I was one of those that scoffed at the idea of learning old-school lighting and posing. But guess what? I was wrong. Learning the fundamentals is so crucial to our success that when the Monte Zucker Lighting and Education bundle was being offered through PhotoDough.com, I had to jump in and get it.

Who was Monte Zucker? He was a master as lighting and posing. He was a teacher. At one of the first WPPI’s I attended, I recall a room full of nearly a 1000 people sitting there watching this man teach his techniques. The minute the seminar ended, the crowd surged on towards the stage to badger him with more questions. I had absolutely no chance of getting close to him. I felt like I was at a rock concert. People like Bambi Cantrell still talk about him and what he taught her.

“Based on classical tradition, Monte’s portraiture has never strayed far from his original intent – to capture a moment in people’s lives and memorialize it for posterity.”

After battling cancer, Monte Zucker passed away in 2007. I know it was a huge blow to the industry he cared so much about.

Here is what Bay Area photographer Michael Corsentino says about Monte Zucker:

“Sad that some people don’t know but at least they’re asking. He was a great person and a passionate educator, definitely missed.”

Thankfully, his teaching lives on.

You can learn more about Monte Zucker’s products here. But if you are quick, you can grab a good chunk of what the store offers and save $131 now through PhotoDough.com.

For $49 you receive a downloadable set of 4 CD-ROMS, including 6 slideshows with over 500 photographic examples with text descriptions. Also included are PDFs that you can tote around on your iPad and refer to often. As I said, I bought this bundle and I am looking forward to getting back to basics. Frankly, there are too many “teachers” out in the world now who are just winging it. If you want to learn from the best, this is your chance.

Get to know Monte Zucker and learn from him at your own pace. The PhotoDough.com deal is only on for a limited time.

Oh, one more thing – it’s tempting to learn from a master and just copy what she or he says. That would defeat the purpose of photography for me. I intend to learn from Monte Zucker, but plan on adapting it to the way I work with my clients. Making that experience unique is key to everyone’s success. Good luck!

Yunghi Kim is today’s guest blogger. She is a highly regarded freelance photojournalist based in New York City. From 1995 until 2008 she was represented by Contact Press Images. She has also been a team leader at the prestigious Eddie Adams Workshop. Learn more about here and follow her on Twitter.

I’ve learned from my 28 years as a photojournalist and the hundreds of stories I’ve covered, how to quickly recognize a big story. It was clear from the start that the Occupy Wall Street movement (OWS) had all the right elements to become huge. Unlike most of my projects, I wouldn’t be traveling to a far off war zone. This story was happening right in my own backyard.

I don’t recall a movement or an event in my career that has struck such a cord with so many Americans. OWS changed the dialogue in America and around the world as well. It successfully brought attention to runaway corporate greed and gave a voice to the working “99 Percent” of us. All of this only a subway stop away from my home in Brooklyn. How could I not pursue this story?

Like so many of my bigger projects over the years, like “The Comfort Women of South Korea”, the Rwandan refugee crisis, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, my own desire to document the story in pictures would be my biggest motivation. To bear witness to history is a common drive among photojournalists. We want to capture actual events as they unfold and to create a visual story. Without this drive, I think it’s almost impossible to produce a meaningful body of work.

I was surprised to see the wide amount of support generated by OWS and enjoyed the creative ways in which they spread their message. Everyday there’d be a protest scheduled for both the opening and the closing bells of the stock market. Complete with the now well known slogans like, “The banks got bailed out, and we got sold out” Often the protestors would use humor, such as dressing up like zombies or taking brooms to Wall Street and pretend to sweep away the greed. I think this strategy hit a cord with Americans and helped to successful brand the movement.

Of course, other times there would be a more serious tone. As when the protesters would play “cat and mouse” with the police, or even outrun them so they could march the streets, free of escorts, as they saw fit. These tactics often ended in arrests.

