“I hate the way I look in pictures.”

“I run when I see a camera.”

Chances are you’ve heard a lot of people say that. I have a few of those in my own family!

Yet have you ever stopped and asked them why? Chances are they’ve never really thought about it. You may get the standards response of, “I don’t like the way I look”, yet what is it that they don’t like?

If you asked them to find one photograph taken in the last few years that they love, I’m sure they could find one. There was one that captured their true essence. In their minds, this is who they are. And all the others make them “hate” the way they photograph.

Typically its because they don’t like a certain “thing” that shows up on film. It may be the way their hair is parted. It may be the angle at which an image is taken. Or the way they show too much teeth. Or differences in their eyes. Your job is to find out what it is, and use that to create a portrait that will truly WOW them.

Focus in on the pictures

If they can think of one photograph they love, have them pull it out and concentrate on it. What makes it different from the rest? Very quickly they should be able to pinpoint the difference, and find the reason they truly love it. Once they understand that “difference”, its easier to incorporate that into their upcoming portrait session.

Posing for the mirror

Once a person is armed with their new knowledge, it isn’t enough to know what the “problem” is. Instead, find a way to eliminate the problem from future images. If they don’t like the large smile that is in most of their images, its time for a little practice. Have them look into the mirror several times before the portrait session and practice smiling. When they like what they see, stop and assess how that feels. That’s the smile they are going for; use that same feeling throughout the session.

Overposing isn’t natural

Now that your client is more comfortable with their “problem” area, its easy to fall into the next trap: overposing to compensate for the “problem”. For example, if they focus on making their smile perfect, they risk showing stress around the eyes due to the concentration. There has to be balance. Watch for signs of stress. When you see it, talk about something else. Get their minds off of concentrating and into what they should be doing – having fun at their portrait.

Make it an experience

In many cases we simply don’t like a photograph because it doesn’t bring back great memories. It someone takes a quick snapshot and you don’t have your makeup on or your hair is a mess, you automatically go into the “shot” with a negative attitude. Yet if you planned it, have the perfect outfit, are excited about the outcome AND have a great time in the process, you’ll automatically look at the images differently.

Focus in on creating experiences. That’s what sets professional photographers apart from big box photographers. Big box “photographers” have you stand on an X and smile. They don’t care what you look like or if you smile – they just want the revenue on the other side. Yet as a professional, its more about making your clients happy. If you can build your experience into something memorable, and showcase that in your marketing, you’ll have a winner every time.

Its easy to look through hundreds of pictures, and enjoy each one for what it offers. Then you open up a site with a photograph that makes you say … WOW!

There is a difference between 99 percent of the photographs out there, and the 1 percent that truly leaves you breathless. And while you may say that a breathtaking photograph is in the eye of the beholder, there may be things you can do to make your photographs truly breathtaking.

Head over to a site like The Big Picture. I visit there every once in awhile when I need inspiration. The photographs are unbelievable. But what makes them truly magical is the story they tell when you look at each subject all together.

And of course you can’t leave out a site like National Geographic. Their photography has been WOWing people for decades. And while the stories they tell are remarkable, it’s the photography that really penetrates your heart.

So how do you take a breathtaking photograph? I searched through other photographers sites to see what they have to say.

Stuck In Customs does a great job of defining it in his well written post, 10 Principles of Beautiful Photography. I love Trey’s statement, “A beautiful photo must tell the epic tale of the memory linked with other emotive memories that fold into whole.

Digital Photo Secrets gets more specific, and talks about how to capture breathtaking landscapes. “In any shooting situation, you always need to pay attention to every opportunity – not just the ones that you came there for.”

In PhotoTuts+’s A 10 Step Guide To Taking Breathtaking Firework Photographs, it walks you how to look at things from all angles, and possibly capture things you’ve never seen before. “The old adage ‘practice makes perfect’ is definitely true here – the more you do it, the more you’ll understand the settings required and hot to take dramatic shots.”

Digital Photography School does a great job of helping you with 10 Ways To Take Stunning Portraits. In it they give a great piece of advice – “Sometimes it’s what is left out of an image that says more than what is included.”

And in Smashing Magazine’s (Really) Stunning Pictures and Photos, they say it all.

“Photography is a very powerful medium and a very difficult craft. Excellent photos don’t only display some facts – they tell stories, awake feelings and manage to share with the audience the emotions a photographer experienced when clicking the shot button. Taking excellent pictures is damn hard as you need to find a perfect perspective and consider the perfect timing. To achieve brilliant photography you need practice and patience. However, it is worth it: the results can be truly stunning.”

Now its your turn. What makes a photograph breathtaking?

