Call for images of Veterans...

Memorial Day (weekend) will soon be upon us and as we have done for several years the blog will be coming down, replaced with the Memorial Day slideshow we created.

The plan was to create a new slideshow each year, but as with all good intensions life has gotten in the way, but I will be creating a new slideshow for Veterans Day (2010).

This is where you come in, I will be looking for images of veterans from our readers, the friends of our readers, and their friends too.

So please, send in an image of a veteran in your life (both living and those who have "gone on ahead"), ask your friends and families to do the same.

Email your image (max size 200k) and a line or two about the veteran that appears in the image you are sending in.

There is no limit as to the number of images you can send, if you have 5 veterans in your life, send an image of each and every one.

I promise that every veterans image I receive will appear in the upcoming slideshow.

So please, start spreading the word!




(legal babble - you will maintain all ownership and rights to any image you send in, you will be granting us permission to use it in this slideshow, which will be the only use we will make of it)

A word (or two) about our reviews...

This post was sparked by comments made on my last review and I figured if Sharon and Chris had questions, then others did too.

First, regarding reviews in general.

For various reasons about 25-30% of the products sent to us for review never make it to the blog (you can read our review policy here).

I take the trust of our readers (very) seriously and would never want to betray that trust so when I review a product it needs to provide me with something that will make my photography or my business better. It needs to bring something to the table. I then assume that it will do the same for others.

I take money seriously too, so not only does a product need to contribute, it also needs to make back the money that was laid out to bring it on board.

It is difficult to explain how badly I would feel if you spent your hard earned money on a product that I recommended and it was useless to you.

So bottom line, for a product to get a positive review it needs to contribute to the cause AND it needs to pay for itself.

My suggestion (and what I do myself) if there is a product I am interested in that is over $100 I email and ask if there is a guarantee, if the product does not deliver as expected can it be returned.

Second, regarding our last review.

Sharon and Chris voiced concern over the lack of details about what was actually contained in the book. I can't tell you how much I appreciated their approach... thoughtful, insightful, respectful.

Chris hit the nail on the head about the fact that "get it together" is intellectual in nature and if you give away the content you remove the need for people to purchase it.

Add to that, when folks send me stuff like this (intellectual in nature) they specifically request that I not share the content, just my thoughts on the content.

But I can give you a bit more information, the book is Millie's story of what she did to run a more efficient (thus more profitable) photography studio. She doesn't tell us what we should do, she tells us what she did. Our job then is to extrapolate out how (and where) what she did would apply to our own studio.

She covers:

● How to organize thoughts and ideas
● How to implement a workflow
● How to make your email work for you (not overwhelm you)
● How to make the most of your leads
● How to pick vendors that work

and a few other topics as well.

I hope that gives you a little more insight regarding the content of the book.

Lastly, if you read one of my reviews and you're left wondering "is this for me?", PLEASE contact me, I would so prefer (and be happy) to spend time with you via email or by phone to make sure something was a fit for you, so you don't waste your hard earned money.

And finally, thanks... thanks for being our readers, for coming back week after week to listen to my dribble, and for trusting in what I have to say.

Review of "get it together"...

There are times when I get products for review that make me feel fortunate that I write this blog.

Receiving "get it together" is one of those times.

Usually when I receive a package of an item sent to the blog I open it, check out the contents, and set it in its place on the shelf to await its turn to be reviewed. When I opened the package containing "get it together" I did not put it down until I had finished reading it from cover to cover. But I still wasn't done, I then took the CD that comes with the book to my computer to look at the sample documents that are included.

The first thing I noticed is the graphical layout of the book, every time I turned a page my interest was held not only by the content but by the design as well. It's not just to make it pretty, but to help drive home the points and ideas presented in the book.


The book itself is 100 pages long and the point from the first page that is carried (quite nicely) to the last page is how to set up the workflow of a successful studio.

Some of the content I already knew (and do), other information I had thought about and the book drove home the point that is was a good idea, and still other things I hadn't thought of but were brilliant and will be incorporated into our studio workflow "system".

"get it together" arrived the day before I drove to New Jersey to shoot a wedding with Stacey Kane and I asked her to take a look at it, I was curious to see if a person with more time, more experience, and more success as a professional photographer was going to be as impressed with Millie Holloman as I was.

"get it together is an absolute must for those just starting out, it will prevent them from having to go through the painful 'trial and error... and error...and more error...' stages of establishing a studio system along the way to building a business.

A fantastic reinforcement tool for established photographers. It will help them solidify systems that they already have established as well as give them fresh and new ideas on how to run their studio more smoothly.

In either case, a very creative and inspirational sourcebook from a studio that has 'been there, done that' and continues to do so every day."

There you have it, four thumbs way up.

Follow these links to learn more about Millie and more about "get it together" at the website and the blog.

One last thing about fonts...

One of our kind readers sent this "flow chart for finding fonts" to me this weekend.

In the past when I have been looking for a project specific font it has been a matter of starting at the top of the (very) long list of fonts on my computer and looking for the one that best fits. I think it's called "hunt and peck".

Well, this flow chart starts out with of different project titles/types, you simply select the kind of project you are working on and then follow the line answering a series of "yes" or "No" questions until you land on a suggest font style.

I tried a couple different projects and liked the results, in the future this will be a time (and frustration) saver.

You can click on the image below (which will open the poster in larger and in a new window), then right click and "save as" to have on your computer. You can also find it here with the story of its design (and designer Julian Hansen).

Another New Jersey wedding...

This week we are back in Long Beach Island New Jersey for another wedding.

Some of you may remember the posts from last year when we were here and had the most incredible weather (see here and here), well we roll into town last night and check in just before the most incredible thunderstorm.

But today is gorgeous, 74 and sunny.

Below are some images of the storm coming in, they were taken with an iPhone and processed (in the iphone) with Hipstamatic.

A bazillion free fonts...

There are times when you are working on a project for a client, like a card, calendar, or book, and the standard fonts you find on your computer just are not doing it for you.

Well here is list of websites that have way more fonts than you will ever need.

1001 Free Fonts

DaFont.com

Fonts.com

Font Squirrel

Get Free Fonts

Simply The Best Fonts

Urban Fonts

If you download any of these fonts for a project I am sure folks would love to see it so email me a screenshot or join our Flickr group and post it there.

How should I price my photography?...

If you have even the slightest interest in selling your photography you need to read the article "How should I price my photography?" by photographer extraordinaire Jodie Otte.

In the article she gives a wonderful breakdown of what we should consider when determining what our pricing should be. It is a few minutes worth of reading that will not only educate you, but has the ability to put thousands of dollars into your pocket.

After you finish reading the article you will want to head over to her website and look at her jaw dropping images. One of the things you will notice is how naturally lit her studio images look, and no she doesn't have huge windows or a bank of skylights, she uses the same strobes and softboxes that you and I use, she just uses them much better.

You can check out her book "Studio Lighting Naturally", in it Jodie will teach you how to achieve natural studio lighting along with tips on photographing babies, expecting moms, and much, much more.