It was no easy task for the NYPD, probably the biggest and best trained police force in the world. Mayor Bloomberg claims it’s the sixth largest army on the planet! During arrests, police officers would form huge columns which would block what you could see. Frustrating, to know something is happening and not being able to photograph it. They’d also use a technique called “kettling” where people would be locked into a certain area (protesters, journalists, whomever) circled by police. Anyone trying to leave would be arrested. It didn’t matter who you were, once an officer decided to arrest you, there was nothing you could do. Many times the arrests seemed random.

As a freelance photographer, the thought of spending thousands of dollars in legal fees and going through the court system became more of a concern as I spent more time working this story. 

The protests were quite physically demanding. There was a lot of running, backwards, forwards, and sideways, during marches that would cover half the length of Manhattan. One day I ended up flat on my back (with another photographer on top of me) after being pushed by a police officer. Luckily I was able to find my glasses so I could continue shooting. Having a few new bruises at the end of the day was common among photographers.

Bruises are better than handcuffs any day!

I was fascinated by how efficiently OWS used social media to communicate with their supporters. They had their own live video streaming team with protesters carrying portable wi-fi enabled webcams. Everything they and the NYPD did was documented and shared almost as it happened. Eventually, I learned to utilize @Yunghi pretty well myself.

Zuccotti Park was another amazing scene. You could see Noble Prize winners, celebrities, average Americans and homeless people all rubbing shoulders and making speeches to one another.

If you had something to say, Zuccotti Park was the place to be!

Overall, this was a lot safer than much of my work. You didn’t have mortars going off or bullets flying around, but, it was often frustrating having to navigate around the NYPD. Still, I think my images stand up well and serve as a visual record of what I experienced and witnessed.

(The text of this post was edited by another incredible photojournalist, Ken Jarecke)

Did you field a camera and attempt to document the Occupy Wall Street protests? Tell us your story in the comments below.

Today’s guest post is by Jerod Foster, an editorial and natural history photographer based in Lubbock, Texas. His book, Storytellers: A Photographer’s Guide To Developing Themes and Creating Stories With Pictures, was published in 2011. Follow @jerodfoster on Twitter.

Many thanks to Seshu for providing me the opportunity to guest appear on such a resourceful blog. Once again, the ability to create positive relationships over an ever-growing online community of photographers astounds me.

Speaking of community, if you’re reading this post, there’s no doubt that a good many of you came here via a link posted on Twitter or Facebook, perhaps Google+, your own RSS feed, or a variety of other means of connecting you to, well, here. Word spreads fast in the photography world, especially when that world spans across a very diverse and prolific online community. Needless to say, the photography community, online or not, is large. Very large.

It’s so large and diverse that it’s often difficult to distinguish who we are at times. Just think about it for a moment. We’re so vast and varietal, and in some cases so niche, that we’ve become enclaves of particular areas of the entire art and craft of photography. At the same time, however, we know we all relate to each other on one level or another, but what?

A quandary? Perhaps. Maybe we can be a bit deductive in finding out just who we are as a community. Consider this an exercise in getting to the essence of photographers in general.

Let’s break some of the diversity down by types of photographers, starting with some of the more obvious. A lot of us are wedding, engagement, bridal, and family photographers, established in a particularly special and popular area of photography that have, if you think about it, one of the most important jobs in the world. Others of us are photojournalists, visualizing the life around us for a variety of outlets, including the tried and true newspaper industry, magazine publications, and a boatload of online resources for both traditional and new media content. Still, there are those of us that concentrate solely on the natural world, training our vision and gear on awe-inspiring landscapes and the wildlife that populate such environments. We can’t leave sports shooters of the list, either, since they carry quite a bit of the load for both personal and media audiences (globally, I might add).

Story is not something new, but it is indeed a constant. It’s what each and every one of us as a community (online or not) has in common.

