A Little YouTube Inspiration For Photographers

Every once in a while, its nice to take a break and be inspired by something outside of your comfort zone. What are others doing in the world of photography? How can they motivate you to reach and grow and stretch beyond what you are currently doing with your own photography?

I recently ran across a few YouTube videos that provide inspiration to us photographers. Take a look and see what you think.

The Basic Guide to Tumblr for Photographers

Is this going to be the year of the visual social sites?

Pinterest has been taking the Internet by storm these past few months, but by no means is it alone. Five year old Tumblr surpassed 15 billion monthly pageviews in January and to date has close to 17 billion posts on its site.

Like all other social sites, its free to use, easy to set up, and fun to manage. It’s a lot simpler than WordPress, and you can customize it and personalize it in minutes. All content is hosted on Tumblr, meaning you won’t have control over your data. If Tumblr goes down, your site is down.

Tumblr’s audience tends to be young – 56 percent of the monthly visitors are under 34, and is slighlty skewed towards males – 52 percent. If your target market falls in that demographics, Tumblr may be worth a try.

Set Up Your Tumblr

Setting up a Tumblr account is an easy process. List your email, choose a password and designate a URL for your Tumblr account – the URL will be www.yourname.tumblr.com. Match it up to your business name or a niche you are trying for. You can also give it your own domain name – follow the steps here. Then customize your Tumblr – you can pick a theme, choose colors, upload a header and profile pictures and write up your summary. They have everything from a collage layout (perfect for photographers) to a more linear, newsfeed layout.

Start Posting

Tumblr makes it easy to post just about anything. People want short, valuable information. And visuals do very well on Tumblr (just like they do on just about any site these days). From your dashboard, you can quickly post seven different options: text, photo, quote, link, chat, audio and video. Try the photoset feature – a great way to share multiple images quickly.

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Man, That’s A Nice Camera

Sometimes clients say the darnedest things. There have been been many times I’ve just sat there staring, wondering if they really know what they just said.

When was the last time you were asked, “can I just print my own copies” or “can you Photoshop this out”? If so, you should really appreciate this video…. Shtuff People Say to Photographers

 

What are your client saying to you in your Photography Business?

7 Things That Should Be On Your Not-To-Do List

I love to-do lists. I don’t scratch them out on sticky notes and throw them away at the end of the day. Instead I keep a spiral notebook and write down every detail, checking things off when they are complete. It’s a nice way to keep a record of where you’ve been. And you can also go back and refer to notes if you have questions in the weeks and months ahead.

And while I’m a firm believer in creating written to-do lists, I also have started keeping a not-to-do list.

I heard about this concept a while back, and have really come to appreciate what it does for your productivity. The idea is to eliminate the activities that are costing you a ton of time during your workday, yet really aren’t providing you with any reward. Yep, they’re basically the time wasters.

The easiest way to find your time wasters is to sit down with your monthly to-do lists, your monthly calendars, and any other tools you use to track your time during work hours. Where did the biggest chunks of time go? Were they productive?

While every business owner is going to have their own areas of concern, there are several areas that seem to affect small businesses in general. Take a look at this list and see if you can see yourself in any of them. I’ve set them up to be in not-to-do list form.

1. Do not answer unexpected phone calls.

The world runs by caller id. When the phone rings, if it doesn’t ring with its own unique ringtone, you glance down to see who it is. Then its decision time.

If it’s during normal work hours and it may be a potential customer, answer it. But if you’re in the middle of a project, talking with a client/friend/co-worker, or its after hours, let it go to voice mail. Have a great message that will provide the caller with the appropriate information. And consider getting a better phone system that can allow you to do different things with the message, such as send you a copy to your email so you can read it at your convenience.

Dig Deeper: Google Voice – an Amazing Tool For Virtual Photographers

2. Do not leave your email program open and check it all day long.

One of the biggest distractions outside of the phone is your email. That little “ding” when an incoming message appears can throw you completely off track and quickly scrambles your priorities. Every email has the potential to delay what you are currently working on by minutes, hours or even sometimes days. Instead, set up two or three times per day to check in and see what needs your attention. I usually spend my first hour or so working on my own project and check email when I’ve accomplished my first set of to-do’s. Then I check in when I’m back from lunch, and again before I shut down for the day. If I’m expecting something important I may check in more frequently. Otherwise three times per day is more than enough. Just because you have access to it with your phone, iPad or other portable device doesn’t mean you have to do it. [Read more…]

Photographers – Black Friday – Facebook: What Can You Do?

