Photography Concentrate

The Secret Way To Learn Photography Better

Wed, 23 May 2012 04:00:00 -0600

Learning photography is a challenging process. Some shooters head to organized schools, while others spend countless hours scouring the internet and devouring books to teach themselves the skill. But there’s one technique that can help you learn photography, and it’s hardly ever talked about at all.

And that, very simply, is to teach photography to someone else.

You see, teaching photography forces you to acquire a deeper understanding of the subject than if you were just doing it. This concept isn’t new. In fact, nearly 2000 years ago, Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC - 65 AD) said: Docendo discimus, which means: “By teaching, we learn”.

We’ve been teaching for the majority of our photographic careers, and we can tell you that it has been one of the biggest factors in how quickly and thoroughly we have learned the necessary skills!

So this isn’t just another article to get you excited about photography. I seriously want you to teach someone else, even if you’ve never ever done it before. I’m going to walk you through the process, so you can get out there and make it happen!

How Teaching Helps You Learn Photography

Teaching requires full and total understanding of your subject matter. You have to be able to explain things clearly and concisely, as well as take advanced ideas and break them down into simple concepts for a beginner. You also have to be prepared to answer questions, and explain things in a few different ways, in case your student isn’t getting it. In order to do all this, you need to have a solid grasp of the fundamentals.

Now, a lot of photographers don’t really have those fundamentals down pat, especially if they learned how to shoot on their own. Schools have structured curriculums that drill these in, but if you’re one of the ever-growing number of self-taught shooters, you probably work more intuitively than technically. You can certainly get by on that, but photography becomes a much richer and more fascinating pursuit when you fully understand what is going on. You’ll also be able to handle a wider array of challenges when your fundamentals are rock solid!

So one of the first things you have to do when teaching photography to someone else is brush up on the material. Teaching will really put the pressure on you to make sure you understand!

Another big part of the learning that comes from teaching exists in the teacher-student interactions that take place. This is probably one of the most exciting parts about teaching! Sometimes, it’s as simple as a student asking you a question that you don’t know the answer to—maybe something you never even thought was important to learn.

The first thing to realize is that this is nothing to be embarrassed about. If you pretend to know the answer, or make something up, you’re hurting both yourself and your student. Humility is the key to lifelong learning. You have to accept your own limitations, and then work to overcome them. So if you get a question that you don’t know the answer to, hit the books and find out! Your students will probably push you to go and learn new things, and that’s fantastic!

Another way students are a big part of the learning equation is due to their unique perspectives on the subject matter. Photography is an exciting field because there is very little right and wrong. Instead, different perspectives, ideas and approaches are embraced and encouraged. Your students may have a completely different way of looking at a topic than you, and these new ideas can be incredibly inspiring! Often beginners come into photography with no baggage, and no pre-conceived notions about how things should be done. That makes their work some of the most refreshing of all. As a teacher you’ll get access to this fresh perspective, and get a chance to look at old topics in a brand new way. Once you know this incredibly valuable aspect of teaching, you can see why it’s such an important process!

When Are You Ready To Teach?

I’m sure that a lot of you are thinking that this all sounds lovely, but you’re not nearly advanced enough to be able to teach. Well, that’s not true at all.

See, even if you’re just in your first year of photography, you are still further along than someone who hasn’t started at all and would be able to help them out!

When we were only one year into our business we began getting a lot of questions from other shooters. We knew we could help them by sharing what we had learned so far, so we held a totally free workshop in our home, and had a fantastic group of photographers over. We had a little presentation, went out shooting together, and then we let them ask questions and we answered as best we could.

That experience was definitely nerve-wracking. We were super new, and there was a lot about photography we didn’t know. But between the great feedback we received, and the energy that comes from teaching, we were hooked, and have kept doing it ever since!

So no matter where you are in your photography journey, remember that you surely know enough to teach even just the basics to someone else! Then, as you learn more, you can teach more!

Who To Teach

Now, you’re probably wondering just who you should teach. Well, that’s simple: anyone!

We’ve taught everyone from kids, to brand new photographers, right up to shooters with decades more experience than us. And no matter what stage they were at, we had things to offer our students, and, very importantly, they had things to offer us too.

So think about who you know that is interested in photography, and what you could teach them. It could be your significant other, your friends, new photographers, or even your kids! Anyone who wants to learn is the perfect person to teach.

You can also teach in many different formats. It can be one-on-one, in a small group, or a large lecture theatre. You can meet in person, chat over the phone or with online video, or you can write articles and tutorials and post them online. We’ve taught in all these ways, and can tell you that each and every one is effective! They all have their pros and cons, of course, so you’ll have to figure out what works best for you and your students.

Teaching can be a formal experience, or you can do it casually. If you’re just getting started, you might be most comfortable just explaining what you learned that day to your significant other or a helpful friend. Then, as you get more experienced, you can begin teaching in a more structured way! You don’t need to start big—the simple act of rephrasing and explaining material can do wonders to help you understand it better!

How To Do It

First you need to understand what your student is hoping to learn in their time with you. Once you know their goal, you can prepare appropriately to help them achieve it!

Then, you have to figure out how you’ll teach them the material. Overall you should be trying to make it easier for them to learn the subject than it was for you. You probably won the knowledge through a lot of hard trial and error. The goal of teaching is to give the benefits of that experience to your student!

So figure out how you can make it easy for your student to learn. Sometimes this involves simplifying a complex topic, and getting down to the fundamentals. Or perhaps you could compile all the necessary information into one place. When getting your materials together, put yourself in the student’s mindset, and walk through the lesson. Are there any places where they might get confused? If so, figure out how to make things clearer.

When you’re actually teaching your students, there are a few things you can do to help them to learn better from you. First, make sure they understand that there are no such things as stupid questions, and that you encourage them to speak up if anything is unclear. Too often people are afraid to ask a question for fear of looking dumb. But we’ve already established that that is a silly fear, and that the dumb thing is not asking and learning!

Also encourage your students to take notes when they learn. Not only does it allow them to reference the material later, but it also helps to increase comprehension when they write down concepts in their own words.

Finally, make sure your students take what they’ve learned, and go out and practice, practice, practice! What you teach them won’t ever become a skill unless they go out and shoot!

Important Final Thoughts

Teaching is a very serious responsibility. You’re taking someone else’s education into your own hands, and that’s not a task to take lightly. When you teach, do your prep—research the topic from all angles to make sure you are giving them solid information. And remember: if you don’t know the answer, go look it up, don’t make it up!

Never forget that you can learn from everyone you ever encounter. To really get the full benefit of teaching you need to have an open mind, and see it as a fantastic opportunity for mutual learning!

Most of all, teaching photography is an amazing way to deepen your love and appreciation for the art. Enthusiasm is contagious, so get excited about sharing what you know with others, and you’ll be amazed at how stoked your students will become!

So, who are you going to teach now?

What To Read Next

About the Author: Hey friend, I’m Lauren! I’m a professional photographer and head ninja here at Photography Concentrate. I’m downright obsessed with photography, and love sharing it with super cool folks like yourself. When I’m not shooting, or writing, you can find me cooking (and eating!), traveling, and hanging out with wonderful people.