Hold up, though. I’m creating a rather clear separation of the types of photographers out there (I also realize the listing is quite truncated). It’s also apparent among the community that not all of us are 100% one type or the other. Many of us that sling a camera over our shoulder do so with just as much commitment to shooting a family as we do the magazine story assignment we picked up last week. I know sports photographers that can shoot a heckuva wedding, and vice versa. Lest we forget, there are specializations upon specializations in the photography field as well, ranging from different styles of portraiture and cultural photography, to underwater shooting, science and medical image making, to fine art forms of the craft. Some of us are primarily focused on publishing in coffee table books and magazines, while most of us will never see the inside of what those that do call the land of the yellow border (although that shouldn’t stop one from trying).

Finally, but certainly not the least, there are those of us that do not necessarily aspire to be labeled a “type” of photographer, but instead are content and productively happy being generalists and avid shooters. This position is true for many, if not the most, of us, and it includes all levels of photographic achievement/aptitude, from the most basic hobbyist to the amateur wondering if she can earn some side money photographing her neighbors’ children, to the emerging professional right out of university.

So, if the photography community is so diverse, what keeps us together, stumbling upon (if you will) other parts of the industry, different shooters, and strange and interesting sources of visual inspiration? No matter what type of photography you lean toward, the thing that connects each and every one of us is the fact that we’re all telling stories with the images we produce. Story, for that matter, has been a part of what connects us all since the dawn of time! Story and storytelling is what and how we use the information we are continuously consuming to learn and interpret our world. Photography, in this sense, is one of the most important modes of telling story and has been since its commercial inception in the early 19th century.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that storytelling is vital to being a photographer. In some ways, it’s our responsibility to tell stories with images. Not in a cliché way either—I believe that we photographers (no matter what level of professional or hobbyist achievement) are a very important part of what keeps this world in tune with itself. Whether you’re shooting a global humanitarian campaign, a national advertisement, or your child’s first birthday, you have something to pass along with your images, and it keeps informing those around you.

That being said, I also believe that in order to grow as a photographer, we have to tie quite a few things together—things that are discussed quite a bit by the online community I mentioned earlier. Gear, technique, technical aptitude, vision, visual language, style—all are used in order to increase how we see and create compelling images. In addition, and more importantly, each helps us tell stories (they can get in the way as well; a post for another time). Our job is to make sure we’re doing just that. We may improve as photographers, but in essence, we grow as storytellers.

At its core, photography is meant to tell story. At our core, we are storytellers. Whether you’re just starting out, or you have shot professionally for the past 30 years, whether you’re in the studio or on some exotic location, whether you’re shooting solo or as part of a budgeted production crew, story is the central element of the visuals you produce. Story is not something new, but it is indeed a constant. It’s what each and every one of us as a community (online or not) has in common.

We are, in essence, a community of visual storytellers.

This guest blog is by Ellen Petty, the Head Brandslinger at Identity Kitchen, a marketing and design studio specializing in photographers. She and her business partner Marty Thornley launched a new line of affordable all-in-one WordPress portfolio sites designed specifically for professional photographers at PhotographyBlogSites.com.

Just yesterday, they announced new lower pricing on their self managed, all-inclusive BlogSites. As a special thank you to the Tiffinbox audience, they would like to extend an extra $50 off your first year when you use the code TIFFINBOX50.

Let’s Start at the Beginning. What is Branding?

Your brand is your touchpoint. Everything from how you answer your phones to the auto-responder on your email. Yes, it’s the big picture items; your website, your business card, your space, but it is the cohesiveness, that glue that gives a clear picture to your potential clients. There are some companies, (Starbuck’s anyone?) They do this very, very well. Talk about the Starbucks cup, how it fits perfect in your hand. Not a waxy exterior, not styrofoam, a little thinner than a regular takeout coffee. How much planning do you think went into just the coffee cup? Now let’s talk interior, advertising, their charities, the music, the Wifi.

