This video is a Must See!

This video will show you how one of our NPB Pro students creates AMAZING portraits with a super simple set up. Try to say that 3 times fast

Honestly…you’ll be surprised how simple it is and you’ll be able to start creating these Amazing Portraits Too!

Click Play to watch the short video

After you watch the video…leave a comment below!

…and click the “LIKE” button and share the LOVE

Linda Dean Says:
I have been dabbling in photography off and on for years. Reading from the internet, bought tons of books, started but didn’t complete a well known distance learning course, but have never found anything hit home more than this has in just two videos.

Thanks so much

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Bekkie Harper Says:
There is so much information available on the web but this course has provided
more clear and understandable information in a few well thought out, put together
lessons than anything I’ve seen or read on the net!

You guys take something that was so complicated and difficult to understand and
turn it into something even I can do! Thanks so much, I am so excited and can
hardly wait to do the homework.

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Melissa Jolivette Says:

These lessons are right on time!! I struggled for a long time trying to understand
the saying “longer shutter speed” or “drag the shutter”. This lesson was very
detailed and now my unanswered questions have been answered! Thank you guys!

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Judy Kasper Says:
Thanks again, I am learning something new from each one of these videos. This is great!
Thanks guys. I’m enjoying these very much.

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Carol Moreau Says:
The one light set up will come in handy for me because most of my business is
as a mobile photographer and sometimes trying to find room to set up several
lights is a challenge.

Thank you Scott and Joe for being so willing to help us.

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Listen to the short 4 minute audio recording below and I’ll explain about this trap that most new Photographers fall into. Then read the post to see a clear visual of how this works.

I received an email a few weeks ago from Sharron, who’s an NewPortraitBiz subscriber asking “How To Compete With The Big Dog Photography Studios“.

I get asked this a lot and the fact is that most people who are Starting a Photography Business worry about competing with the Walmart type Photography Studios and they really shouldn’t.

After Sharron read my email I sent IMMEDIATELY, a few weeks later she wrote me back and said…”Thank You!”

Here’s the email I received giving me the UPDATE.
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Hi Scott – You probably don’t remember me but I emailed you last month in a panic regarding these studios offering unbelievable deals and asked how could I compete.  You said “DON’T”.  “Treat your client’s well and move forward”

Thank you!

Since then I’ve done a huge family project, have been invited to bid on a county youth lacrosse league to shoot teams and individual players, invited to bid on shooting an open house for a large insurance agency (posed and candid shots), a wedding and two family sittings.

Not bragging – just wanted to tell you I’m so glad I had the sense to listen to you and to share my progress.

Thanks!

Sharron Key
==================================

So What Did I Tell Her?

I emailed Sharron back immediately and told her that she shouldn’t worry about this type of competition. What she should focus on is how to separate herself from the crowd and “Treat Her Client’s Well” and move on.

We all tend to focus on what we can’t change and not focus on what we can change. Here’s a few ways to make yourself standout from the Big Dogs.

I want you to read that again…”We all tend to focus on what we can’t change and not focus on what we can change.” That’s a BIg One!

So…here’s the basic idea how to do it.

1. Develop A Relationship (Your Control)
Learn about them and their families and take the time to focus on what they need and want. Having patience to get that perfect shot when the Walmart Photographer, just says next. You’ll stand out and the clients will tell their friends and family how you took the time to get the shot.

2. Over Deliver (Your Control)
Give them something they weren’t expecting. If they ordered a large package…throw in an extra 8×10 just to say thanks. Sometimes spending a little extra time could be considered over delivering.

3. Great Communications (Your Control)
This one a lot of people drop the ball on. If a client calls to book an appointment, make sure you follow up ASAP. If they have an issue with an order…fix it FAST!

You have complete control over your clients experience and that’s what you should be focusing on.

This is just 3 things that you can do to stand out from the crowd. Plus…people will talk about you and how Awesome you are…and that’s what you want.

So, basically what I told Sharron was…”Treat Your Clients Well…And Move On“….and she did!

Yes, there will always be people looking for the best deal in town, but we don’t really want to focus on these people. We want to focus on people that want great portraits and a Great Experience. That’s what you Deliver!