Tis the week that starts the rush in holiday shopping here in the US. And according to the National Retail Federation, up to 152 million shoppers are expected to head to the stores and shop online for bargains sometime over the coming long weekend.

And while shopping on Thanksgiving weekend is nothing new, how shoppers will track the bargains is – and its changing rapidly with technology.

  • 50.5% will keep up with advertising circulars received in the newspaper and mail
  • 31.7% will watch holiday commercials

All of which is to be expected. But what is new is how we’re now using technology to get the exact information we are looking for.

  • 23.1% will seek out coupon websites – think RetailMeNot.com, FatWallet.com
  • 17.3% will monitor Facebook pages
  • 11.3% will check out group buying sites like Groupon and LivingSocial

And for those people that use tablet devices, over 31 percent will check out retailers’ Facebook pages and 21.3 percent will use the group buying sites.

So for many retailers – BestBuy, Macy’s, Kmart, Sears, etc – they won’t be focusing solely on the customers coming into their stores; they will spend equal time discovering ways to reach out to the people searching online from the comfort of their homes. Many will be participating in “deal of the hour” and other programs that they can release in a variety of ways, including email, Facebook and Twitter.

What Can Photographers Do?

While a photography studio may not be on the top of consumers holiday lists as they hit the stores on Friday morning, that doesn’t mean you can’t learn a thing or two from what the big retailers are doing, and put it into your own business. [Read more…]

5 Big Ticket Items Photographers Pay For, Then Seldom Use

Yesterday I announced that we had moved from our large suburban home, to an urban condo environment, decreasing our space down to one third of our large home size.

When you do that kind of downsizing, you really start looking at what you’ve put in the back rooms, in the closets, and in the garage, yet have seldom picked up since you purchased it. What’s even more distressing is the items you find in their original packaging. Did you really need it if you never even opened it?

While an occasional office supply is one thing, when it’s a big ticket item, it’s a whole different issue. Imagine what you could have done with that money if you hadn’t invested in that purchase?

As we were looking through things, listing items on Craigslist, and giving things away, we discovered 5 things that we invested in, yet seldom used.

Camera Doodads

If you’ve ever gone to a photography convention, you’ve probably fallen for the shiny object syndrome. When you walk up and down the aisles, caught up in all the sights and sounds projected straight towards you, it’s easy to fall for it. Companies promise miracles, and great tools, gadgets and doodads that will improve your photography, or help you run your business more efficiently.

So you invest in a doodad or two. Two becomes twenty. And so on. Pretty soon you have boxes in your spare closet full of shiny doodads, many unopened and untouched. [Read more…]

3 Mistakes Photographers Make When Selling Wedding Albums

If you photograph weddings, you probably have a package or two in which you offer an album. And in many cases, your package probably looks something like this:

  • Up to 5 hours of photography
  • Over 200 images on copyright-free CD
  • 20 page bridal album
  • 11×14 Portrait Print
  • Online gallery of your wedding photos to share with friends and family worldwide

The bride knows she will receive a CD full of images, and be able to view the images online, and share them with her family and friends from around the world.

She also knows she can take weeks or even months to select a few of her favorites, and have them put into a bridal album.

But it doesn’t matter what photos she selects, how they fit together, or how the will look side by side. She simply selects her favorites, and you as the photographer will force them into some type of order, and create an album from the final selection.

I’ve seen books like this.

An image of the bride walking down the aisle is set next to a formal of the bride outside at the reception. The first dance is placed along side of the couple kissing by the limo.

In other words, there is no rhyme or reason to the way the album is put together; it’s simply a hodgepodge of images thrown together to form a book of pictures.

Wedding albums aren’t meant to be a book of pictures. They are meant to be the story of the wedding day.

First Mistake: The Photographer Lets The Bride Make The Selection

If you allow a bride to choose her favorite images, she thinks from an individual level, not from a cumulative factor. She can’t see an album because it hasn’t happened yet. She doesn’t imagine how they will look together side by side; she simply chooses based on her best expressions, and her favorite moments.

When she receives the album, it will simply go on the shelf because it’s a book of pictures. It has no meaning – its just 20+ large images from her event.

As a photographer, you should be photographing a wedding to tell the story of the day. With wedding photography, photos work together in order to bring you back to the memories of the event itself. A formal out in the gardens is great, but it’s “just” a photo of the bride and groom. But when you have a series of images of the bride and groom walking through the gardens, talking with their flower girl, sneaking kisses along the way, it becomes a story – and a memory.

