For Photographers

SEO for Wedding Photographers

October 1, 2009 – 7:00 am

SEO is the current big buzzword in the photography industry. For those who have no idea what I just said, SEO stand for Search Engine Optimization and pretty much it’s how Google and the other major search engines determines what results you’ll see first when you type in a search. And in the service industry where you can’t hire me if you can’t find me, good search engine results are vital.

I think my background in Information Technology has helped me a little bit over the years figure out SEO better than some. Relational data bases and weighted search arguments aren’t foreign concepts to me and over the last few years I’ve built a halfway decent google ranking.

For photographers without that IT background there are many options. There is a lot of information on the web right now about how this works, some of it free and some of it costs.

Information is Free

One of the best free resources I’ve seen is that of Colorado photographer Eric Bakken and his SEO for photographers series on his blog.

Eric does and excellent job of breaking it down for you and giving you some excellent advice to start getting yourself noticed by the search engines.

Now while Eric does seem to take some issue with SEO guru’s charging large amounts of money for their workshops I take a more moderate stand that sometimes it’s better to pay for knowledge and have it delivered in a nice concise package than to shift through endless links.

Education is Expensive

One such concise package is the SEO Workshop from Lawrence with Tofurious. The Tofurious package will set you back about $2000. So what do you get for that $2k, well probably much of the same info you can find on Eric’s blog, along with some of Lawrence’s results on what’s worked for him over the last year on turning that traffic into contacts. Getting people to your site is only the first part, getting them to connect with you and hit the contact button, that’s equally as important.

Education or Information – either way it takes work

I don’t think it matters too much wether you choose to invest the time and energy to access the information and learn it yourself or invest the money to get that information delivered in a workshop, once you’re up to speed on how it’s still going to take a lot of work.

There’s no magic bullet for SEO, no secret text string to bury in your page to get that first page of a google search result. It takes dedication and work and an ongoing investment of time.

And it’s only going to get worse.

As more and more people figure out SEO the competition for that first few pages on a search engines results just gets harder and harder.

In the end I think those dedicated to their ongoing business, who connect with their clients and their community will do well and prosper. Those looking for a quick buck will either regret the time or money they invested into figuring out SEO if they don’t also invest into the ongoing process that makes it work.

By Mark Hayes | Comments (4)

Thursday’s Tip – Lighting, mood, and your wedding day.

September 10, 2009 – 6:45 am

One of the biggest challenges wedding photographers face is the lighting at the venues chosen by the couples and as photographers we need to make sure we communicate these challenges with our clients. While any venue can be worked around the results may not be what the client had hoped for.

Mixed Lighting

Tungsten balanced spots, fluorescent lighting in other general area, and that one funky light from the 70’s that defies color balance. Mixed lighting is usually among the least noticeable at first glance but most noticeable in pictures.

Different types of light has a different kelvin “temperature” and in turn effects their shade of white. Sunlight is one shade while bare bulb indoor lighting is another. This is why in the old film days you had an outdoor film and a “Tungsten” film. If you shot an indoor shot with an outdoor film it gave you that warm orange effect.

For the most part while we can see the different shades of a warm, green, or cool light, our eyes and brains tend to compensate for it and we simply see white as white with a casual observation.

Now all modern digital cameras have adjustable white balance, so they can compensate on the fly for the “color” of the light. But even this can break down when multiple light types are used together. Often the best solution is simply to balance the color properly on the most important or focus of the picture and let the rest shift if need be. While this can lead to orange or greenish tones on a background this is often better than unusual skin tones on the bride and groom.

If flash is used it might be possible to filter the flash to match the background light, so then most of the tones will be more stable. This works well if dealing with simple tungsten or florescent lighting – not so well with usual light sources and strong mixes of lighting.

Of course such mixed lighting images while making for color images with unpleasant tints often make for wonderful black and white prints.

Poor Lighting

This can be common both at churches and at many reception venues. While candle lit ceremonies a wonderfully romantic they don’t always look that way in anybodies photos. If your reception venue has that nice and dark nightclub feel your photos probably won’t be bright with few shadows.

With poor light the photographer typically has three options.

Flash - sometimes this is all you’ve got. There’s a lot of options for providing your own light on camera, off camera, bounced, diffused, studio units fired by radio remotes, or even video hot lights.

Now how well the results will be will largely depend on the skill of the photographer in working under these conditions. Using flash is a particular skillset and not every photographer who might pull off amazing outdoor shoots is skilled at this.

High ISO and fast lens. Sometimes one of the newest generation of cameras that can give you a usuable image at ISO 1600 or better combined with a F1.2 fixed lens can let you shoot just about anywhere. I’ve shot stuff in pool halls that was tack sharp hand held with no flash.