The Essential Guide to Photography Slang

Tue, 15 May 2012 04:00:00 -0600

When you first get into photography, you might feel like you’ve entered a different world. Everyone talks funny, and seems obsessed over completely mundane details, like the speed of glass. You might be left bewildered, wondering just when glass started to move on it’s own, and what’s the deal with chimps??

Well, worry not. We have compiled this handy guide to photography slang, both terms and acronyms, to help you navigate these often-confusing waters! This list is focused on colloquial terms that you might not find in the dictionary. For a very comprehensive guide to standard photography terms, check out the Kodak Glossary of Photographic Terms or the Nikon Photography Glossary.

Terms

You’ll hear these in conversations between shooters.

Tog/Photog: Shortened terms for photographer.

Glass: Lenses. As in “Ooh, that’s some fancy new glass you got there!”, referring to a lens.

Fast/Slow: Used to describe the maximum aperture of a lens. A fast lens has a very low maximum aperture (like f/1.4), which allows you to let in more light, and use a faster shutter speed. A slow lens (like f/5.6) shooting the same scene would require a longer shutter speed to get the same exposure. In general, a faster lens is more desirable (and more expensive) than a slower lens. Often combined with “glass”, e.g. “I need to get some fast glass!”

Chimping: Looking at the LCD after taking a photo. The term comes from the suggestion that photographers make chimp-like noises (“Ooh ooh ooh!”) when admiring the great shot they just took.

Pixel Peeper/Peeping: Checking out the image quality of a camera or lens by opening up an image file on the computer, zooming waaaay in, and scrutinizing the quality down to the pixel. Often considered a derogatory term, and suggests that these photographers are not taking real world standards into account.

Magic/Golden Hour: The hour or so before sunset, and after sunrise, when the angle of the sun produces magical, golden light. A fantastic time to take photos outdoors. Read this article for more tips on shooting at this magic time.

Spray and Pray: Shooting a large amount of images without much care, and hoping that one will turn out.

Uncle Bob: A term used by wedding photographers to describe a relative with a camera who tends to get in the way of the hired photographer.

Bokeh: A Japanese term used to describe the quality of the out-of-focus areas in an image. If it’s particularly pleasing, you’ll hear “Sweet bokeh!” Pronunciation varies, usually either “boh-kay” or “boh-ke”.

Prime: A fixed focal length lens. The other option is a zoom lens, which can move between a range a focal lengths.

Nifty 50: A 50mm fixed focal length lens. Considered a fantastically useful focal length.

Blown Out: When bright areas in an image are so overexposed that they lose all detail, and become pure white.

Grip and Grin: A snapshot-type photo, where the subjects grip on to each other, look at the camera, and grin.

Selfie: A self-portrait.

Sharp: Can describe a lens or an image. A lens can be considered sharp if it provides clear, crisp images. A photo can be sharp if it is perfectly in focus, and has clear detail.

Soft: The opposite of sharp. A lens can be considered soft when it doesn’t provide sharp images. A photo could be soft if it was slightly out-of-focus.

Noisy: Describes the quality of an image in regards to the amount of digital noise—grainy artifacts in the photo. It might also be used to describe a camera, for instance “It’s really noisy at 3200 ISO”.

Frame: You may hear “fill the frame”, or “I took ten frames to get a good one”, or “In this frame the cat is sleeping”. This term is used pretty frequently! Filling the frame, or looking for distractions in the frame, refers to the image that you are taking. Framing an image generally means to choose your composition (rather than putting a wooden frame on a print). Taking frames means to take photos.

Flare: Also known as lens flare, this refers to the effect achieved when light is internally reflected in a lens. It results in colourful streaks, circles, and rays. While traditionally seen as an error, it has become more desirable as a way to add a little pizzaz to the photo.

Acronyms

These are more commonly used online, rather than said verbally. These are some of the most common ones, but there’s an enormous list right here on Wikipedia if you run across others that you need to decode!

SLR: Single lens reflex. A type of camera that lets you view the image through the same lens that takes the photo.

DSLR: Digital single lens reflex. An SLR camera that has a digital sensor, rather than film.

P&S: Point-and-shoot camera. A small, consumer level camera that is easy to use, to the point of only needing to point and shoot. Lacks a lot of the advanced features of SLR cameras.

B&W: Black and white. An image without colour, but made up of tones of black and white.

HDR: High dynamic range. A style of shooting that involves combining multiple exposures to achieve greater dynamic range.

DOF: Depth of Field. The range of focus in your image. How much of your image is sharp in front of and behind the point you’re focused on.

AF: Auto-focus. The ability of a lens, or camera, to automatically focus on a subject.

OOF: Out of focus. An image that isn’t in focus, or referring to specific areas in the image that aren’t in focus.

OCF: Off-camera flash. The use of external flashes that aren’t mounted on top of the camera.

PP: Post-processing. Using software to edit an image on the computer.

SOOC: Straight out of camera. An image that hasn’t yet had any post processing done to it.

ACR: Adobe Camera Raw. A program used to made edits to RAW camera files.

PS: Photoshop. A program made by Adobe to edit photos.

PSE: Photoshop Elements. A version of Photoshop with fewer features, more aimed towards hobbyists.

LR: Lightroom. An editing program made by Adobe. Check out this article for the differences between Photoshop and Lightroom.

JPG or JPEG: A common file format for picture images. Pronounced “j-peg”. Stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group, who created it.

RAW: A file format that records all possible data from the camera sensor. Differs from a JPEG, in that with a JPEG some original image data is lost due to compression. RAW files have many different filename extensions, like .cr2 (Canon), .nef (Nikon) and .arw (Sony). Take a peek at this article to learn why you should be shooting in RAW.

DNG: Digital Negative. An open-source raw file format.

IQ: Image quality.

FF: Full frame. A digital camera that has a sensor that is the same size as a 35mm piece of film. Smaller sensors are often referred to as “cropped”.

CMOS: Complimentary metal-oxide semiconductor. The technology used to create the majority of digital sensors for cameras.

CCD: Charged-coupled device. A technology used to create sensors for some digital cameras (like Leicas).

C&C/CC: Comments & Critiques. Can also mean Constructive Criticism. Used when asking for feedback on an image in a forum.

Your Turn!

Do you know of any other photography slang terms or acronyms? Is there one that you just can’t figure out? Let us know in the comments below and we can add them to the list!

The Three Worst Things That Have Happened To Me During A Photo Shoot

Tue, 08 May 2012 04:00:00 -0600

Photo sessions are a pretty crappy time for things to go wrong. It’s embarassing, and stressful, and just the thought of mishaps can give you nightmares.

But half of the battle is knowing that things will probably go wrong at some point. As weird as that sounds, if you are prepared for that eventuality, it won’t be quite as terrifying if it does happen. The other half of the solution is being as prepared as you can. With that in mind, let’s jump right in to the reason you are reading this article: hearing my embarassing stories!