“That’s great for Starbucks”, you say, but how can I create a killer brand for my photography business? Here are 9 steps to not only get you started, and make sure you stay on track.

1) What’s Your Mantra?

Your brand essence, sometimes called your brand mantra, is the heart and soul of your business. Sometimes defined in a few words. Your brand essence is “Who you are”. Try and define your brand in six words or less. If I said “Maiden voyage…iceberg…not enough lifeboats” you would know Titanic. How can you define who you are?

Start with describing your work, yourself, your approach. Ask, who am I, who is this business? Choose 5-6 words that best describe you and your business.

2) Who Am I?

This is your brand positioning; what makes my business different from my competition? Is it the service that you give? Is it the kind of photographs you take? Is it the kind of photographer you are?

One of the most important rules in positioning your business and your brand is to know your competition. Once you know what you are up against, once you understand your competition you can figure out how you are different AND create a unique business perspective and carve out your very own market share.

3) Define Your Target Audience?

Do you know your target customers? Who are you going after? Engaged couples? Parents? Parents to be? What is their demographic? How do you want to come across to them?

This is where you really think about who your client or potential client is. Where do they shop, what toothpaste they use, how much disposable income they have, are they like you are they not like you?

4) Get Inspired

Now that you know who you are, what makes you/your studio different, who your competition is and who you are talking to…it’s time to get inspired, and really push that creative envelope. Look to places outside the photography industry for inspiration. Fashion, architecture, music, fine art, even food. Wherever your muse lies, don’t be afraid to interpret. Pinterest is a fantastic place to create style boards and have a sneak peek into other creative formulas.

Below is an example of an inspiration board and how we translated it into the online brand design for Studio Diana.

5, 6 & 7) The 3 C’s; Get Creative, Make It Cohesive, Keep It Consistent

Ok, you have your strategy, you have your inspiration boards, now it’s time to get creative. Whether you are designing your brand yourself or hiring an outside designer, this is where the magic happens. The “Ah-­?ha” moment. The spark, that can be realized as your own personal touchpoint or brand.

Once you choose a design path make sure there is a thread or a few that keeps your brand cohesive and consistent across all mediums. Print, online, advertising, promotion, and sales. Don’t be afraid to loosen the reins on your brand as you move between mediums, keeping your brand consistent, does not mean choking it. This is where it may be helpful to bring in a professional.

Below are some examples of the creative process of Partridge Lane Studios. Also, an example of how we kept the look cohesive from printed material to the online presence.

8) Choose Your Best Work

If you have completed the last 7 steps, we know you can make choices. Don’t question yourself now. It’s time to choose your best work. Go through your body of work and choose your best 5, 10 and 20 pieces. Those should always be front and center on all your promotional vehicles. Be strong, if you feel a piece does not live up to the standard of these choices, they should not appear in your portfolio. Your online galleries should be between 20 & 30 photos per gallery. Always aim to put your very best foot forward.

9) Be Unique

If you have followed these steps you should arrive at a brand that is unique, because it is you. If it is true to who you are as an artist, it is right.
One of my favorite sayings when it comes to finding your true voice in life and in branding is by Oscar Wilde, “Be yourself, because everyone else is already taken.

As a wedding photographer for almost 10 years, Lara White has always loved the business side of photography. She shares her passion for business and marketing strategies with photographers through her PhotoMint blog and recently authored a free book for photographers interested in learning how to get their images published. Follow Lara on Twitter.

Want to get published? Follow these easy 4 steps and you will be on your way to creating images that wedding magazines find irresistible.

The first thing you need to know is that wedding magazines and blogs are all about details. Their readers can never get enough details. So that right there should tell you that your submission needs to be at least 75% or more details, and you need to have that on your mind when you are shooting your next wedding that you think has a shot at getting published.

