During the holiday season, I always end up having some free time to play around and experiment in the studio.  This year, I decided try out my new "Ambient Ring Light" that I designed and created months ago from parts I got at a Home Depot store.  Cool, uh?  I was eager to use my creation in an actual session.   Like I’ve always said before, "light is light" and as long as I can get a proper white balance, I figured I could use pretty much any type of light source I can find.  Well, here is my homemade Ringlight in action and the fun results.

Wabi-sabi: The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete…from Wikipedia. I am a big believer in improving your photography. In fact, I think the quality of our photography is often overlooked or devalued compared to marketing when it comes to building and growing a photography business. This is my discussion on finding the balance in moving towards perfection. Read on to find your own Wabi-sabi photography...

I know that in most current photography, ‘posing’ is a dirty word!  But there are still many valid reasons to just take a few seconds to watch what those arms, legs, fingers, etc…making just a few slight changes can really flatter your subject. To illustrate this point, I borrowed a model to run through some basic ‘rules’ of posing that I see broken all the time.  You can break any rules you want, but having an understanding of what and why you are doing so will help you become a better photographer.  You and your subjects will both be better off for it. I present to you five of the most common offenses, along with a bonus sixth that I sometimes break on purpose.

We visit Costa Rica a lot and now own our very own condo, which can only mean more frequent and longer visits to this beautiful country. We love it here! On our last visit, one of our best long term clients from our city was with her large family, visiting as well. We pitched a family portrait and they jumped at it. Since they've been such amazing clients to us over the years, my wife and I decided not to charge them for the session. The reprints will be billed as usual. I treated this as I would any other session, with a structure and outline that I followed. Here it is.

PRESENTED BY ACI LAB

For my first article in 2012, I want to cover an example of a family portrait session, which is the most requested topic in my emails.  I love family portraits more than anything. I was very young when I lost my mom, dad, and grandparents. Being an only child, I find it heartwarming for me to provide a service that the families can cherish for a lifetime. Here is a session that I did in early December.

This month’s Photoshop video is all about how I use layers, masks and saturation to create extreme density. I take a high school senior photo and show you how to add just the right amount of effects for a great image in just a few simple steps. This technique is great for high school senior and sports photos. Short video shows you how…

Danger, Public Beta ahead! You may have heard the Adobe has launched a Public Beta for Lightroom 4, or you may have already downloaded it! For these smArticles, we will continue to use the shipping version of Lightroom 3 until Lightroom 4 is launched and shipping, and even maybe a little after that date. Two reasons: One: Not every photographer can afford - in terms of time and money - to get the latest version of the application as soon as it launches. Two: The Public Beta is BETA software! Should you upgrade to Lightroom 4? Absolutely!

Looking for the real deal for free? Bring in the new year with endless opportunities. fridayphotoschool.com can help you learn new techniques and hone in your current skills. A new webisode will premier on the 1^st Friday of every month and remain available for FREE viewing until the next month when the new webisode is posted. We offer educational content for all photographers, beginner or pro, our webisodes will touch on all facets of photography. Whether you need lighting tips, suggestions for subject placement, or even more advanced processes such as color corrections and printing; fridayphotoschool.com has the tricks and tips you are looking for. Take a few moments now to watch this month’s video, "QUICK REFLECTIONS FOR COLOR CORRECTIONS, The Five Simple Steps" with Suzette Allen for free before its too late. This is a savings of $15. The real deal is fridayphotoschool.com for free! No coupon codes are needed to watch each webisode.

One of the areas of business that photographers often have less experienced in is ‘Sales’. In the beginning most photographers feel that their photography will sell itself.  I have come to understand that this is certainly not true! To be in business for yourself you must learn to be a good salesperson as well. Your photography will only get you so far. Good sales techniques will carry you so much farther than the photography will. The following are my tips for a Salesperson.

Last month I talked about ways to get your work displayed without cold calling on businesses. Now, to take that thought a step further I would like to show you how we market our displays along with big promotions. These have been very successful for us and now we do some of these events from year to year. Take a look…

Lightroom is all about streamlining the digital photographer’s workflow, and among the best tools in Lightroom are the Presets. Basically presets are a group of settings or options you tend to apply repetitively. You set up your settings ahead of time, give this Preset a name, and save it so it is ready to be applied when you need it. Lightroom lets you have Presets for all kinds of functions. There are Import presets, Metadata presets, Keyword presets, Develop presets, and more.

PRESENTED BY BAY PHOTO

Last month we talked about the basics of designing your own logo with a lot of emphasis on keeping things on separate layers and designing large. This month, I want to show you how to take that basic design and modify the layers in a very flexible way to experiment with colors, impact and weight....it gets very creative from this point on! The key is to add on your embellishments as LAYER STYLES so they can be easily changed, removed, colored, copied, etc. Even the simplest logo can benefit a great deal from a soft gradient.

About a month ago I was asked to try out a photo manipulation software package called "Perfect Photo Suite 6". This software package does several things, including limited retouching, and I'm going to write about one of the areas that I found very interesting. Within Perfect Photo Suite 6, there is a section called “Frames”. It is a way to simply add graphical elements on the photo, around the photo, or both. Take a look and see what I could accomplish using Frames.

There is never enough time, and it always seems that one of the biggest time vortex black holes happens right here, sitting in front of your computer. So it's a good thing when you can find ways to do things faster. As my wife always says, “Use your keyboard shortcuts!” because you do save time in Photoshop. Here are a few tools to save lots of keystrokes to make your work even easier and faster.

...And here's why. Color accuracy is becoming more critical as color management continues to shift away from the lab and into the hands of photographers.  I have responded to many questions over the last several months about digital color reproduction and I wanted to address one of the most important facets of color management: monitor profiling.

After such an awesome response to the article I wrote a couple of months ago about my new website, I decided to go a little further and talk about branding on your website (or maybe I should be saying websites). How many times have you visited another photographer’s website to see the following menu items: Portraits, Weddings, Children, Pets, Boudoir, Families, Products, Personal Work, Headshots, Landscapes, Macro Images, etc?....you get the idea. Can any of us really be exceptional at all these styles?

Looking for a catchy, new and kinda "hip" looking photo product to sell to more upscale clients? In previous posts here, I mentioned that I am developing some new products for a client of ours and BOOM - we stumbled on this idea. Here's a new item that is SO darned cool, and the families I've tested it on are extremely impressed with it. There's no name for it yet (maybe you can help me with that?) but it starts with a simple yet engaging photo that is printed onto canvas, then submounted onto a thick paper with a "ratty" looking edge.  I know, sounds odd, but stay with me...watch my latest Crockettville video to get all of the cool details.