If you focus on these 3 things…the rest will take care of itself. Trust in yourself and so will others.

Here’s to your Success

Leave a comment down below and let me know your thoughts or if you’ve fallen into this trap.

If you liked this post…send me a little LOVE and Click the “Like” button below.

SCOTT: Hey, folks!  Scott Voelker here.  I’m here with my good buddy, Joe Marshall.  Joe, how’s it going?

JOE: Okay.  We’re ready to talk about some excellent work by some of our students in our Ez Flash Workshop.

SCOTT: Oh, yeah.  This is a good one here.  And I’ve seen it; you’ve seen it.  And you went a little goo-goo on it.  You really just loved it and you commented on it.  I mean, it’s an awesome shot, and Derrick great job.  We’re going to tip our hat to you because you did a great job.

Thanks for sharing it, and I’m hoping that we can show this to other people and other people can try this.  And again, this is a whole nother concept, a whole different idea.

People usually think that you have to take an image and fully expose it, every shadow has to be filled in.  And this is a just a perfect example of the mood.  Now looking at this too though, Joe, you would think that the room was dark, but it really wasn’t was it?

JOE: Now these are all the things.  If you know your camera and you know the things that we’ve been discussing, you know in your mind’s eye what you want to accomplish.  Then all you do is you look at your camera and you say, “Oh, I know what all these controls do.

I know what the ISO does.  I know what the shutter speed does.  I know what the F-stop does.  And when you truly know that and you know what your picture is going to look like in your mind’s eye, it’s simple to just make your camera do these kind of tricks.

SCOTT: Yeah, no, this is perfect light.  It’s like you said too.  It almost looks like one of those images that you’d see on TV where they make the kids look kind of like sad and the donations.  I don’t mean to laugh at it, but I’m just saying it brings you into that mood.

I mean, I know when I watch them and I see the pictures that they have of these kids with the flies around them and all this, I’m the first one to reach into my wallet because they just grab my inner emotions.  And that’s exactly what it does here.  It makes you feel just like you’re drawn into that mood.  And that’s what you say.

You’re painting to create moods.

JOE: Well, this is a very commercial shot and what you want to do is—I like to say a picture tells a story.  And this one you get in your mind an idea that you want to convey, and this just might be his beautiful child, and it’s just a pensive look on his face.

But the commercial world eats this stuff up.  This is like you said, Scott already put his hand in his pocket to give to this.  This could be any organization that wants to use this shot.

I mean, Derrick really, enter this in contests.  Let people get to see this.  I mean, you’ve got black above it for copy.  Anybody can use it.  Donate here or Red Cross or any of this kind of stuff after a hurricane or a flood victim.  I mean, this just has so many possibilities.  This has to get into stock.  I’m falling all over myself, Scott.

SCOTT: I know you are.  All right, calm down.  Calm down, Joe.

JOE: But so early into our course for me to see this on our Facebook, and that’s what was so good.  I’m still working with people with one light, bouncing their flash.  And here Derrick Jones just overwhelms us here.

SCOTT: Yeah.  And let’s just break it down real quick too.  He writes in that it was shot with a SB-600 Flash with a wireless remote, shot in a well-lit room.  Did you hear that?  It was shot in a well-lit room.  And the flash was on the edge of the couch.

So it was off the camera.  And the shutter speed was a 320, so it was 3/20 of a second.  Then it was 5.6, ISO 200, and the focal length was 55mm.  And the flash was set at an eighth power with a Sto-Fen Omni-Bounce.  And do you want to just talk a little bit about those settings, Joe?

JOE: All right.  I mean, this is not expensive equipment.  It’s one of the smaller flashes from Nikon.  There are six.  They have an eight and a nine.  He just bounced it.  There’s a clear cap that comes with these.  It’s a diffuser cap.

And he just tilted his flash up, dialed down to an eighth of a power because at the close setting he didn’t want to get an F11, F22.  So he made sure that he got just a 5.6.  And if that meant dialing down the power, so be it.  He did it.  And he left it at ISO 200, which gives us a clean non-grainy.  Really good because like I said, if those goes to a commercial, this could be on a billboard or on a truck.