1. Plan Ahead

Take the time to plan ahead for your shoot and how to get the most out of it. Speak with the planner and the florist to get an understanding for the décor and the florals. Will there be a cool escort card table, and if so, how will you capture it prior to the guests spilling into the cocktail hour? How about ceremony details-can you get to the ceremony area prior to the guests, in time to capture how the ceremony looks prior to guests putting their purses down and otherwise cluttering up the area? Ask the catering manager to keep the reception doors closed until the reception, and that you’ll be coming in for a few minutes to capture the room before the doors open.

2. Allow Plenty Of Extra Time For Capturing Details

It takes time to capture details in a way that “sells” them. Allow yourself the extra time needed to spend time in the reception finding just the right angle for capturing the centerpieces. Arrive early while the bride is just starting makeup, and you’ll have plenty of time to “play” with the details in the bride’s room. These can include the dress, shoes, jewelry, bouquet, invitation and other items with personal meaning.

3. Don’t Be Afraid To Rearrange & Declutter

Nothing ruins a great detail shot like a half empty glass or a partially eaten plate of appetizers. Think of your detail shots like a product shot. You want the image to “sell” that detail. It’s OK to rearrange things a bit or remove bits of clutter from your image. Think of yourself as styling the details. It’s perfectly ok to take the salt and pepper shakers (or the table number sign if it’s ugly) off the table for your shots of the centerpiece. Take the bouquet out of the cardboard delivery box and find a beautiful spot with nice lighting. It only takes a moment and will vastly improve your images.

4. Consistent Photoshop Style

If you create certain looks or styles in Photoshop, be consistent. For example if you go for a desaturated vintage look on some of your images and some of them are just in a “standard” look. Most magazines and blogs prefer to have all the images in a set done as a consistent style and look. Otherwise the overall theme and feeling of the images is lost.

The more time you spend working on mastering the art of detail shots, the better you’ll become. And the better you are at capturing details, the more likely you are to find your images in the next issue of your favorite wedding magazine. If you’d like to learn more tips about getting published, check out Get Published: A Guide for Wedding Photographers.

It takes time and patience to learn to create images magazines will be interested in publishing, but it’s well worth the investment of time, because your brides will love those images too.

Remember – You can pick up Lara’s e-book, Get Published for free. No strings attached. I’ve read it and it’s full of great, actionable topics. Get it now!

This guest post is by Rob & Lauren, who are photographers, educators, travelers, and all-around fun-loving folks. They spend their time teaching on Photography Concentrate and creating portraits of fun people. They are currently obsessed with espresso and robots. Follow them on Twitter.

Once upon a time we made a really big mistake in our business. The kind of mistake that still comes back to haunt us on a regular basis. A real forehead-slapping, bad-word-saying, doozy of a blunder. 

But before we tell you what we did, let’s take a second to talk about mistakes. 

We’re human. So are you. (Unless you’re a robot, and then you don’t really need to read this.) Human beings make mistakes. All. The. Time. If you haven’t made a big mistake in your business yet, chances are pretty good that you will.
 
And so a big part of being a business owner is getting your mind in the right place to handle the inevitable missteps. Here are a few steps to take care of those problems when they pop up:

Step 1: Understand that you will make mistakes.
 
You’re not perfect and mistakes will happen. When you accept that, you’ll feel a lot less anxious and worried! You may even come to embrace mistakes when they happen! Maybe…

Step 2: Admit the mistake.
 
This is a big one. It’s easy to hide from your mistakes, and pretend nothing is wrong. Bad move. They have a way of getting worse over time, and you lose your ability to nip the problem in the bud. So when you make a mistake, acknowledge it. Write it down to make it real if you have to. Just admit you messed up, and you’ll be in a much better place to fix it.

Step 3: Look at the mistake objectively.
 
When it’s your business it’s easy to get emotional, and think the mistake is much more dire than it really is. Take a step back, get some big picture perspective, and figure out just what went wrong. Be honest.

Step 4: Fix it. 