1. Camera/Lens Breaking

We were shooting our very first destination wedding in Mexico. It was the day-after session, and we were all playing on the beach, taking some fun shots. I noticed my shutter was sounding a bit funny. A few frames later, and it just went “CLUNK” and stopped working. I tried turning it on and off, removing the lens and putting it back on, throwing in a new battery—nothing was working. I took a few moments to silently PANIC, and then walked over to our camera bag, grabbed the backup camera, and went right back to shooting. I don’t think our clients ever knew that we had a technical malfunction (until, perhaps, right now if they read this.)

Another time I had handed my camera over to Rob to hold on to as we were standing in the parking lot outside the reception venue. The details are fuzzy, but somehow he managed to drop it right onto the concrete. And my favourite lens just happened to be on the camera. I can only imagine the look he got from me at that moment—I don’t think it was a very nice one. My camera was ok, thankfully. But only because my favourite lens took the majority of the force, and was now completely broken. Time to switch to the backup lens!

So long story short, you can pretty much expect your camera gear to break at some point in your career. Chances are it will be during a shoot. You absolutely, positively must have backup gear, especially at a wedding. Even if you only shoot portraits, you’ll still want to seriously consider having some backup. It definitely won’t look good if you have to cancel in the middle of a session because your camera goes down.

2. Pants Ripping

The classic blunder. I was shooting in my photographer crouch position, stood up, and heard a pop. My zipper had just decided it didn’t want to stay closed any longer, and was now completely open and broken. Awesome.

This, of course, happened during the receiving line, when everyone is hanging around right after the ceremony. I awkwardly walked over to Rob, with my camera held ever so carefully to conceal the problem. He immediately hustled off to the car and grabbed my spare pair of pants out of the trunk.

That’s right—I had a spare change of clothes in the trunk for just such an emergency. It’s an absolute must for wedding photographers. That very small bit of preparation saved me a whole lot of embarassment for the rest of the day!

3. Kneecap Dislocating

Yep, my kneecap once popped right out during a session!! No warning—it had never happened before. I was lying on the ground shooting, went to get up, and BAM! Kneecap is no longer where it should be! I fell back to the ground, put my hand on my knee, and, well, put it back in place. After a couple seconds of intense pain, and everyone staring at me, I said I was ok, shakily got to my feet, and kept going with the session.

Now, the lesson here is that you can get hurt during a shoot—you might get sick, or injure yourself. It’s not a fun thing to think about, but you need to be prepared. Some Gravol and Tylenol in your bag is a good start if the issue is relatively minor. If it’s a major problem though, and you’re shooting something like a wedding where you can’t just reschedule, you need to have a backup plan in place. This usually consists of having the phone numbers of local photographers in a file, so you can call around to find a last minute replacement in an emergency.

So, the big takeaway from these lovely stories is that the more you can be prepared for possible problems, the easier it will be to bounce back, and keep on taking amazing photos!

Have you had anything crazy happen to you during a shoot? How did you handle it? Share with us in the comments now!

How To Create A Simple Photography Client Database

Thu, 03 May 2012 04:00:00 -0600

An incredibly valuable, but often overlooked, asset for any photography business is a client database. Early in your career you may find it easy to remember all the people you’ve worked with, but after a couple years the number grows and it becomes increasingly difficult to keep track of everyone.

Creating a database is easy to do, and totally beneficial. Here are some ways it can help!

Improves Client Experience: Access to names of clients, their kids’ names, their likes/dislikes, their previous orders, etc. lets you have more personal and meaningful communications with them, showing that you really care.

Improves Efficiency: Contact info that you can find and use quickly means you’re more likely to keep in touch with your clients, and it won’t take you as long to do it!

Improves Marketing Efforts: The ability to target your marketing to specific groups of clients is extremely valuable. For example, all your clients with families might want to know about your Mother’s Day sessions, but wedding clients without little ones would prefer to know about your newest line of wedding albums.

Even if a database can just help you remember the names of your clients, it will be well worth the time spent creating one. Consider this lesson from my favourite book, How To Win Friends & Influence People:

“Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language” - Dale Carnegie

Creating Your Database

Now, there are a lot of fancy programs to help you do this: some free, and some that you have to pay for. But, as you may know, we like to keep things simple. Simple systems get used!

So here’s a simple way to create a client database that will help you rock your business!

Step 1: Assemble all your client contact information.

If you’re just starting your business, you’re in luck because you can implement a database from the beginning, and don’t need to play catch-up. But I’m guessing most of you have had a few clients already, so you’ll need to collect that information. It might be on contracts, or their client files. Wherever it is, get it all together so you can input everything at once.

Step 2: Decide where to put the database

This is the tricky one. You’ll have to think about how you want to use the database to figure out the best way to store it. In the interest of simplicity, we like using the Mac Address Book. It syncs across our computers and our iPhones, so we have our database even when we’re out and about.

There is also the option of using a cloud service like Google Contacts. It will tie in nicely if you using Gmail (which you totally should—here’s how to set Gmail up for yourself), and can be accessed from any computer or smartphone.

Now, if you will only ever use your database at your computer then something as simple as a spreadsheet will do the trick! But consider how useful it can be to have that information with you everywhere. The more you shoot, the more you start running into clients! Mobility is important.

Step 3: Figure Out Backup Plans

If you’re going to put effort into making a client database, be sure to back it up. With Mac Address Book we can just put the database file in our nightly backups, and there’s nothing more to think about.

With Google Contacts you can back things up, but as far as I can tell you have to do it manually. That adds another step that could be forgotten. Something to think through before diving into creating your database!

Step 4: Decide What Information To Include

Stuff like names and contact information are standard for a database, but you can get creative with what you include in yours to really improve the experience you provide!

If you shoot weddings, you could include their wedding date, and then at the start of each year schedule first anniversary cards to go out. You’ll have all that info at your fingertips, so that kind of project will be quick and easy!

For families you could enter the kids’ birthdays, or the last time the family had a session, so you can drop them a line in a year or two to suggest another shoot (like reminders from the dentist, but way more fun!).

You can include what products the clients have ordered, so you can check up and see how they’re liking them. Or details like favourite movies or bands, so that when you meet them for a new session you can know what to talk about. These files can easily be updated when you learn new things about your clients! It’s like an ongoing way to treat them well and show that you care about them. Sounds good right?

Step 5: Enter The Data

Now that you have all your info together, and know where it’s going, it’s time to sit down and plug it all into your database.

This part can be a bit boring, but what I like to do is include a photo for each client. The nice thing is that usually we’ve already taken a great shot of them, so it makes the database look fantastic. And including photos will help you with recognizing faces, so win-win!

Step 6: Put The Database Into Your Workflow

The final step is to make sure you include maintenance of the database in your workflow. The database will only be effective if you keep up with it! If you use a workflow chart, you can put in “Add Client Info to Database” right after they book. Then, at the end of your work with them, you could have “Update Client Info”, so you can add a nice photo, and any notes you may have!

A client database is an easy thing to create, and can make a massive difference in the experience you give your clients. Better experience leads to happier clients, and that means more repeat business and referrals.

If you want to check out some other systems for creating your client database, here are a few options. Note: we haven’t used most of these, but you may want to see if they would work better for you! Some offer lots of other features as well, like booking systems, and workflow tracking, etc.