So it’s really big.  Now the well-lit room.  Yes, to his eye, he saw a well-lit room.  But you have to be able to use flash.  I know people like to use continuous light because they like to say, “What I see is what I get.”  But if you use flash enough, you also become adept at doing that too.

And he knew that if he put it on the side he would just skim the side of the face.  And he knew it had what we call “split lighting.”  One side of the face lit, the other side dark.

Didn’t use a reflector.  Didn’t want to bring up that fill side [05:14].  We wanted the strong impact of this.  And here’s the thing, folks.  F-stop gave him 5.6 but the darkness is because of the shutter he used.  And I’ve said shutter can be anything.

It’s the F-stop is the distance the flash is to the subject, and he dialed it down to get his F-stop.  But the shutter speed, he could have said, “What do I do?  I’ve got a bright room.”  Well, he went to the highest shutter speed his camera would allow.

Now I use a Nikon and I’ve gotten a 320.  Most of the Nikons say 200 or 250.  I know the D90 is 200 and the others are 250.  But I know that mine is 320 because I did it by accident and it worked.  And he did it.

Now what that does is the high shutter speeds darkens down the ambient conditions you’re in.  Now he said the room was bright.  If he went down to a sixtieth shutter or thirtieth, he would have seen all that brightness projected in his picture.  But by cutting down the light in his shutter, he made the room go black.

And that’s all I want you to know.  Your shutter speed can be anything, but if you know you want a high shutter speed to cut out the room light or do I want to let it open up.  Do I want a thirtieth or a fifteenth?  Do I want to get candles on a Christmas tree lit up in the background?

Maybe I’ve got to go down on a lower shutter speed so that the candles show back there.  So that’s important for you to know just what the shutter does because your meter already told you what F-stop.  Now you’ve got to figure out what to do with the shutter.

SCOTT: That’s great.  And I think right there everyone listening to this you should really understand that because it makes perfect sense.  And a lot of times people think that the F-stop is all about the lighting and getting the proper exposure.

And in a sense it is, but it really is more about your depth of field.  And I mean, so much more goes into the shutter.  I’ve even learned that just by going through the course with Joe.  I mean, I never realized it as much as I do now.  I knew it, but I didn’t really realize it was that powerful.  And this picture right here proves that it is.

So again, Derrick, thanks for sharing this.  Joe, again, I think it’s a great shot.  I know you do.  And I may even send this out to our subscribers just to let them see this and, again, show that you don’t have to have all of this equipment to get shots like this.

JOE: This is a moneymaker for you, Derrick.

SCOTT: Yeah.  Go with it and let us know on the contest that you enter too because you’ll have some fun with it.  And who knows?  You might win; you might not.  But you know what?  It’s a lot of fun.  And keep posting your stuff because we do really enjoy this.

And anybody else that is in our workshops, post pictures.  And even if you’re not in our workshops, send us pictures.  E-mail them to us.  Send us links to them so we can see them.  We’d love to see them.  And if we see something that we want to talk about, maybe we’ll include it in our podcast.

So that’s it.  That’s going to wrap up this little short video.  Again, great job, Derrick.  And anyone else out there that has anything that they want to post, please do so.  And we may just comment on it.

JOE: Let me just say, Derrick, get a model release.  If he’s your kid, obviously you can do that, but you’ll need that if you’re ever going to sell this picture.

SCOTT: Yeah.  Another great tip.  Thanks Joe.  Okay, so that’s going to wrap it up.  So again, go out there, keep shooting, have fun, experiment, and we’ll see you in the next video.  Talk to you later.  Bye.

Click Here to Check Out our Ez Flash Photography Workshop

This was a picture shot by one of our EZ Flash Photography students and wanted some tips on how to make it a better portrait. So, we decided to create a video going over some simple changes to make it better.

When taking family portraits it can be challenging getting everyone posed properly to create an even exposure. Joe points out that adding just one simple light in back of the camera can make a HUGE difference.

Watch the video below and we’ll go over other important things, like clothing, posing and the triangle stacking method.

Click the play button below to watch this lesson.

