NoBs Digital Dogbowl
The NoBs Digital Dogbowl Newsletter:
Keeping you up to date and informed on the latest, coolest, and outrageous happenings inside the world of NoBS Photo Success.
Loaded with Free photography tips, Photoshop tutorials, photo reviews,
and other totally relevant essentials. Be sure to check out the whole thing!
Hungry for more? Visit our digital photography forum.
June 2010 Digital Dogbowl
What Would You Do? When A Client Wants To Break A Contract
NoBS member Imbo has had a successful wedding and portraiture studio in Boston for a number of years and thought she had experienced it all when it came to weddings. Well, she had a new situation present itself and it was a sticky one. A client booked the biggest package her studio offers and later they came back saying that they would need to break their contract with her because of budgetary issues. Nowhere in her signed contract with these clients was there a clause to account for this type of situation nor did it seem necessary given her cancellation policy. It seemed like a simple enough scenario to resolve, but this was where the plot thickened. The client is a distant relative and Imbo turned away four jobs in order to do this wedding. Suddenly the solution was not so clear.
To find out how Imbo ultimately resolved this, go to this NoBS link.
NoBS Member/Photo of the Month: Tyson Zahner
Tyson is from Southeast Missouri and has been shooting professionally since 2007. He started as a hobbyist shooting pictures for family and friends, but that quickly grew into a full time business as the word spread about his work. Tyson stumbled across NoBS Photo Success in the fall of 2008 and his photography (and his life) has never been the same since. Drawing inspiration from the likes of James Hodgins, Steve and Shelley Harrington, Warne Noyce, Scott Crosby and countless others, Tyson's work and his business sense reached a whole new level.
Photo of the Month
Raising The Bar: Making Kick** Wedding Slideshows
Never one to let the grass grow under his feet, Rob has been playing with adding little snippets of video into clients' animoto slideshows. He received this email from a bride's mom....
Hi Rob and Tina and Danielle:
I just had to email you to tell you how impressed we are with Kristen and Brian's wedding photos. They truly are amazing, not that we had any doubts that they wouldn't be. Rob did our family photos about 5 years ago and we knew then that whenever our kids were getting married that we would want him to do the photos.
The day of the wedding, you would hardly know that Rob and Danielle were here, but yet, they were a real calming factor. I am amazed at some of the photos he got, as we just had no idea of all the photos he was taking around the house and wow, he really captured Kristen's personality in many of the photos of things that he took in her bedroom etc. We couldn't have asked him to get all of those photos, because we wouldn't have thought of them all.....thank you, thank you, thank you. The DVD wedding story is really something else....what a fantastic job.
The slide show that you have on the web site right now, can that be purchased??? With all that was going on, when I was trying to sew the hook back on Kristen's dress, I had no idea that Danielle was videotaping until we saw that slide show. She truly has been trained so well and what a delight she was to have here with Rob.
Once again, thank you for making Kristen and Brian's day a special one.....they will have memories through those photos to cherish forever!!!!
You will always be very highly recommended by us!!!!
Valerie C
Eyecatchers From Silverlake
Silverlake has pulled yet another rabbit out their hat. They announced the introduction of Eyecatchers.
"Ring lights are cool, but expensive. They are really only going to be used on a few shots from any given session to show some variety, fashion flare and create a draw image or two. The other disadvantage is that the rings are so small, you have to use wide angle lenses and shoot from very close to the subject, which creates some unwanted distortion.
Here is the link to see what Eyecatchers can do.Do You Use Your Best Marketing Tool?
If you are wondering what that is, well, it's simple really. It's you! Our very own, Riff (Shawn Von Ins) shared a video that he had produced of him and his wife for his website. Said Riff, "I just love this sort of marketing. I mean, how many stupid photographers don't even put a photo of themselves on their website? (No one on NoBS does this, I hope. Unless you live near me. Then don't put any photos or video of yourself on your website. Maybe put a photo of your kids, or a bride you photographed. That's exactly what potential clients want to see when they click on your "About Me" link.)
Seriously, if you don't like to have your picture taken: get over it! And if you can force yourself in front of a video camera, even better. Just make it fun and interesting to watch... It works. Really."
Watermarking Your Images by Bill Guy
If you are just doing 8x10 and smaller here is a neat trick that works great with CS 2 and above. It not only allows you to use text but images and can be updated on images with just a click. Two words Smart Objects
Make a blank 8x10 that is transparent
In the area where you want the water mark create it just the way you want it to look.
Put logos and text along with the year and copyright on a new layer
Save it to a location or even seperate folder just for Copyright.
Give a name like Copyright vert
Reopen it and rotate it
Rename it Copyright horz
Reopen Copyright vert and click and drag copyright layer to the new image. It will make a copy Resize to fit
Save both
Now you can create an action where it goes to File/Place and the opens the file that works for the images you are using. A Smart Object sizes itself to the image and will be in the same place. This works for even smaller images.
NoBS co-founder James Hodgins revealed that the Inferno would more than likely be rescheduled for April and held in Toronto in 2011. While few, if any, details have been determined/announced, a key factor in the decision to change appears to be the time of year.
Ready for your viewing pleasure are the 2010 Inferno downloads. Videos are sorted by speaker so you can download only what you are interested in seeing. As you may remember, speakers included Scott Crosby, Will Crockett, and Mike Long to name a few. To access the videos, go here .
Alrighty, folks! Step right up for another installment of Rob's Monthly Success Interviews. This month he brings us an interview with Gen Dupont who runs a high volume studio. To listen go here.
If you saw the images from Rob's portrait session with an Olympic athlete then you are in for a treat. Rob brings us a video demonstrating how he did the workflow for the images from this session. Go here.
Any veteran wedding photographer will tell you about the countless hours spent on their feet shooting weddings. The dirty little secret that you never hear is that it can be exhausting if you're not in shape. Want to find out how your fellow NoBS wedding photographers deal with the pain (or avoid it altogether)? Read this recent thread.
If you missed Bill Foster's webinar on Facebook marketing and the We Shoot Sexy webinar, they are now available to view on the forum. Go to this link for the Facebook webinar and this one for the We Shoot Sexy webinar.
Did you know you could change your brush opacity in Photoshop simply by typing in a number on your keyboard (i.e.-3= 30%, etc.)? That's just one of several tips you'll find in the thread so aptly titled "Stupid" Photoshop Things we should all know." Want to see what else you didn't know you didn't know or perhaps share a trick no one else knows? Go here.
Robert Provencher will present some simple and advanced tactics for using publicity to maximize the exposure in your community. This includes the very grassroots where publicity starts, to effective social media strategies and all the way to big media such as newsprint, radio and television.
Working with publicity can increase your studios exposure many times compared to traditional advertising and the best part is, it's free. Anyone can use it and should take advantage of one of the most powerful marketing strategies.
The potential is amazing with an unlimited supply of publicity that could potentially cost thousands if paid for. Rob will reveal actual strategies he uses in his studio as well as some examples from other photographers who "get" the publicity picture.