As a photographer, you need to think in story format. You need to take one photograph, and then another, and another – all to work together and provide an intimate look into the event itself. Its up to you to tell the story, and present the images in such a way that the bride and groom relive the wedding again and again. [Read more…]

7 Common Time Management Mistakes

So you work out of your home, and you’re wondering why the business isn’t as strong as it should be. Is your business really your top priority?

While I love working out of my home and wouldn’t trade it for anything, you have to be disciplined to make sure everything works.

Perhaps you feel overloaded, that there is so much to do you’ll never catch up. Or maybe you live for the crisis to appear, dreading it all the way. This is the first sign of failure. If you let this feeling of overwhelm seep in, you’ll quickly be on a downward spiral instead of building for the future.

Take charge now. If any of these pitfalls are affecting you now, its time to make a change.

Mistake #1 Failing To Keep A To Do List

Have you ever had that nagging feeling that you are missing something? If so, you probably don’t use a to do list in order to keep things prioritized. Many people think to do lists are a sign of weakness, or a sign of a bad memory. Not true at all. Instead, a to do list keeps you balanced and focused. And helps you prioritize what you will do during the day, and what should take precedence over everything else.

Dig Deeper: How To Create a To Do List You Actually Stick With And Do

Mistake #2: Not Setting Personal Goals

It’s easy to establish business goals. In fact you probably have a list of them in your office. Even if it’s a short list, business goals come easy as we are focusing in on our businesses. But what about your personal goals? What are your business dreams going to do to help you achieve all you want out of life?

Business goals help you establish the type of lifestyle you’ve dreamed about. But once you have the funding within the business, your personal goals are what give your life meaning. Do you want a one month family vacation every summer? Or to be able to buy your dream house? Or maybe send your kids to the colleges of their choice?

Create both sides of your dream, and use it to define what you do every day. The bigger and more concrete your dreams are, the better chance you have of achieving them.

Mistake #3: Not Prioritizing

Everyone has things they love to do, and things they hate. When your to do list is filled with both, you’ll quickly move the things you love to the top of your list – unless you prioritize.

I once worked with a business owner who hated phone calling. In fact she would do whatever she could to avoid picking up the phone. She admitted it up front to me, so we knew that was her weakness. While I never advise anyone to take up cold calling, there are times when it’s important to call “strangers” and make a connection.

If this business owner has a task of “calling” on her list, it will always be at the bottom. Even if she has to choose between “taking out the trash” and “calling the potential customer”, she would prefer the trash.

When you realize this, you have to change what you do. You have to prioritize your to do list, and start doing the things you hate if they should be at the top of your list. It’s the only way you’ll grow. [Read more…]

5 Life Balance Tips For Busy Photographers

Weekdays. Weekends. Early morning. Late at night. If you are wondering what the difference is because you have every ounce of time filled up, maybe its time to stop and put more balance into work and personal life.

With cutbacks, layoffs, and general uncertainty in the economy, people are putting in extra time in a variety of areas. But even if you have a full time job and you can’t reduce your hours, there are ways to spend more time focusing in on what is truly important to you.

Here are 5 ways to help take back the control in your life.

1. Build more downtime into your schedule

Calendars are wonderful things. With a glance, you can easily tell all the things you have to do, and whether or not something new will fit in.

The problem is we tend to use calendars for scheduling other people’s events and routines. When your daughter’s school has a fundraiser on Thursday night, it goes on the calendar. Weekly soccer practices and games go on the calendar too.

But what about an hour for a daily run? Or a night out with your spouse for dinner and a movie? Or even a Sunday afternoon lying on the couch with a good book?

We tend not to put things like this on the calendar – we’ll do it when we have time. But the only real way to make sure you have personal time to do the things you truly want to do is to schedule it. [Read more…]

10 Last Minute Stocking Stuffers For iPhone Photographers

Looking for those last minute stocking stuffers for the photographer in your life? Or maybe you are just looking to pick up something for yourself. If you love your iPhone, you’re going to love some of these gadgets.

The pic.me iPhone Tripod Case

This simple pic.me iPhone Tripod Case is the perfect thing to bring along anywhere. It features two angle, one for recording, and one for viewing.

iPhone Tripod Holder

The iPhone Tripod Holder provides you with a snug holder for your iphone that provides you with the tools necessary to attach it to any tripod.

[Read more…]