This might not always be easy, but do your best to figure out how to fix the mistake. Make things right with clients, with your business, and with yourself. Every mistake is different, so there’s no single answer to this one. But now that you’ve admitted the mistake, and looked at it objectively, you should be able to figure out how to fix it.

Step 5: Learn from it. 

After you’ve worked to fix the mistake, now comes the most important part. Learn from it!! This is the silver lining, and the big reason why it’s ok to make mistakes. They are amazing learning experiences in disguise. If you figure out how to prevent the mistake in the future, you end up growing as a result of making it in the first place. Win!

Step 6: Move on. 

Remember, it’s ok to make mistakes. After you’ve learned from it, then move on. Dwelling on mistakes you’ve made doesn’t help you at all. Focus your energy instead on doing great things in the future. You can’t change the past, after all! (Unless you have a time machine, and if so we should talk.)

So, now are you ready to hear about our big mistake? Let’s do it.

After a couple of years of shooting weddings in our hometown of Edmonton, we thought it would be a great adventure to move to another city (Vancouver) and set up shop. We went out there to look around, and even did a bunch of networking with local photographers. 

Then, the big mistake: we announced that we would be moving on our blog. 

And never moved.

But all of our clients and potential clients thought we weren’t going to be in Edmonton anymore. They stopped contacting us, referring us, telling people we weren’t shooting here anymore…you can see why this was a big mistake. 

When we decided to stay in Edmonton we did post about it, and sent out a newsletter, but we never really admitted just how big the mistake we made was. We didn’t take the “fix it” stage seriously enough. We didn’t put in enough effort to make sure everyone knew we were staying.

And so fast forward a few years, and we still regularly get asked when we are moving, or hear statements like “Oh you’re still here! I thought you had moved!”. Bummer.

Luckily it didn’t send our business down the toilet, but that was a very real possibility. We’ve now learned to never make big announcements online unless we are absolutely, positively, 100% sure about it. 

So, have you made a big mistake? Did you admit it and fix it? Or ignore it and have it grow into a big issue like ours? What did you learn from your boo boo? Share with us in the comments now!

Need to learn how to use your camera, edit images in Lightroom, design wedding albums in InDesign? Robert & Lauren Lim are passionate about teaching you through their website and products. Buy them here using these affiliate links so that you may support Tiffinbox as well.

This guest post is by Dr. Dhiraj Kacker, CEO and co-founder of Canvera, an online digital photography company based in Bangalore, India. Dhiraj has numerous patents and publications to his name in the field of Digital Imaging. Dhiraj can be found online on twitter, his company blog or his personal blog.

With the advent of digital photography and the simultaneous rise of the Internet the entire photography landscape has been revamped in the last decade. This audience knows these changes quite well so I won’t dwell on all of them but rather I’ll focus my post on the technology and craft that goes behind a product that was spawned by this revolution: Photo Books.

I don’t know how many people actually sit back and think about it but it is quite remarkable that today we can actually get a single copy of a book printed at a reasonable price and turned around fairly fast. In the traditional book publishing world the economics just would not make sense unless there were at least say a 1000 copies of a book to be printed. There are many services that provide the ability to print one-off books:

a) Consumer grade photo books by companies such as Shutterfly, Snapfish, Kodakgallery

b) Self publishing service providers such as Blurb, Amazon etc. that focus on generic publishing not just photo content

c) High-end photobook and album manufacturers such as Graphistudio, Asuka, Queensberry etc. that provide a much richer variety in covers, papers, finishing and other customizations. These are the favorites with professional photographers because they best showcase the work of a pro.

Canvera falls in the last category and we have slowly but surely added more and more options as we engaged with more photographers and understood their needs. There is however a constant tension between how many options we can offer versus producing a high quality output and keeping fast turnaround times. What makes this difficult is that there are many different pieces that have to come together in an exact sequence without requiring any one person or set of people to keep track.