Bento (Mac)
Studio Cloud (free)
Tave
ShootQ

Do you have a client database? How did you put it together? How do you use it to improve your business? Share with us in the comments now!

What Are You So Afraid Of?

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 10:20:00 -0600

To be a great photographer, hobbyist or pro, takes courage. You have to constantly be pushing yourself to go outside of your comfort zone, and do new things. Try a different style of shooting. Set up a type of session you’ve never done before. Start a new business. Introduce yourself to complete strangers. Learn a brand new skill. Basically, you have to take on a non-stop series of challenges. Forever.

Now, we all probably know that to improve our photography we have to do these things. But more often than not, we don’t. Why is that?

I’d venture that most of the time what holds us back is fear. Nothing more, nothing less.

Now, I’m sure you can point to half-a-dozen circumstances that are preventing you from taking that next big step out of your comfort zone. A full-time job. A mortgage. Inexperience. Not having any connections. Not having enough money. Not having enough time.

But I’m going to be that really annoying person here, and say that 99% of the time those circumstances that you think are holding you back, aren’t actually holding you back. Nope. It’s fear.

I mean, you can always work on your photography in the evenings and on weekends. You can start with basic gear, or rent before you invest the big bucks. Seriously, if blind people can take photos, surely other circumstances like time and money can be overcome. It’s not the situation that holds us back. It’s the fear.

The problem is that these fears are not productive, helpful ones, like the fear of poisonous snakes. No, these are learned fears that prevent us from doing seriously awesome things, for no good reason. Honest. Let’s take a look at some of the big fears photographers face, and why they are downright silly.

(As an added bonus, I’ll be giving you a Real Life example of ours for each of these, just so you know that we’ve actually lived through all these fears. Which, coincidentally, is the best way to overcome a fear!)

Fear of Failure

That’s a good one, hey? Who here hasn’t been afraid that they would fail, big time. This is especially potent if you decide to start a business. It can be so completely paralyzing that you never actually try. You come up with excuses. You figure it never would have worked anyway.

But the problem is that there is actually nothing wrong with failing. In fact, if you’re really pushing yourself to do fantastic new things, there’s a really good chance you’ll fail. No. Big. Deal. It happens to everyone. As long as you pick yourself up, learn from the failure, and keep going, you may as well look at that failure as a positive! You now know what doesn’t work, and are closer to figuring out what does.

Most great people have attained their greatest success just one step beyond their greatest failure. - Napoleon Hill

Real Life Fail: We once started a photography/graphic design business with the idea that we would do headshots and business card designs for real estate agents. We had a name, a logo, a website, lots of shiny brochures, and thought we were onto a big idea. Well, we didn’t have things quite right, because it failed, big time. We booked maybe two jobs. Ever. Looking back, I’m really proud that we tried. Plus we learned a lot. Double plus, it’s totally a great dinner party story. ;)

Fear Of Embarassment

Then there’s the fear of embarassment and looking dumb. Man, that’s a powerful one. I don’t know about you, but this is a biggie for me. I am always worried what people will think. And this one can hold you back from trying new things, and really getting outside the box. Basically, it can prevent you from becoming the best photographer you can be!

Here’s a big secret. It’s probably not at all what you expected to hear. But this is it: no one really cares. Honestly. People are concerned about their own stuff. Does it matter to them at all what you do? Hardly. Sure they might leave a negative comment, or talk about you for a bit. So what? The people who really matter in your life will still love you. You’ll still be alive. Looking silly does not matter. The sooner you can get over that fear, the more fun you’ll have. Promise.

Real Life Embarassment: As you may know, I published some of my crappiest photos on this site, for the whole world to see. I’m a professional photographer, and there’s a good chance my clients will see those (or already did). Yep, that makes me look pretty dumb. But you know what, I survived. Yes, I was scared, but I did it anyway. And I’m so glad I did, because that one small act made a whole ton of photographers feel a lot better about themselves. Totally worth looking silly!

Fear Of Rejection

A big one for photographers has to be the fear of rejection. Maybe you’re looking to network with other shooters, or asking someone to let you photograph them. Perhaps you’re showing off your portfolio to potential clients, or looking for businesses to help promote your work. If any of those situations strike fear into your heart (as they do mine), then the fear of rejection is what’s holding you back.

Now, stop and think for a second. What’s the worst thing that could happen? They could say no. Seriously, that’s it. That’s the worst. Why does that scare us so much? I think this is related to the fear of embarassment. We’re afraid that they’ll judge us when they reject us. And again, it doesn’t matter. The sooner you learn to get over the fear of rejection, the more you’ll be able to pursue opportunities, and open amazing doors for yourself.

Real Life Rejection: We once went around the city trying to connect with baby stores to promote our portrait business. We were offering them a few gift certificates they could give out to their best customers. Confession: this totally terrified us. We couldn’t just hide behind our computers, but had to get out there and actually meet people face-to-face. Double scary. And we did get rejected. A couple stores were totally not into it, and seemed pretty annoyed with us. Yes, that wasn’t awesome. Yes, the whole idea still makes us scared. But we did manage to connect with some really fantastic people, and met amazing clients as a result of it. Those clients have even opened up new opportunities for us that we would have never dreamed of. Take that, rejection!

Fear Of Change

The last type of fear that can be the cause of inaction is the fear of change. We all like comfort, don’t we? It’s hard to argue that constantly worrying if you’ll ever make enough money is better than a paycheck delivered to your desk every month. Or that leaving something you know well, to do something you know nothing about, is a smart move.

But here’s the thing. The only constant in life is change. Whether you like it or not, you have to get used to it. Wouldn’t you rather be the one deciding what changes will happen to you? Sure, some changes will occur that you didn’t choose, but getting used to change when it’s in your own control helps you learn to go with the flow of life!

Real Life Change: We began our careers as wedding photographers, and in a short amount of time managed to create a successful and profitable business, build a good name for ourselves in our market, and make tons of great connections. We were set. Then we decided we didn’t want to shoot weddings anymore. We wanted to explore what else photography had to offer. We pretty much stopped just as we were getting successful and comfortable, to pursue things we knew almost nothing about. Yes, it was scary. Very scary. But the change has been fantastic, we’re happier than ever, and we will probably change what we do about 100 times more in our life. Embrace the change. It’s a whole lot more fun when you do.

Overcoming Fear

So these fears are big ones, and I know how much they can hold you back. They hold me back all the time. But we have to realize that they aren’t doing us any good at all. They’re preventing us from having a whole lot more fun with life! So here are a few steps to overcoming fear, and doing awesome stuff.

Step 1: Identify

First, identify the fear. Realize what is really stopping you from acting. This will help you understand what you have to overcome to move foreward.

Step 2: Figure Out Worst-Case Scenarios and Contingencies

As counter-intuitive as it may sound, figuring out the worst-case scenario can help dimish your fears. This is especially true for fear of embarassment and rejection. Remember, it doesn’t really matter if they say no. Seriously. So stop and think, what’s the worst that can happen?

Now, if the worst is a scary situation for you, then come up with some contingency plans. These always help to feel like you can handle the failure if it comes your way. If you’re worried that your business won’t be successful, for example, your contingency could be to find another job after you’ve tried for X number of months. Sure, that’s not ideal, but in the big scheme of things, is finding a new job that really that scary? I mean, there aren’t even any poisonous snakes involved.

