Courtney Smith

ISM- Period 6

Sillars, Rosh. "197 Business Support Ideas for Photographers." Creative Marketing
Business Social Media Photography Blog Podcast. N.p., 02 Mar. 2015. Web. 11 Mar.
2015

Joining a professional photographers association.

Consider a per-image pricing model because it rewards productivity and increases
good relations between photographer and customer.
Start a blog.
The blog allows you to answer commonly asked questions as well as demonstrate
your style.
Define your target market- this allows you to more easily reach your desired
customers.
Create boards on Pinterest- it allows you to update your style and for your
business to be seen.
Make 4x6 cards to hand out to potential customers at events.
Create a plan to eliminate debt (allows you to better work in your business
without having debts to pay off).
Return emails before 24 hours and calls before 4 hours, it makes you seem
accessible.
Create a one year market plan and calendar to keep you on track within your
market goals.
Upload a video on your photography to Youtube, it allows customers to better see
your style and the way you work.
Use Youtube to learn new Photoshop techniques.
Create a good portfolio that you can show to potential customers.
Develop relationships with bloggers, they may advertise for you.
Create unique props for your business to help you stand out.
Train a representative that can help you sell products.
Ask other photographers to review your work and give feedback.
Calculate how much it costs to run your business each day, each month, or each
year, in order to help decide how much to charge.
Define your personal brand, your brand is your status.
Follow successful photographers on social media, it helps you develop ideas.
Research prospects with bad photography on their website.

This website gave me a lot of ideas for interesting business ideas and marketing ideas that
I wouldnt have necessarily thought of.

Courtney Smith
ISM- Period 6
Black, Justin. "Create Your Own Luck." Outdoor Photographer. Outdoor Photographer,9
Sept
2014. Web. 12 Mar. 2015.

For high motion, use a shutter speed three times the focal length.
But you could also allow the blur of motion to emphasize the motion of the
animals and use a slower shutter speed.
Dont be afraid to use a high ISO, even if it makes the photograph grainer because
if it makes the photo itself better thats what matters.
Having a grainy photo doesnt make or break a photo: the image itself does; if you
try and get a less noisy photograph the shutter speed can be too slow.
Make sure you have the correct exposure in order for the subject to not be too
white or too dark.
Keep in mind that a photograph that looks overexposed in RAW format on a
camera may be fine in Lightroom.
Make sure you have the AF point (autofocus point) where it needs to be so that
the photo can be focused.
Think about the depth of field because animals and people tend to have areas in
different plains of focus.
The head is usually top priority for focus.
Become familiar with your cameras buttons because sometimes you need to be
able to react quickly.
Work on panning because it takes a lot of practice to keep focused on the subject
while panning the camera across you.
Get to know your subjects so that you can be ready for their actions.
The amount of preparation you complete beforehand will equal the amount of
luck you have during your photo-shoot.
The more preparation you have, the more aware you will be and the better
pictures you will be able to get.
Dont be afraid to try new things because it could be something that will work
well for you.
Any new project can come with a steep learning curve.

Even though this article was about outdoor shooting (particularly safari) it had a
lot of good points regarding techniques and getting a good overall shot and trying
new things.

Courtney Smith
ISM- Period 6
Stone, Jim, Uptonm John, and London, Barbara. What Will You Photograph?
Photography.
Tenth ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2011. 10-11. Print.

Being familiar with you equipment allows you to be relaxed and in turn, helps
relax your client.

Taking even 3 or 4 practice shots can help your client be at ease and get over any
nervousness at being photographed.

If you have to ask a client to hold a position, then they are probably not going to
look lively.

Photographing something close to the client can be an easy place to start, or a

particularly difficult one.

A more personal image should reveal more about the person.

A tight crop on an image can show as much about a person as a classic portrait.

Set your cameras controls beforehand.

Longer focal length lenses need more critical focusing than a shorter lens.

A fast shutter speed is important for un-posed photographs of people.

Groups of people show the way people interact.

Changing your point of view can reveal something you did not see at first.

If you are closer to an object, even a slight change in position or angle will change
their relation to the background.

