Are you thinking about opening or adding a photography studio to your business? Before you do, there’s a few things you should consider and I’ll cover in this detailed post. First lets talk about studio photography and a few benefits that it will allow you to utilize. One of the biggest advantages is you don’t have to fight with the time of day. If you are use to shooting outside, than you know that it’s usually best...

Portrait photography is a hyper competitive field, isn’t it? It doesn’t take a long time in the field to realize no matter how talented you are, without a great marketing plan the deck is stacked against your business’ ultimate success. You Can Do This! With a little thought, creativity and a bit of hard work you can quickly develop and maintain a marketing strategy that keeps a steady stream of clients old and new alike...

Have you ever felt stuck when trying to come up with a basic, but creative portrait pose for boys? This post will hopefully open your eyes and give you posing ideas to help create unique portraits that your clients will love. Sometimes all you need is a basic idea to start with and then you will build upon that. There’s many other elements that come into play when taking your shots, like lighting and the backgrounds you choose. The...

Color is so powerful when it comes to creating moods in humans and making us feel certain emotions. As photographers we need to understand how to use color in our images to help tell our story we are trying to capture. This post was inspired by the book Captivating Color – A Guide To Dramatic Color Photography, written by Digital Photography School.  Let’s have a little fun…shall we? Pretend you’re in this social...

I get this question asked a lot. I actually just received an email the other day and that’s why I decided to write a blog post with my thoughts. I posted a few months back about this and recorded a short video podcast. You can listen to Joe Marshall and me talking about this Jpg vs Raw debate here. If you had to pick the number one most debated topic among both beginning and experienced digital photographers the use of Jpg vs Raw...

Just like any major holiday like Christmas or Easter, we as photographers need to be thinking ahead and planning for the marketing opportunity. As I’m writing this post we are currently in April and Spring is finally here. Well…kinda In the North East it’s still cold and people are hardly looking to get their pictures taken outside. Even if you live in the south, the spring flowers may not be up yet and the surrounding...

I recently posted this picture below on our NPB Facebook page and received a lot of questions and requests to show how I created it. We actually created this picture for our Digital Creation’s club and named it “Back On The Dock”. The digital background already gives a slight painted look, but I added a few other tricks to make it even better. In the video you will see how I added a texture in Photoshop CS5 and used the...

In this video Joe Marshall unboxes the Orbis Ring Flash and shares his experience using it on his camera. The video was originally created for our New Portrait Biz Pro private group, which is no longer open. But…I figured some of you may be thinking of using a ring flash and this video will hopefully help you decide if it’s right for you. Enjoy Down below is a link to Amazon where you can find this unit and see more examples...

I wanted to share another portrait that one of our new Digital Creation’s Club members created. She wrote me an email asking if I’d take a look at her first attempt. I was blown away. She did AWESOME! Here’s what she said: ======================== Hi Scott, I Joined about a month ago, after reading and watching all your lessons on the membership page (which took me about 2 1/2 weeks, mostly because I have 3 very young...

Easter portraits are one of the busiest times for photography studios and can be very profitable. The problem that most studios face is keeping things fresh for their past clients or just new creative ideas to draw in new business. This is why every year we add new portraits that our Digital Creation’s Club members can use during the busy Easter season. I wanted to share in this post a few portraits we have created for our club and...

We all know that constantly coming up with new ideas is not always easy. In the photography business it’s always about trying to create something that other photographers are not offering in your area. That’s why I wanted to share this new airplane portrait we created for our Digital Creation’s Club. Some things you can create in the studio, but there are so many other creative things you can do using Digital Backgrounds...

Over the years I have done several interviews with regular people who are successfully running their own photography business. Today I want to share this call that was initially recorded for our NPB students. I decided to add it here on the blog for everyone to learn from and be inspired as well. Kim Sheely purchased her first Digital SLR back in June of 2008 and then opened her own studio in 2009. She explains how she did it and what she...

I initially wrote this as an email to all our NPB subscribers and thought that I should post it here on the blog as well. It’s very important to understand that most successful people have struggles and obstacles to overcome. But…the key is to FIND A Way and keep trying and don’t make up excuses. Here’s the email: Let me first say that 2013 is no different than 2012… when it comes to setting goals and being...

In this post I wanted to show you how one of our  Digital Creations Club Members created (3) Studio Portraits with just (1) shot. This is why Digital Backgrounds and Props are so Amazing and so powerful…when using them in your Photography Business. Her name is Colleen Ballard Thomas and she has a Photography Studio named “Memories In A Flash”. She posted this comment on our Digital Creations Facebook Page and shared these...

The Holiday’s are one of the busiest times for portrait studios and can be 75% of their sales for the year. This is why they may work their butts off for 2 or 3 months and then they don’t need as many sales through the rest of the year. In a perfect world…we as photographers would like to have steady sales…but we would also would like to capitalize on the busy season. Watch this video I created that shows how to take...