Step 3: Act

This is the most important step of all. Acting is the surest way to overcome fear.

Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain. - Mark Twain

Simple.

Now think about where you’d like to go with your photography. Your big, huge, amazing dreams. What’s holding you back from working towards that right now? What are you so afraid of?

Feel free to share in the comments what you’re afraid of when it comes to your photography. And bonus points if you can explain why it might not actually be so scary after all!

Straighten Up: A Quick Tip For Better Compositions

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 04:00:00 -0600

Great composition can do many wonderful things for your images, but one of its most important functions is to direct the viewer’s attention where you want it to go. Unfortunately it’s very easy to make little mistakes that end up becoming super distracting. Luckily, it’s just as easy to fix them.

One of the most common compositional errors I see is when photographers don’t straighten up their photos. And by that I mean that there are lines in the image that should be straight, but aren’t.

The problem here is that the brain of the viewer is taking in the image, and noticing that there are crooked lines when there should be straight ones. And that annoys the brain. Even if you don’t consciously notice the issue, subconsciously it’s attracting attention when it shouldn’t be.

The tricky thing is that it only takes a little bit of a deviation for this problem to happen. Check out this example to see how much of a difference straightening up can make. The image goes from feeling slightly awkward, to feeling normal.

In this example, you can see in the pre-straightened image that the vertical line on the left side of the frame is crooked, when it should be straight. This creates a pretty strong distraction because of the size of the line, as well as the proximity to the edge of the frame, which acts to emphasize that it isn’t straight.

The Two Steps

There are two steps to fixing crooked lines, and like most compositional techniques, it begins *in camera*. As much as fancy cropping can help, if you aren’t paying attention to your composition while you’re shooting, you may end up with unfixable problems.

See, when it comes to lines, if you don’t plan it out ahead of time, you may find yourself unable to straighten up. This will happen if you don’t SQUARE up. If you’re shooting a building, or wall with lines that should be straight, you need to stand at a right angle to it. If you’re slightly off of that, you’ll never to be able to get things perfectly straight.

So step one is to make sure you’re standing square to your subject if you want the lines to end up being straight. Take your time here, because this is something that you can’t fix afterwards.

Even if you’re squared up, you may find that you have trouble getting lines perfectly straight in camera. It’s really tough! We use grids on our focusing screens to help, but I still can’t always get it, especially if I’m shooting quickly. So the second half of the fix comes in during post-processing.

If you’re using Lightroom, you have a couple tools at your disposal to help out. The first is Profile Correction. Many lenses (especially wide angles) can distort the image, and cause straight lines to be slightly curved. That’s a bummer, because you’ll never be able to get it straight! Checking off “Profile Correction” will help to straighten the curve, and get you one step closer to perfection.

Then, the line might be crooked. From there you can grab your straighten tool, in the Crop dialog, and just draw along a line that should be straight (either horizontally or vertically). Lightroom will automatically straighten and crop, and you’re good to go!

Photoshop can also straighten crooked lines, with the Ruler tool. Just draw along the line that should be straight, and then click Straighten.

Tricky Situations

Horizons can sometimes be tricky, especially since they often aren’t perfectly straight! A good approach here is to try out a few lines, and see what looks best to your eye.

The same thing goes for scenes where there are lot of lines, and they can’t all be straight. Some may naturally be slightly crooked, or you weren’t able to square up to all of them. You’ll have to use your judgement and decide which line to straighten. Which ones draws your eye the most? Which is the largest part of the composition? Don’t be afraid to try out a few lines, and see which one ends up looking the most comfortable to your eye.

Then there are some images where the lines are far from straight, but it doesn’t distract from the scene. Perhaps the tilt adds to the feel of the image (like kids running down the street), or the lines are such a small part of the composition that they don’t draw your eye at all. This is where you get to be the creative decision maker, and decide what works best for your unique photo!

Straightening out an image takes only a couple seconds in post-processing, and a bit of forethought when it comes to composing the image, but it can make all the difference in the world. It’s a quick adjustment that takes a photo from sloppy to strong. So pay attention to straightening your lines, and you’ll find your compositions start improving right away!

5 Simple Tips for Shooting Gorgeous Portraits Indoors

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 09:18:02 -0600

Shooting outdoors is wonderful. When it’s warm. When it’s cold, or raining, things tend to be a little less awesome outside. But if you live anywhere with winter, that would mean that for half of the year you can’t shoot. Oh, what is a photographer to do??

Simple, right? Shoot indoors!

Ok, not always so simple, especially if you don’t have your own studio space. Shooting indoors comes with a whole set of challenges, and requires a bit of a different approach than shooting outdoors. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not possible! A few simple tips, and you’ll be looking forward to shooting indoors, for serious!

1. Home Is Where The Heart Is. And Awesome Images Too.

If you’re taking portraits of families or couples you should definitely consider shooting in their home. As you’ll soon discover, a location doesn’t need much—a few windows and you’re good to go! Shooting in homes is free, you won’t have strangers walking around making your subjects uncomfortable, and you don’t have to book a slot.

Those are all good things, to be certain. But what’s best about using homes is that they are a big part of your clients’ lives, and add fantastic meaning to the images. They can also provide an opportunity to have people actually *doing* things in your photos. They can play a game, read a book, make some pancakes—these kinds of activities are not only great for photos, but also let your clients feel less nervous and awkward, and just relax and have fun.

2. Windows Are Your BFFs

You might be tired of hearing it, but we’ll never tire of saying it: window light is incredible. It’s what makes shooting indoors really fun! In practically every room you have at least one window to light your images, and every window can be used for front lighting, side lighting, or backlighting. (Hit up this article for tips on shooting with window light.)

Windows in homes also come with really fancy light modifiers that are more commonly known as blinds! You can often control the amount and intensity of the light by fiddling with the blinds a bit.

As always, bigger windows give you more light, but don’t ignore the little ones. If there’s good light coming in through them, just bring your subjects closer, and you’ll still have enough light to create great images.

Many living rooms have multiple windows, which can give you some really fantastic results. Take your time to really experiment with the light in these cases—it takes a bit of time to find the sweet spot, but once you do you’ll have some seriously delicious light.

Generally speaking, north and south facing windows will have fantastic light all day long. But don’t discount other windows. You may be treated to some really nifty light from those as well!

3. Control The Light Sources

Often you’ll walk into a room that your clients want to shoot in, and the windows are open and all the overhead lights are on. The more light the better, right? Wrong-o. When you have both natural and artificial light going on, you’re mixing sources, and that can make it impossible to properly white balance the image. This is especially bad when both light sources are hitting your subject! So control the light sources, and stick to just one.

Most of the time this means shutting off all the overhead lighting, and working with just the window light. And when I say all the lights, I really mean all the lights. If the light is on in the kitchen, it can still spill into the living room and affect your image!

Sometimes you might actually want to use that overhead lighting to create a different mood. No problem. Just close the windows, and work with only the artificial sources.