You’re not just a photographer; you capture a story with a visual image.

The better you are at seeing the story unfold before you snap the shutter, the better your final product will be. That’s where the true art form comes into play. Some photographers look beyond the quick image, and look for a way to put a lot of emotion into one image.

If you want to improve your photography, improve your storytelling first.

1. The Who, What, Where, When and Why

The first rule of great storytelling is discovering the facts. Chances are you remember this assignment from your grade school days. Pick out any story in the newspaper, and you should quickly be able to pick out the 5 W’s – who, what, where, when and why. That’s the crux of a great story. It provides the details, and brings the reader in.

The same holds true in photography. What is your ultimate goal with a photograph? Center in on who you are photographing. What message are you trying to convey? Where are you going to capture the image? When will you be working with your subject? Why is this image important to you and to your subject?

2. Beginning, Middle, End

Every great story is complete, and has a beginning, middle and end. In many cases, your photography session should also have a beginning, middle and end. Choose your results ahead of time, and shoot with the end in mind.

For example, if you are photographing a wedding, go in thinking of the final presentation. How will you build an album for the couple? How will you start the album? How will you end it? Make sure you take those images, and set the scene for a great storyline in between.

3. Who is the audience?

Before you head into a shoot, determine who the major players are and what they expect.

A marketing director may hire you for a catalog shoot, yet the president may be the one who makes the final decisions. Do they agree on focus? Do they have the same vision? Try and determine the direction of the shoot before you head in for the day, yet remain flexible in case you have difference of opinions.

4. What does the final product look like?

What is the client coming to you for? If it’s a senior portrait, it may be for one large image to hang on the wall and a yearbook photo.

While they may be coming to you with one idea in mind, you are the expert. What is your ultimate goal for selling? The senior and her family may come in with one large photograph in mind, yet fall in love with the senior album you have lying in your reception room. They may equally love the wallet collage hanging in the sales room. Buy having your vision of what you want to sell, and making it readily available to your customers, you can easily increase your bottom line.

5. What are the essential elements of the story?

You are the photographer. You are the expert. Don’t be afraid to take your photography to the next level.

A new mom may come in for a simple baby portrait. But once she sees your work, and falls in love with a 24 page album that highlights the details – the baby’s fingers around their wedding rings, the baby’s toes, etc – its easy to sell her on the need to capture these memories and retain them for always.

6. Prepare ahead of time.

While much of photography is spontaneous, much of it should be thought about ahead of time. Big box photography studios are mechanical; they take subject after subject, stand them on the X, and shoot the basic images. There is nothing special about these point and shoot images.

Yet as a professional, each image can be thought about and completely set up ahead of time. Ask questions and dig deep into the lives of your clients. What do they love? What makes them unique as a person, and as a family? Then set up your shoot to showcase that information, and make the portrait experience truly unique.

7. Explain how you see the image.

Since you are the storyteller, explain how you see the image along the way. It can start in the initial meeting before you book with a client. Start talking about the vision you shared with other customers, and show examples.

Then when you move to the shoot itself, talk with your clients along the way and explain what you are doing. “You spoke of how your family loves hiking and the great outdoors, so I want to capture that essence in your family’s portrait.” You are setting the stage for the final results.

Then when your client sees the images for the first time, let them relish in what you’ve created. Slideshows to music are great because it sets the stage for emotion. Then explain how you see the final product, and the reason you photographed what you did. You may open up their minds to new ideas – and create more sales along the way.

About a year and a half ago, I introduced you to an up and coming photographer, Neil Creek. Back when I first met Neil online, Twitter was a relatively new site, and he was making great headway by offering his MeetHeads concept at local tweetups.

Neil has been busy as ever, and recently created an ebook that is now ready for you to learn from. His ebook, Photo Nuts and Shots: Tools and Techniques for Creative Photography is filled with over 100 pages of guidance and tutorials to help you become better and more creative with your photography.

And for a limited time, you can save 25 percent as part of the early bird special. For only $14.99, what have you got to lose?

Order Photo Nuts and Shots: Tools and Techniques for Creative Photography Today

Lighting a portrait can be a daunting task if you are not familiar with how light affects the subject.

• Do you have the subject face the light directly – which will cause flat lighting?

• Do you cast the light to the side and add depth to the subject?

• Or, use a light source to enhance the rim light?

The best way to understand portrait lighting is by studying the relationship of shadow and highlights altered by a single light source. Once a simple concept is mastered, your photography will take a totally different look.

