

So will you get a blogsite? Do it today!

That’s gonna do it for today, but Stay tuned for tomorrows article on WordPress, and find out how it can make your online presence so much easier and better. I hope you learned something today. I know that this isn’t the be-all, end-all, of SEO… Far from it. But it is enough to give you a very large boost in the right direction.

I’ll see you tomorrow!

Part 3: WordPress – Read it Now!