Check out The EzFlashPhotography workshop…HERE!

Here’s the video below, just in case you missed it.

SCOTT: Hey, everyone and welcome to another video, another podcast/video that we’re doing here today.  And actually, I’m here with my good buddy, Joe Marshall.  Joe, how’s it going?  Are you ready to do this video with me?

JOE: We just got over one holiday, and we’re looking forward to the new one.

SCOTT: Yeah, exactly.

JOE: I think we have a timely picture here coming up about that.

SCOTT: Yeah.  Just let me tell people what we’re going to be talking about today.  We actually just finished up, or we’re just finishing up I should say, our lighting workshop, the EZ Flash Photography Workshop, which was a blast.  And Joe and I had a great time with it.  The students were awesome.  A lot of people are getting a lot of great techniques and recipes to use.  And this lesson is actually going to be from one our students.  She actually had a question with one of her images and wanted us to critique it.  And that’s what we’re going to do here.

We have a couple of things that we can do to improve this image, but also her biggest thing was is saying, “How do I get the background white?  It doesn’t look white to me.”  And if you look, you can see the snowman; you can see the little blanket; and you can see her shirt.  You can see the pole even in the back of the North Pole there and then the background just looks bluish gray.  And Joe, do you want to talk a little bit about that and why that could be happening?

JOE: You have to be careful on your white fabrics that you buy, even if you bought a sheet at Walmart or whatever.  Their manufacturers are using brighteners.  You certainly don’t want to wash it with a fabric softener or bleach.  All these things add bluing agents to the material, and it may look white to our eye, but it does not look certainly that way to the camera and lens in your picture.  So what we can do here is we can whiten it if she continues to use this.

We can put our flash and make sure that we have a nice bright background back there.  We might meter her face and get an F5.6.  Well, then all we need for the background is to be brighter, and 5.6 would be an 8 would be brighter.  That might not show the blues.  In other words, if we put enough light back there, but not two stops.  One stop ought to do it.  I don’t know how she lit this here.  I can see in the balls down in the fabric there that I see two specular highlights.  So that tells me that she’s got at least two lights, flash units off to the sides there.

SCOTT: Joe, I just want to cut in there.  She did say she used three lights for this setup.  And we just don’t know exactly where they’re positioned, which we’ll probably get some more information on this, but we did want to just share this because the background itself was the issue for her.  And our suggestion to her right away would be number one, if you’re going to use that, you’re going to have to throw more light on it.  Right, Joe?

JOE: Right.  And then she said that she saw wrinkles in the background.  Of course, we have them by her feet.  We’ve said how to buy those A clamps, those spring clamps at Home Depot, and if she stretches out the material to the pole that it’s hanging on, she can kind of like draw that tight and get that material, the fabric out.  The other way is your depth of field when you’re lighting this.  If you metered the face and you’ve got 5.6 and you do put 8 on the background, 8 and 11 for a background are going to show a lot of depth of field from her hand on her knee all the way in the back, and we may not want to show all those wrinkles back there.

So then, if we could get a 4 on her face and a 5.6 for the background light, that would be less depth of field than 8 on that background and should clear up any of the wrinkles that are caused by depth of field.  It’s showing all the background too sharp with an F-stop of 8 or 11.

SCOTT: Yeah.  And I think that’s important for people to understand because, again, like we said, this is a holiday shot, but this is something that you can take with you and put it in your little bag of tricks.  Because whenever you see those pictures where everything is clear on the subject but in the background it’s all blurred out, you see that and that’s just that professional portrait look.  And that’s how you get that.  That’s exactly how you get that is by having those different variables just like Joe said with changing your F-stops.  And that gives you a shallow depth of field.

Like some people just hear depth of field.  Depth of field could be a sharp depth of field because everything is in plain, but when you have a shallow depth of field, it’s where the subject is in focus and everything behind it is going to be out of focus.  Now another way that you could do this with even that and make it even more out of focus is to move her further away from the background.  Isn’t that correct, Joe?