While simple in nature, the use of a stationary egg combined with a single light source shows the relationship of shadow and highlight. The video below displays this in an easy to understand format.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM7CcUrUD2g

Read the entire article here via ProPhotoResource

Have you ever had a great idea that you can’t wait to try out on a client? You want to place a child just so, with a certain background, and achieve a certain result? Then the client yells out, “Look at the camera, smile, bigger smile, come on smile…” You get the drift. Nothing is more frustrating than having your idea sour because a parent wants her two year old child to pose and smile perfectly for the camera.

For me, there’s something innocent about a child that a smile simply ruins. A two year old has huge eyes that speak volumes – who needs a smile to see that? And if you truly want a two year old to smile, why not have them giggle as loud and as hard as they can. That’s a true two year old spirit!

And of course it doesn’t stop at the age of two. What about a teenager deep in thought while reading a book? Why have her look up – why not capture her doing what she loves the best?

Sometimes a photograph is so much more if you simply don’t capture the face. If you don’t focus on the eyes. And you don’t get that big smile. Sometimes a photograph is so much more if you capture the person’s soul, doing exactly what they want to do. What they have a passion for. That’s where you start separating from a picture taker, and dive into the world of photographic artistry.

Selling the Concept

People have a preconceived notion about photography. They expect the turn, look at the camera and say cheese idea because that’s what they’ve done ever since they were children. When they come to your studio, they expect the same thing because that’s what they are primed for. You may have better backdrops, better lighting, and take better photographs, but it still should have the subjects smiling at the camera, right?

The only way to get away from this concept is to train your clients not to expect that. Take those photographs off the walls of your studio, and out of your sample albums. Pull them off your website and out of your marketing tools. You will only sell what you show – because that’s what they expect.

If you want to get away from showcasing the cheesy smiles, you have to show what you offer instead. Only then will your clients expect something new.

With your next client, take the standard shots for them. Then spend 10 minutes shooting for you. How can you tell a story? How can you show their souls? Don’t worry if they don’t buy it; the whole point is to get your samples going. Then take down the standard images, and replace them with your new images. The more you put up, the more calls you’ll get wanting your new style of photography.

A guest article by Jeff Colburn

Yes, you heard right, your television could be ruining your photographs. It has nothing to do with electromagnetic radiation emissions or the “Couch Potato Syndrome” and everything to do with the composition you are exposed to whenever you watch television.

More often than not, the main subject of a scene is in the center of the screen. This is a very static form of composition. “If it’s so static,” you ask, “Then why do I watch hours of it every day?” Simple. It’s a moving medium and the average image is on the screen for just a few seconds. You don’t have enough time to get bored, or even analyze, a given scene before it’s replaced with another one.

If you want to test this out, rent an old classic black and white movie. Each scene was on the screen longer. Composition was vital because there was no color to distract the viewer. Look at how Alfred Hitchcock, Cecil B. DeMille or Orson Welles constructed a scene. Freeze some of the frames and see what they’ve done. The composition and lighting are amazing. In contrast, watch your favorite television show in black and white, with the sound turned off. See if it still holds your interest for the entire program. You may be surprised.

Another culprit in this “Center The Subject” brainwashing scheme is the focusing screen in your camera. Most focusing screens are located dead center in a camera’s viewfinder. This makes you center the main subject in the viewfinder. Then, when it’s in focus, you take the picture. The problem with this is that it’s a simplistic approach to composition.

With very few exceptions, the main subject of your photograph should never be at the center of your image. The horizon should not cut the image in half, the mountain should not be in the center of the picture and the race car should not be in the middle. This kind of composition makes for a very uninteresting picture, and is often viewed as the mark of an amateur. Even if you are an amateur, I’m sure you want your pictures to be seen as “Professional.”

There’s a simple way for you to improve the composition in your photographs. That is to use the “Rule Of Thirds.” The next time you are composing a photograph, imagine there is a tic-tac-toe grid on your viewfinder. This will divide your viewfinder into three rows and three columns. This partitions your viewfinder into imaginary thirds. These imaginary lines intersect at the upper right, lower right, upper left and lower left of your viewfinder.  Place your main subject at the intersection of any two lines. You have four places to choose from. Try them all to see which works best.

Using this simple rule will liven up your photographs and make them something to be proud of. So, load up the ol’ camera and do some shootin’.

image by Prayoga D. Widyanto

Image Source

One of the many reasons people choose to live in Colorado is the 325 days of blue skies and sunshine. And that’s a great thing if you enjoy being outdoors like we do.

However photographing in the direct sunlight has its challenges. With a portrait, you can usually schedule it early morning or late evening to capture it in the sweet light. But what about a wedding that takes place in the middle of the afternoon? You can’t postpone a wedding simply because you are looking for better lighting conditions. So you adjust.