Always remember what you want the image to communicate.

Time of day helps set a mood-especially with contrast.

Make sure your subject fits the background youre using.

Always check that there isnt a pole or another object growing out of the
subjects head.

A subject typically looks different in a viewfinder than it does surrounded by

other objects.

Think about why you want to photograph this subject (or the particular image)
and focus on that.

People often photograph their subjects from too far.

This article gave me good hints on how to work on with people in photographs and how
to know your equipment.
Courtney Smith
ISM- Period 6
Stone, Jim, Uptonm John, and London, Barbara. How to Meter? Photography.
Tenth ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2011. 72-77. Print.

Use a reflected light meter to read the scene or an incident light meter to read the
light falling on a scene.
Instant feedback on cameras allow you to evaluate a test exposure.
The cameras built in light meter (reflected) needs the setting to be metered in
middle gray.
It averages the tones and calculates what f-stop and shutter speed will produce
these in a picture.
If there is high contrast in a scene, the reading may not work because it
particularly bright or dark areas overwhelm it
Meter up close in order to avoid the contrast that makes the reading inaccurate.
Try not to include light sources in the meter reading.
You can tilt the camera down in order to eliminate the sun from the reading.
If you cant get in close, make a substitute reading.
A substitute reading can include a gray card or the palm of your hand (although
light skin is usually one stop lighter than middle gray, so account for that.

When using your palm, just move your palm into an area of the same amount of
light and take the reading from there.
When using a card, place the card parallel to the subject and make sure the camera
does not cast a shadow.
An area given more exposure than the meter says will be lighter.
An area given less exposure will be darker.
When calculating exposure for a portrait, meter for the skin tone.
Most skin tones are within a three stop spread.
If it is too dark to measure the middle gray, measure something white and then
give two more stops.
Very long exposure can increase contrast.
If the camera is digital, a long exposure creates more noise in a picture.
Over exposure causes a loss of details from highlight areas that cannot be added
back later.
Bracketing produces lighter and darker versions of the same scene in order to fix
exposure if one is not sure.
To bracket, increase and decrease the exposure of the scene by adjusting the
shutter speed and aperture several times.
This article helped my understanding of metering and why its important.
Courtney Smith
ISM- Period 6

Stone, Jim, Upton, John, and London, Barbara. Lighting with Flash Photography.
Tenth ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2011. 234-236. Print.

Most camera flashes are faster than most camera shutter speeds, so they
essentially stop motion.
An electronic flash unit can also be called a strobe.
They work by being filled with a gas like xenon that emits a flash of light when
electricity is added.
Flash can also prevent blur that is caused by the motion of the hand.
The flash light also prevents a cooler light that tungsten and is easier to adjust and
consistent in brightness and color.
A light that is right near the front of the camera can reduce all shadow and leave
an image looking flat so a flash that is off camera can be more useful in offering
more options.
A long flash is 1/1000 of a second, but even that shows moving objects sharply.

When using a flash, the light is so brief that you cant tell where as shadow will
fall or how the light affects the subject.
You should use a sync cord that connects the flash to the camera so the flash goes
when the shutter is completely open.
There are different kinds of flashes: built-in-flash, a hot shoe flash that mounts
onto the camera, a handle-mount flash that is brighter than a hot shoe but is held,
studio flash units that are powerful and adjustable, and self-contained flash heads
that have built in power packs.
Automatic flash works by having a cell that is light sensitive and determines the
length of the flash by measuring the light reflected back from the subject.
The easiest way to light a scene is with flash that is directly on the camera, but the
lighting can be unnatural and unflattering.
You can light from above, which mimics the sun and looks natural.
Using a diffuser to bounce the light from a flash helps it look more natural since
natural light rarely comes from only one direction.
Bounce light is more natural looking that direct flash.
If in a room with a low ceiling, you can turn the flash upward so the light bounces
down and looks more natural.
If light is bounced from the side, it gives off soft light that leaves a good
modeling of features.

This article gave me a good idea of when to use which kind of flash and what the effects
are of each kind.