Thursdays Tip Lighting, mood, and your wedding day. IMG 0650

Photographers you best bet is going manual mode at times like this and let some of those areas go black, most other exposure modes will keep looking for that 18% gray and may wash out the shots.

Even with newer cameras high ISO’s can lead to a lot of color noise. Now even when this noise gets to unacceptable levels you can usually still make a nice looking black and white or duatone print out of it.

Tripods. When all else fails lock that camera down on a tripod. In situations where nobody is moving fast, ceremonies, toasts, etc you’ll get some solid pictures. If it’s during the dancing, you’ll get some interesting abstracts.

So brides and grooms, take a moment and think about what types of photos you’ve seen that appeal to you most. Is it the bright and airy shots or the moody ones. If you love bright and airy photos and have a nightclub feel for the reception hall, you may be disappointed in your dance shots.

Photographers, just make sure you communicate with your clients what to expect. The biggest mistake you can make is not communicating with your clients what the lighting will do for their photos.

By Mark Hayes | Also posted in Thursdays Tips to Couples | Comments (0)

Thursdays Tips – What’s really on that disc of images

September 3, 2009 – 7:30 am

The digital world is all around us and over the last few years it’s had an immense impact on how we live our lives and how we manage our business. The world or wedding photography has virtually been torn apart and put back together, sometimes haphazardly over these last few years.

Ten years ago the model for wedding photography might have been to pay a base fee for the coverage, receive proof prints, and then order final prints and an album. Chances are they had a package price offering giving you a slight discount if you committed to so many items up front. But the client was totally dependent on prints from the photographer, after all they had the negatives. Some studios might sell the couple the negatives after a set period of time, and you always had wanna be photographers charging budget brides a few hundred dollars to shoot the wedding and turn over the rolls of film – exposed with images of questionable quality.

Now in the digital age it’s about the image file and the majority of the clients want some type of option on a disc of images. Either for their own personal backup to ensure they’ll have access to the images down the road, or so they can print their own proof images, or even for scrap-booking. Heck with the things you can do with iPhoto these days and screen savers on your HDTV there’s a multitude or reasons to want the images on disc.

But the question is, what are you really getting on that disc of images?

Most photographers pricing models either allow for the images on disc to be purchased as an add-on or are included with the wedding coverage. But besides the images there is also some variety in the size and “finish” of images.

With some camera’s shooting well over 20 megapixels just keep in mind that I obtained wonderful 8×10 prints from my first Canon digital SLR, with was 3.2 megapixels. We tend to think that 300dpi is the magic number for printing, meaning that a 8×10 image would need to be 2400×3000 pixels, but many labs can print at 200dpi without noticeable differences and some from even smaller files. As long as your images are at least 2000 pixels on the longest edge you will likely be able to get a reasonable quality print up to 8×10 in size.

Now the edit or “finish” of the files varies a lot from photographer to photographer. Most commonly what I see are SOOC, Base edit, and full edits.

SOOC, straight out of the camera. These are the digital equivalents of film negatives. The image is there but lacks the fine tuning to get a top of the line print. The difference is 10 years ago that fine tuning was done by the photo lab, now it’s done by someone before having the file printed.

Base Edits. The image file has been adjusted for exposure and contrast. This file should produce a good quality print on par with simple lab prints from yesteryear.

Full edits. You’ve got the files edited fully and ready for fine prints.

Now despite what how it might appear full edits are not always better than base edits or even unedited SOOC files. Much depends on the skill of the photographer and the quality of their equipment.

One of the problems is that too many fledgling photographers have a “I’ll fix it in photoshop” mindset. They think they don’t need to get the exposure or even composition right, because they can fix it in photoshop. Then often they proceed to butcher the files with poorly done glamour edits and cheap special effects. Get the wrong photographer and your “fully edited files” might leave you with images looking like the entire wedding party had plastic skin.

On the other hand I’ve seen highly skilled photographers nail the shot so well that an unedited SOOC file of theres was far superior to the fully edited file of someone who “fixes it in photoshop.”

So which is better? Neither. This article isn’t about which is better or worse for the client to receive, it’s about making sure the client knows that not all digital files are created equal and the quality of your file will largely depend on the quality, skill and experience of your photographer.

In some ways from a clients perspective the no edits or base edits could be the “safest” option. The problem with fully edited files is now they are locked into that style of edit. If you love the job that was done on the edit that might not be too bad, but with a SOOC or base edit you’ve got a lot closer to a negative that still has all it’s potential available to it.

All types of files can be valid depending upon a photographers business model. Some photographers don’t edit anything that isn’t selected for an album or print directly from them. That’s how their business workflow is built and that’s the product they offer.

The client just needs to make sure they fully understand what is and what isn’t on the image disc, and to understand that sometimes the more basic file might be more desirable. Photographers, the best thing you can do is make sure your clients are fully informed during the initial meeting as to the files you may be providing to them.