1. Use the sun to your advantage. Instead of placing the subject with the bright sunlight behind you – shining into the subject’s eyes and making them squint – play with the placement. If you put the sun at a 45 degree angle, you’ll begin to see dimension in the subject. Or put it behind your subject, and use the sun to create interesting affects.

2. Use reflectors. You can use light reflectors and diffusers to control the light source, bounce highlights back onto the subject, and block out the harshest sunlight from directly overhead.

3. Find the shade. No matter where you are, you can find a shady area to get out of the sun. Look to tuck your subject behind a building, or in a grove of trees. You can still get beautiful lighting, wonderful backgrounds, and less chance you’ll have a squinting subject.

4. Create your own shade. Use props to create a shady place anywhere. From hats to parasols, find something that gives your subject personality.

Image Source

5. Tell a story. Instead of focusing on the typical portrait with the subject smiling into the camera, look for a different perspective. Maybe walking along the beach, or enjoying a moment alone in a field of flowers. Be creative, and look for something that makes you stand out from the typical photographer.

6. When in doubt, use a flash. If you are taking a portrait where the emphasis is on the face, make sure you have adequate lighting on the face to compensate for the sunlight. While we personally do everything we can to avoid flash, at times it may be your best choice.

7. Try using a different lens. As portrait photographers, its easy to rely on one standard lens again and again. When you’re in a difficult situation, try a variety of things. One of our favorite lenses is a fish eye. Get up close to your subject and blow the background completely out of proportion. You’re subject will love the different perspective, and you can end up with some amazing affects.

I love a great portrait. You know right where the focus is. Everything is crisp and clean, and it captures the true emotion of your subject matter.

But what do you do when your subject simply won’t settle down? You’re at a sporting event. Or the bride and groom are rushing up the aisle. Do you really want to stop the movement, and not capture true reality?

That’s when you add a little motion to your photography, and turn a regular portrait into a completely new experience.

1. Slow down your shutter speed.
You can’t gain motion with a quick shutter speed. With a quick shutter speed, you’re going to stop the motion, concentrating on the details of your subject. How long you leave your shutter opens depends on the movement – and what you truly want to capture.  A second or two? An hour or more? Really there is no wrong answer – it all depends on what you are ultimately trying to capture.

2. Control your camera.
For long exposures, it’s best to place your camera on a tripod. If you want the subject to stay in focus while the world moves around it, you need a secure camera with no movement.

But if your action is happening around you and your subject is part of the action, use the technique of panning. Panning follows the subject as it moves, and keeps them relatively in focus while the background blurs. The shutter speed will depend on how fast your subject is moving, and how long you will be following the subject.

3. Be prepared.
What results are you hoping for? Plan out the image ahead of time. Will you have multiple tries at shooting motion? At a bike or car race, you may have the option to shoot multiple images, trying different things each time. Experiment, and keep track of what works, and what doesn’t.

At events like a wedding, it’s important to have two or three cameras ready to go at all times. When the bride and groom are walking (or running) up the aisle, jump in and get a great image focused on their faces. Then step aside and get the motion of their movement. Two images. Two pages in an album. And it will be difficult to pull either one out because of the uniqueness and different perspective.

Remember back in grade school where you would wait patiently in line to have your class picture taken? You would hop up onto a bench in front of a backdrop, smile at the camera, and be presented with one of the worst pictures possible a few weeks later?

That’s the business of taking quick, class photographs. But it’s not the business of taking a business portrait.

By the time we grow up and become a professional, we want more than just a quick “say cheese” portrait to put on our websites, business cards, brochures and social networking sites. We want something that’s a little classier. Something that showcases us in our best light. Here are a few ways you can bump up the quality of your professional business portraits – and charge more for them in the process:

1. Step away from the backdrop. Don’t do the standard images. Head out to the great outdoors and find variety in your portraits. From a city street, to an overgrown walkway, an environmental portrait will give your client more variety, and make him or her less stressed with the entire process.

2. Use high key lighting. With today’s technology, sometimes a backdrop isn’t the first choice. People today like to use cutaways for their websites and brochures, and have the ability to make their brochures and other marketing materials pop. Start by asking what they hope to accomplish with their business portraits. Then give them a wide array of options.

3. Build up their business. What does your client do for a living? Why not incorporate that into their business portraits? Be creative with all of your executive images, and give them a selection to use for different reasons. While the average client may be looking for one good image to use on a business card, once you present more options, they may end up buying more to have more uses. An image of a baker surrounded by her high-end wedding cakes may be just what she needs for an article in a trade magazine. Or a framed wall print in her bakery.