4. Watch Your Backgrounds

Shooting in homes is fantastic, but definitely has the challenge of busy backgrounds. You need to find the balance between showing the environment, but keeping it simple enough to maintain the focus on your subjects. Pay attention to any objects that are strongly drawing your eye away from the subjects. Sometimes you’ll need to do a bit of “redecorating” to get things just right for the image. As long as you put it back when you’re done, no biggie!

You can also balance things out by doing some portraits that show off the environment, and then some that are super simple, and all about the people. This is really easy to do in practically any home. You just need to find a window that is by a blank wall, and you pretty much have a photographic studio all ready for you!

5. Explore

When you shoot indoors you really have to explore the space you’re working with. The best spot to shoot may be the last place you’d think of! While the living room often has the best light, the kitchen is frequently a solid option. Then the front foyer, hallways, and bedrooms may work well too.

If you’re shooting in a client’s home, begin by checking out every room. Take your time, and give each place serious consideration. Look at the windows in each room, and open the blinds to assess the light. (If it’s not too chilly out, you might even be able to open a door). If there’s good light, look around and see if you could make the room work. It doesn’t take much, just a simple wall is enough!

A Couple Last Words

Sneak Outside

You are probably shooting indoors because the weather isn’t great outside. But that doesn’t mean you still can’t hop out there for a few minutes! This will be best done at the end of the session, especially if it’s raining. You’ll be able to run outside, take some fun shots, and then as soon as everyone is getting chilly or soggy, head back in. Backyards are great places to shoot, and you’ll get more variety in locations and light to round out your session!

Non-Home Locations

Sometimes you aren’t shooting in the home, but rather another indoor location. The same principles apply. Scout carefully, look for great light, and watch your backgrounds!

Flash

We personally prefer working around natural light to pulling out our flashes. We almost never find ourselves in situations where we have to use flash for a portrait session. Natural light is not only flattering and abundant, but it’s also simple. We like our focus to be entirely on the people in front of us, and don’t want to have to be worrying about flashes firing, or spending lots of time setting things up.

Now, on the rare occasions where we have had to use flash, we bounced it to still keep it flattering and simple. (If you want to learn more about bouncing flash, check out this video!).

Learning to find the light indoors opens up a whole new realm of possibilities for great portraits. With just a few key elements, and a bit of creativity, you can create gorgeous portraits no matter where you are!

Do you shoot portraits indoors? Have any tips to share? Let us know in the comments below!

Lightroom 4 Review: What's New, What's Difficult To Get Used To, And What Can Be Improved

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 09:30:00 -0600

Last month Adobe released Lightroom 4, a new version of their popular image editing software. This update brings some interesting changes to the program and new features that will certainly be helpful to photographers.

I’ve spent a ton of hours in Lightroom 4, checking it out and seeing how it changes the way you’ll edit your photos. There are a ton of new features, and also some updates that are kind of surprising. We’ll start off with what’s new, and then I’ll share my initial thoughts, and areas that still could use some improvement.

Ok, let’s dive in and see what’s in store for you!

What is Lightroom 4?

Lightroom 4 is a program available for both Mac and PC that provides a suite of tools photographers can use to work with their photos. The main purpose of Lightroom is to make image adjustments like exposure, contrast, white balance, cropping, dodging and burning, sharpening and noise reduction (to name just a few). But Lightroom can also be used to organize your images (keywords and collections), create self published books (through Blurb), as well as produce web galleries and slideshows.

We currently use Lightroom for about 95% of our image editing (saving retouching for Photoshop, where it’s easier and faster to do). It’s a powerful program that we’re really happy to have in our workflow.

What’s new in Lightroom 4

Major Changes to Adjustment Sliders under the Basic Panel

The most significant change can be found under the Basic panel in the Develop module:

Here’s a quick rundown of the changes in Lightroom 4.

• The Exposure and Brightness sliders have essentially been combined. The Exposure slider now more or less controls the mid tones of an image.

• What used to be the brighter end of the Exposure slider in Lightroom 3 has become a whole new slider known as Highlights.

• Shadows is another new slider and adjusts a range of tone formerly covered mainly by Fill Light in Lightroom 3.

• Whites is yet another new slider that covers the very brightest tones in an image.

• The sliders have also been repositioned, suggesting a new order to making image adjustments.

• When making adjustments each slider moves from darker on the left hand side to brighter on the right hand side. This should make performing adjustments more intuitive compared to Lightroom 3.

• The Clarity slider, while having the same name and position, has been redeveloped and now produces far less halo artefacts.

• The changes to the basic adjustment sliders go much deeper than just renaming and repositioning. Adobe has redeveloped and improved the algorithms that make the adjustments.

With all these changes, if you’re used to Lightroom 3, it may take a bit of practice to get comfortable with how the sliders are rearranged and how they affect the image.

RGB Point Curve - Make Awesome Color Adjustments

You can now make curves adjustments to the individual RGB channels under the Tone Curve panel (point tone curve area). This is an especially useful improvement allowing you to make powerful adjustments to the color in an image. If you’ve used the tone curve in Photoshop you’ll be right at home here. If you’re new to curves Lightroom is a friendly place to learn!

You can produce creative (and corrective) color toning effects by adjusting the individual RGB channels. The image below shows before (left) and after (right) using only tone curve adjustments.

Improved Adjustment Brush

Under the Adjustment Brush tool Lightroom 4 adds control for Temperature and Tint, additional tone sliders, and also Noise and Moiré reduction. Good improvements!

Snazzy New Books Module

This is an impressive new development that allows you to create customized self published books! The new book creation module is fairly intuitive to use and comes with plenty of page layout templates. You can submit the books you create directly to Blurb for printing. You can also easily export the albums to pdf for online sharing.

Albums are an awesome way to share multiple photos and tell a story, and I’m excited to see a tool that makes it easier for more people to create them.

Nifty New Maps Module

More cameras are coming equipped with integrated GPS. This allows images to be embedded with data about the exact location a photo is taken. The new maps module leverages this information to show your images overlaid on a map (powered by Google Maps). You can also apply location data to images that don’t have location data.

The maps module also allows you to create location collections. This makes it easy to re-visit specific areas you’ve photographed. I think this is more of an anticipatory feature. Right now the only camera I have that records location data into photos is my iPhone, but I’m sure integrated GPS will become a standard feature of all cameras in the next 3-5 years.

Browsing by location is awesome and something I look forward to doing more in the future, as we begin to shoot more images with location data. That said, at the moment I can’t see myself going through the trouble of adding location data to our current collection!

A few other notable improvements

Process version - The process version has changed from 2010 to 2012. This is basically the underlying engine that develops your images. You’ll notice that even without making any adjustments to your image, you’ll see better detail in both the bright highlights and the dark shadows of an image - formerly areas that may have been clipped or blown with Lightroom 3.

Soft proofing - This allows you to preview on your monitor how your image will look when either printed to different types of paper or different color spaces. That’s a seriously awesome feature! You’ll be able to make adjustments to your image to improve the look of your prints. You’ll find this option in the toolbar of the Develop module.

Email photos - Under the file menu you can now email photos directly from Lightroom. Totally useful.