Like I said, I think all options are valid – as long as everyone is one the same page and understands fully what to expect. Most of the time when I see problems in this area it’s because of a lack of communication between client and photographer, which leads to expectations not being met and bad feelings.

Until next time,

Mark
View my portfolio site | Contact Mark Hayes for your upcoming wedding

By Mark Hayes | Also posted in Thursdays Tips to Couples | Comments (2)

Free Version of Show It Sites

July 15, 2009 – 6:39 am

David Jay has taken his marketing plan for his Show It sites in an entirely new direction, FREE. Recently he’s been reading and talking about the power of Free in todays economy and he certainly is practicing what he preaches.

A free trial size of the show it sites. Hosting for 5 pages, vanity url, 30 meg, and the software to manage and design it, free. Not granted that’s not a lot of space and just 5 pages, but for a lot of uses that is probably more than enough.

Small clubs and organizations, new photographers who might want to try it out before committing to the cost of the full paid version, vendors who want a custom web presence, who maybe a couple who just want a custom built site to host their “save the date” information. While 5 pages may not be a lot, for an awful lot of uses it’s plenty.

My best recommendation for any wedding photographer is still to get a blog out there and update, update, update.

Still go check out show it sites, this is a great way to do a flash piece that’s totally unique, and hey it’s free.

http://showitfast.com/

Show It Sites Free

By Mark Hayes | Tagged custom web presence, flash site, wedding photographer | Comments (1)

Pre-Wedding Photographers Checklist

June 29, 2009 – 9:23 pm

I mentioned on twitter (@hayesphoto) something about my pre-wedding checklist not long ago and another photographer commented on that. So figuring that someone found it interesting I’d post since other’s out there might benefit from it, or comment back with their own additions.

So for me the day before the wedding is gear check day. I do this before noon so if I have to I can run to the local pro camera shops before they close if I’m missing something vital.
Hardware Inventory
Bodies, Lenses, Flash, Data Cards, Batteries
Pull all the gear out of the various bags. Check to make sure everything is there and nothing has been left in another location. If not using rechargable batteries make sure there’s enough batteries to change each flash unit at least once if needed.

Inspect and Clean bodies and lenses
Just getting any dust off bodies and cleaning both ends of elements on lenses.

Clean Camera Sensors
Only half of my bodies are self cleaning, but I still double check those. Shoot a light colored wall or the sky and view in computer at 100% zoom checking for dust spots. If found on a self cleaning run, run it’s cleaning cycle twice and recheck. If not on a self cleaning (or self clean didn’t clean it up) get the special brushes out and clean the sensor. Re-test. Re-clean if needed.

Sync all camera bodies with my iPhone (or any other cell phone)
Syncing the time on the camera bodies lets you mix the shots in one folder and view by time, this is very important with multiple shooters.
I use the cell phone since they are synced time from the atomic clocks.

Format all Data Cards
Giving each CF or SD card a format and putting away ensures that when I insert a new card at a wedding it better be empty. If it’s not empty I know it was shot that day. I always put used cards in my case backwords to tell them apart, but things happen. I NEVER want to format a card at a wedding and risk screwing up.

Add business cards to gear bag and CF case -
Nothing is worse than not having enough business cards to give out.

A few additional inventory items that should be included.

Change of clothes. Fresh socks, pants and shirt. Nothing worse than walking in wet socks all day or sticky clothes if someone spills something on you, and we won’t even consider split seams on pants.

Water and energy bars. I’ve become a fan of Vitamin Water. One or two of those and an power bar can get you through a 12 hour day. Sure most the time you get offered food, but sometimes you’re just too busy to take a few minutes to eat.

Spare set of car keys – on a different ring – different pocket or wallet. I used to always carry a spare key to my Bronco in my wallet. But when I got my little Focus wagon I didn’t do that because it has one of those fat electronic keys. That almost cost me big time last weekend.

When leaving the hotel where the groom was getting ready I accidentally dropped my keys in the back with the camera bags, and slammed the hatch shut.

Now normally this hatch is stubborn and I have to slam it 3-4 times to get it to latch, but not this time. First try.

So here I am in downtown Denver, keys laughing at me through the window, with the grooms party about to leave via limo to the wedding venue. My wife has spare keys, but she’s 45 minutes away. That sinking feeling of panic sets in fast.

Fortunately I found out my car is pretty easy to break into and within 10 minutes I was on the road.

Unfortunately I found out my car is pretty easy to break into……

While I didn’t loose any glass (nor resort to coat hangers) - honestly I was only a few minutes away from having to make that call and taking out a door window rather than risk dropping the ball for a client.

So from now on a set of keys in each front pocket.

By Mark Hayes | Tagged checklist, gear, photographer, wedding | Comments (0)

Denver Colorado Wedding Photographer Mark Hayes