Take for example a flush mount book with a custom cover and a personalized box with pictures. The inside of the book is printed on a silver halide machine and bound. The cover and the box wrap are printed on a wide-format printer (in Canvera’s case). The cover goes for separate finishing and then through barcodes is matched at a separate station with the book block and then bound together. The same happens with the custom box. Now there are complications in the process: the silver halide printer and wide-format printer have to be producing the same colors at all times, we can’t afford to have anyone trying to match colors on a book by book basis; individual sheets may have to get re-printed for a variety of reasons; QA may reject the finishing of one of the pieces and that may have to get re-done and matched back with the remaining finished pieces.

None of this is possible to do at scale without significant automation and technology. But adding options brings with it significant complexity as well. Even seemingly simple things such as adding more cover varieties, paper types or hot foil stamping fonts requires us to think through the full workflow: what equipment do we need, where will the raw materials be available on the production floor, how will quality analysis happen etc. We keep trying to push the envelope in adding choices (and at times have gotten burned!) but it is a balancing act.

At Canvera our driving philosophy behind everything we do is as follows:

a) 80% of what makes a good photo book or album is the photography! No matter how many digital photography touch-up tools have been created and how many effects one can do, the pressure on a pro to produce great pictures is as high as ever. In fact I’d argue that with an explosion in images fueled by the web and multitude of capture devices, consumers have subconsciously developed a greater appreciation of what makes a good picture.

b) Fast turnaround time matters a lot. Take the case of wedding photography: For the bride and groom 90% perfect pictures and album received within 10-15 days of the occasion are much more valuable than the absolute perfect set received 6 months after the event. At Canvera therefore, once we get an order we try to put it in the mail within 48 hrs.

c) Quality of printed products should be high and predictable. It is not good enough that the samples are great, but every single product produced every single time without requiring any special treatment should be produced at high quality.

With these driving principles, we focus more on turn-around-time and end-to-end workflow to ensure speed and quality while hopefully letting the photography do most of the talking. This does not mean that we don’t keep adding options, but we do try and think through the full implications first.

Here are things for you to consider when choosing a photo book or album company (beyond of course liking the samples):

1) What kind of front end tools (web or client based) do they provide to capture the order correctly? If there is complexity of choices in the order that the front end tools are not capturing and you are sending instructions over email/phone, chances are that mistakes will happen..

2) As the company grows, do they have processes in place to maintain their turn-around-times and quality at high volumes or are they better off as a low volume hand-made producer?

3) Do the variety of options on the books and albums lend themselves to more mistakes? Is the company ready to handle that much complexity?

4) What kind of color consistency is there in their production work flow?

As I said earlier, at Canvera we are taking the approach that first and foremost the photographs should do the talking. That’s key. And we as the photo book and album manufacturers should get out of the way by quickly turning around a high quality product with the right colors morning, evening or night, even if it means in the short term compromising a little on the variety we offer.

What do you think? How do you pick your photo book and album company? Do you agree/disagree with this thinking?

Happy New Year! You are probably feeling energized and ready to get into a whole host of new projects, right? Some of us, though, may still feel like we are stuck in a rut. That’s natural but there is a solution. And Aaaron Hockley is about to give us a solution. Read on. This is, of course, Aaron Hockley‘s second guest post on Tiffinbox. I hope you read his previous post before you got started with the new year.

What’s your genre? Do you normally photograph weddings? Are you a fine art photographer? Do you make headshot after headshot?

Think different. It’s not just an Apple marketing line.

I’ve found a great way to expand my view of the photography world, increase my technical knowledge, and stretch my creative brain is to photograph a subject that’s outside of the realm of my usual set of work. In my case, professionally I’m most often found photographing business conferences and events, corporate work, and portraits. I recently had the opportunity to engage in something new: sports photography.

A photographer friend was able to help me obtain credentials to photograph the state high school football championship and it gave me a chance to create images in a new environment. Previously I’ve never done any serious sports photography, but it was a good exercise in flexing my photo skills for a new situation.