Expanded support for video clips - You can now play back and trim videos directly in Lightroom. You can also make basic adjustments to videos. You don’t have full access to the develop module but you can apply additional settings (things like tone curve and split toning) by creating presets. You can also grab single frame captures from video clips which are then saved as JPEG files. Lightroom definitely isn’t replacing a video editing program, but these expanded features are fantastic for the current generation of video capable HDSLRs.

Decrease in price - The price for the full version of Lightroom has dropped by 50% to US$150. It’s just $70 to upgrade from Lightroom 3. It’s definitely a much more accessible price for hobbyist photographers looking to improve the look of their images.

Initial Thoughts

Getting used to the changes made under the basic panel has been a bit more difficult than I anticipated. After editing thousands of photos using the original sliders, the new arrangement of sliders and improved algorithms have been difficult to adjust to (especially the lack of a brightness slider).

On the one hand it seems easier to produce better results in less steps, but at the same time it feels a bit bewildering that the sliders don’t respond the way I have come to expect. Hopefully this is something that goes away with more practice. I’m sure those new to Lightroom 4 won’t notice this problem.

As for the other new features found in Lightroom 4, I think this new version hints at overall philosophical change by Adobe. The huge price cut to Lightroom 4 shows that Adobe is aggressively pursuing the consumer market (who may currently use Aperture or iPhoto). The addition of the Book module, reorganization of the Basic panel, and enhanced support for video files further supports this.

At the same time there are also improvements that professional photographers will find useful (like soft proofing, RGB curves, improved process version, and more functions in the adjustment brush).

I hope that Adobe is able to strike a balance between consumer and professional markets as it continues development on Lightroom.

How It Could Be Improved

Speed

Lightroom 4 feels slower than Lightroom 3. I originally tested Lightroom 4 on our older Mac Pros (purchased in 2006, quad core 2.66 GHz, 9Gb of RAM). I know these are older machines but they still far exceed the minimum system requirements of Lightroom (multicore Intel processor, 2GB of RAM). Using our old Mac Pros Lightroom 4 took much longer than Lightroom 3 to use the crop tool (open, close and adjust crop), to move between photos in the Develop module, and to make adjustments to sliders (and see the changes updated in the photo).

All of those issues seem less noticeable when using our 2011 Mac Book Pro (quadcore 2.0 GHz, 8GB RAM). I think most people will probably be using newer computers than our old 2006 Mac Pros so I don’t think this will be a huge issue.

Keyboard Shortcuts

I have personally emailed Adobe multiple times and posted on their forum (as early as the Lightroom 3 beta) regarding the lack of keyboard shortcuts for the adjustment sliders under the Basic panel. You can adjust the sliders, increasing or decreasing their values, using keyboard shortcuts but it’s not possible to actually select Exposure, Contrast or any of the other sliders using a keyboard shortcut. Instead you have to either first click on the adjustment slider to select it, or cycle through all the sliders by pressing “,” or “.“.

Adobe needs to make this improvement to allow professional photographers to work through their images more efficiently in Lightroom. When you don’t have to take your eyes off the photo to select and adjust a slider you’re able to make adjustments faster and more precisely. It baffles me why Adobe hasn’t made this very basic improvement.

In the meantime I have taken to tediously programming mouse movements using 3rd party software and an X-keys keyboard to create these essential shortcuts myself. This vastly reduces our time spent editing. I’ll be releasing an updated shortcut file, along with shortcuts for a new device soon! ;)

Spot Removal Tool

It would be nice if the clone and heal features of Lightroom 4 were more functional, similar to Photoshop. Right now they’re limited to spot corrections. When you’re able to click and drag to make adjustments, Lightroom will be a complete editing solution. As it stands right now, it’s easier to make retouching adjustments involving cloning or healing using Photoshop or Photoshop Elements.

A New Tutorial!

With the release of Lightroom 4 I have begun developing a new version of our popular Super Photo Editing Skills tutorial. My goal is to produce a tutorial that is the fastest and easiest way to learn how to edit your images using Lightroom 4. I’ll be focusing on how you can make quality improvements, correct common photo problems, and work through your images as efficiently as possible.

We’re aiming to release this new tutorial within the next couple months. We’ll be offering a free upgrade for anyone who purchased Super Photo Editing Skills after March 5th, 2012 (the release date of Lightroom 4). If you purchased Super Photo Editing Skills before March 5th, 2012 we’ll be offering a big discount on upgrade pricing when the new tutorial is released.

Conclusion

Despite my suggestions for improvement, I think Lightroom (specifically Lightroom 4) is the best image editing program available for photographers. It’s possible that updates to LR4 (i.e. LR4.1) will see speed improvements. It does take a few updates to work all the bugs out of a new version.

Have you tried Lightroom 4? What do you think of the changes?

What To Read Next

About the Author: Hi there, I’m Rob! I’m a pro photographer and head ninja here at Photography Concentrate. I love all things photography: shooting, teaching and always learning more! If I’m not reading up on the latest photography news, or studying a technique, I’m probably reading a book or planning our next adventure!

Getting The Shot: Wigwams and Classic Cars

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 04:00:00 -0600

Another Getting The Shot feature for you today! These posts are a chance to hear about the process involved in creating a photo, from start to finish.

Today’s image is from a roadtrip we took at the end of February. We drove all around Arizona and New Mexico, with no plans or schedule, other than a need to be back in time for our flight. Here’s the shot we’re going to chat about.

Camera Settings:

Camera: Canon 5D
Lens: 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 70mm
Aperture: f/5
Shutter Speed: 1/1600 sec
ISO: 200

Image Details:

This scene is from a roadside stop called the Wigwam Motel, in Holbrook, Arizona. Holbrook is on the old Route 66, and is a fascinating little place.

How it Was Shot:

One of the keys to a successful photo road trip is the willingness to change plans at a moment’s notice. We were driving along and noticed a sign for a petrified forest. It sounded interesting, so we turned off the interstate, and found ourselves driving through Holbrook.

As we made our way down the main street we spotted the Wigwam Motel. Even though it was the middle of the day, and the light was harsh, we still stopped the car, grabbed our cameras, and walked over to check it out.

The motel is still operational, and there were a bunch of modern day vehicles parked in the lot. But these two classic cars parked in front of the wigwams caught our attention. They gave a sense of being in a completely different time. Then the fact that one car looked to be in pristine condition, and the other looked like it hadn’t been driven in decades gave a hint that it maybe wasn’t actually a really old photo. A neat contrast.

We walked around the wigwams, taking shots from a bunch of different angles. This shot is Rob’s, and he was able to create a strong composition with the repeating shapes of the wigwams and trees. The angle he chose also showed off both cars, without them overlapping each other. It might seem like a simple task, but often one of the biggest challenges for a photographer is how to frame a scene to eliminate distractions, and bring the attention to the subject. This shot of mine from the motel shows you just busy the scene actually was, and how carefully you have to compose to simplify it enough to make an interesting image!

Tips:

Walk around. That’s one of the best tips we could give you when it comes to travel photography. Driving in a car is just way too fast to get a sense of whether a scene will make for a great image. When you take the time to stroll, you not only see way more, but you are also able to move around a scene to find the strongest angle.