I found that the technical aspects (the indoor domed stadium’s lighting and the fast-moving action) were handled without much challenge, but the difficult part was in the football-specific moves, plays, and activities that kept me on my toes. It wasn’t too hard to start producing football photos which were correct from a technical standpoint but that were otherwise dull. Producing something *interesting* meant that I had to get my head not just in the photography game, but in the football game as well. Compelling images meant thinking about the football plays, anticipating where the ball might be thrown, looking at where a runner might travel, and ensuring that my camera was pointed in the right direction to capture the moment.

While the specifics of my football game were sports-oriented, a similar creative exercise would exist if a sports shooter were to photograph children, or a wedding shooter were to spend time making images of a product, or a photojournalist were to work with studio portraiture.

Avoid getting stuck in a rut by photographing something different; you might be pleasantly surprised with the results. At worst you’ll exercise some new ideas, at best you might find something you really like and want to explore as a new side of your photography adventures.

Today’s timely guest post is by Jennifer Dunn of Social Street Media. She writes for a variety of clients, including Outright.com, the easiest way to manage your small business finances online!

No doubt you’ve already started the task of organizing everything for the end of the year. Or, at least, you’ve thought about it a lot! It’s never a fun thing to do, especially since it comes during one of the busiest times, the holidays.But considering your photography business’ future is very important at the end of the year. During the rest of the year it’s easy to put things off until later, including evaluating where our ventures are headed. When the New Year stares us down, it’s easier to commit to working a plan.

So what tasks are ahead for the savvy freelance photographer? Let’s take a look.

Take Photos

Hey, who would’ve thought? But these aren’t the usual beautiful landscapes and portraits you usually take. These are plain old boring office and workstations photos! Nonetheless, these pics can help you when it comes time for taxes. Your home office and/or workstation may be available for deductions from your small business. But if you don’t have evidence of anything you use daily for your work, it does nothing for you. Furthermore, your tax agent will know all the deductions you can feasibly pull off, but only if they know what you have set up for your office. While you’re at it, take stock of all your equipment as well. Along with your receipts, they will help authenticate the deductions you’re taking from your taxes.

Go Over Receipts and Contracts

Speaking of receipts, you’ll want to get all those in order before the rush of the tax season approaches. Times are tough, especially for those doing it on their own – naturally, you’ll want to squeeze every dollar you can out of your taxes. That’s why it’s important to have an up to date and accurate record of your exploits in 2011.

Do you know how much money you made and from where? Have you calculated all your expenses and categorized them properly? What about that DSLR you invested in earlier this year, did you take that into account? Everything has to have physical proof for it to work as a deduction, and every job you worked should be properly inventoried.

Going over receipts and contracts is especially important this year because of upcoming changes to your taxes like the PayPal 1099.

PayPal 1099

If you haven’t heard of this mysterious document, the PayPal 1099 is the newest tax document you may encounter in 2012. A lot of freelancers and small business owners operate through PayPal and other payment processing services like it, which means a lot of money is exchanged through these services. The IRS has taken notice, and now requires PayPal to report to them. This means you may get the new PayPal 1099 form. However, there are a few stipulations that may exclude you. For one, you must have made 200 or more transactions through PayPal. Also, those 200 transactions must have netted you $20,000 or more. If this sounds like you, then you’ll get the new form.

Luckily, it’s nothing complicated, just another tax form. However, it may mean you should wait until you actually get the form to start your taxes. Nothing like a little procrastination, huh? Check out the Outright Tax Center for more information on the PayPal 1099 and other important tax info for self-employed photographers.

What else do you typically do to ready your business for the New Year?

Make 2012 a win-win year. Did you know you can support this site by signing up for Outright? It takes just a few seconds. Outright.com – Automate your bookkeeping so you’re always organized and ready for taxes.

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