And go slow. Don’t rush the process. Maybe there’s a great shot to be found, but you have to be patient, and look for it. It won’t always just jump out at you—you often have to dig for it. The more relaxed you are the more you can really open your eyes, and take it all in. If you speed through shooting you may get the standard shot, but fail to find the image that shows the same scene in a totally new way.

How It Was Processed:

We definitely did a fair bit of processing on this shot! It was a fun one with experiment and play with. Everything was done in Lightroom 4. Here are the details:

The image was rotated to straighten out the pole in the background, and cropped slightly.

Since it was the middle of the day, the colours were washed out, and the contrast was very low, so a lot of work was done to compensate.

Contrast was increased, and highlights were brought down to regain some of the data on the bright side of the wigwam. Whites were increased to maintain the brightness, and blacks and shadows were increased to add contrast.

Clarity was increased slightly to bring more pop, and vibrance was increased to heighten the colours.

The tone curve was adjusted in the RGB channels, brightening the red, and darkening the blue to give it a warmer tone.

The blues and aquas in the Saturation panel were increased to bring more colour to the sky and car specifically.

There was a bit of split toning to create a slight vintage feel, to go with the cars.

The adjustment brush was used on the trees to brighten them up (by increasing exposure), and bring out the texture (by increasing clarity). It was also used on the side of the car to brighten up the shadows.

Sharpening was applied to finish it off.

Time spent processing: 15 min (quite a bit longer than normal, but we were playing around with it!)

What You Can Learn In Front Of the Lens

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 08:33:02 -0600

Being photographed can be an incredibly insightful process!
Image by pink sugar photography.

When photographer and subject have a connection and understanding between them, the photos that are created can be powerful and real. That’s pretty straightforward, right? But the big question is “How on earth do I create connection and understanding with someone I just met??”.

Well, learning to connect with people is a lifelong pursuit, but there’s one really easy way that you can understand what your subjects’ are experiencing, and gain some empathy for their situation.

And that is to put yourself in their shoes, and get photographed.

Now, we photographers love shooting. You probably think it’s one of the most enjoyable things in the world. So that word “empathy” that I just used up there might be a bit startling. Why would you need empathy for your subjects? Shouldn’t they be excited to be having their photos taken?

Chances are they do indeed feel excited, but also stressed, nervous, uncertain, self-conscious, and downright scared. How do I know that? Well, because that’s how I felt when I’ve had my photos taken!

Things are really different on the other side of the lens, and you can learn that firsthand by putting yourself there. Self-portraits don’t count, though. I’m talking about a full session: picking a date, chatting about locations, choosing outfits, getting ready, experiencing the session, and then waiting to see the images afterwards.

Once you have that experience, you suddenly have a vastly better understanding of how to make your own process more enjoyable for your clients! It only takes a few hours, and you gain priceless insight. Good deal.

You can either hire someone, or arrange to do a swap with a photographer friend. If you do a swap, give each other the full client experience so you can get all the benefits of the exercise!

When you do have your shoot, the important thing is to make sure to pay careful attention to how you feel during the process. The insights you have will help you to create a better shoot for your own clients. Some things to consider are:

Preparation

How was the experience preparing for the shoot? Smooth? Stressful?
Were you ever unsure of the plan? How did that make you feel?
Did you have trouble picking out clothes?
Was it a long process to get ready on the day of the shoot?
How did you feel on the way to the session?
How did you feel when you first met with your photographer?

The Shoot

How did you feel when the photographer was talking to you?
How did you feel when the photographer wasn’t talking to you?
Was it easy to understand what they wanted of you?
How did posing make you feel?
What made you feel relaxed and at ease?
What made you feel uncomfortable and awkward?
Did you ever wonder why your photographer was making certain choices?
Did you ever feel tired of taking photos, or was the process fun and enjoyable?
At the end of the shoot did you know what was going to happen next?
How did you feel after the session?

The Images

How was the wait for the images? Too long? Too short?
Did you enjoy the delivery of the images?
What was your first reaction to the images?
Were there certain types of images that you preferred more than others?
What images meant the most to you? Which ones do you think you’ll enjoy the most 10 years from now?
Did you end up actually using the photos? How?

This is just a quick list of questions to consider, and insights you can gain. You’ll probably come up with a ton more during your own session, and walk away with an incredible amount of knowledge.

A Lesson I Learned

I’m the kind of person that takes about 10 minutes to get ready. But when we had our own photos taken, it was more like an hour to make sure everything was just right. I never really thought about this part of the process, and what it felt like for our clients. But after going through it myself, I suddenly had far more appreciation for all the effort they put in!

I also became really relaxed about them being on time. I knew it was a lot of work to get ready, and didn’t worry if they were a bit late. And I definitely made sure to let them know how great they looked when we met up!!

Getting photographed can be one of the most valuable things you ever do when it comes to understanding your clients, and how to make their experience with you the best it can be!

Your Turn

Have you been photographed by a professional? What did you learn from the process?

Photography Concentrate

The Secret Way To Learn Photography Better

How Teaching Helps You Learn Photography

When Are You Ready To Teach?

Who To Teach

How To Do It

Important Final Thoughts

What To Read Next

The Essential Guide to Photography Slang

Terms

Acronyms

Your Turn!

What To Read Next

The Three Worst Things That Have Happened To Me During A Photo Shoot

1. Camera/Lens Breaking

2. Pants Ripping

3. Kneecap Dislocating

What To Read Next

How To Create A Simple Photography Client Database

Creating Your Database

Step 1: Assemble all your client contact information.

Step 2: Decide where to put the database

Step 3: Figure Out Backup Plans

Step 4: Decide What Information To Include

Step 5: Enter The Data

Step 6: Put The Database Into Your Workflow

What To Read Next

What Are You So Afraid Of?

Fear of Failure

Fear Of Embarassment

Fear Of Rejection

Fear Of Change

Overcoming Fear

What To Read Next

Straighten Up: A Quick Tip For Better Compositions

The Two Steps

Tricky Situations

What To Read Next:

5 Simple Tips for Shooting Gorgeous Portraits Indoors

1. Home Is Where The Heart Is. And Awesome Images Too.

2. Windows Are Your BFFs

3. Control The Light Sources

4. Watch Your Backgrounds

5. Explore

A Couple Last Words

Sneak Outside

Non-Home Locations

Flash

What To Read Next

Lightroom 4 Review: What's New, What's Difficult To Get Used To, And What Can Be Improved

What is Lightroom 4?

What’s new in Lightroom 4

Major Changes to Adjustment Sliders under the Basic Panel

RGB Point Curve - Make Awesome Color Adjustments

Improved Adjustment Brush

Snazzy New Books Module

Nifty New Maps Module

A few other notable improvements

Initial Thoughts

How It Could Be Improved

Speed

Keyboard Shortcuts

Spot Removal Tool

A New Tutorial!

Conclusion

What To Read Next

Getting The Shot: Wigwams and Classic Cars

Camera Settings:

Image Details:

How it Was Shot:

Tips:

How It Was Processed:

What To Read Next:

What You Can Learn In Front Of the Lens

Preparation

The Shoot

The Images

A Lesson I Learned

Your Turn