JOE: Right.  We can’t tell because of the depth here how far away that white is, but all we need in focus basically is the carrot nose on the snowman and just the sign that says North Pole.  And that’s only about maybe two feet of depth.  So all of that will be sharp at F4, and you could just let the background go out of focus after F4.  Even if you had to go to a 5.6 because of your lens, that is not making an F8 or 11 so everything back there is sharp.  All that you’re going to see is going to be sharp right here because it’s only about a 2-foot depth.  Like I said, from the carrot to the North Pole.

SCOTT: That’s exactly what I’m saying.  So what I think people should take away from that is right there.  Depth of field.  Shallow depth of field can make your pictures a lot better, look a lot more professional.  And it can also get rid of those wrinkles in the background or something that you don’t want seen in the background.  You might have someone else in the background and you’re at a park and you want to blur out the background because you only want to focus in on your child.

So you can take that one little tip with you and put that in your bag of tricks and it’s going to help you a lot.  The other thing I want to point out here, Joe, is her glasses.  A lot of people have a tough time with the glasses with the glare.  Any tips on that, how she got that and how other people can maybe be conscious of that?

JOE: Yeah, she handled this well.  You can see the glare when you’re looking through the viewfinder.  Now what it is is when you’re taking your shot you’re looking to make sure they smile; you’re making sure you’re not cutting off a hand or a foot; but take that extra moment and look and see if your umbrella or your softbox is reflected back into her glasses.  Have her tilt her chin down.  I’ve even gone up and I’ve titled the stem of the glasses so that they’re a little higher behind her hair there and the glasses are a little tilted down.

Any of those things will get rid of the glare from the umbrella reflection.  But you can see that.  Take that extra second in your viewfinder to make sure you scan the entire image and you’re looking for the feet and everything, but also look for glare that’s off of anything that reflective.  Like you can see the decoration balls.  I can see the lights where her setup was because they reflected in there.  But I don’t want that in her glasses.

SCOTT: Right.  And that’s a great point.  So right there I think number one, Shelly who this picture is for that we were going to do this little review for but just in our class, but I wanted to share it with everyone because there’s a lot of tips right there that you can use.  Number one, the background material that you use if you’re going to use white, which you should because I think it’s really clean and pure.  To get those wrinkles out, you can go with a shallow depth of field.  The eyeglass glare.  So right there, there’s three tips for you right now that’s going to make your photography even better.

So that’s it.  That’s going to wrap up this little mini lesson.  I hope you’ve enjoyed it.  And we’ll talk to you real soon.  And if you have any comments or anything, just leave them on the blog for us.  All right?  So Joe, anything else you want to say before we wrap this up?

JOE: Happy Holidays, folks.

SCOTT: Yeah.  Happy Holidays, right.  It’s almost here.  All right guys.  We’ll see you in the next lesson.  Take care.  Happy shooting.  Talk to you later.  Bye.

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Check out the EzFlashPhotography workshop

We had over 100 students that went through and tested our new class and gave it a BIG Thumbs Up

But…that’s not what this post is about. We wanted to share one of the questions that came in from the class, and hopefully help you create better portraits.

The lesson was created from a portrait that one of our students submitted in the class and wanted to know how to fix it. So…we created a video that explains exactly how to make it better.

*****Here’s what we’ll be talking about in this short lesson*****

• 1. How to get your white backdrop to actually look white. (No, it’s not about white balance, but yes you should always keep an eye on that too.)

• 2. How To Get Wrinkles Out Of Your Background (We talk about creating a shallow Depth Of Field and making the backdrop out of focus.)

• 3. We Give A Few Pointers On How To Avoid Eye Glass Glare (Sometimes the smallest things can make a HUGE difference.)

Click the play button below to watch the lesson!

Make sure to leave a comment below and let us know what you think!

The one BIG mistake people make is mixing continuous and flash lighting. This can create a White Balance Nightmare and your results will show it.

Listen to the podcast and leave us your feedback below.

Help us spread the WORD!

Let’s face it, when you’re first starting out in the photography business you have wonderful dreams of owning all the ‘best’ equipment but your budget dictates just how much money you can put towards it. You already know that if you don’t have light, you simply cannot make a photo so let’s see what you can do as a starting photographer to produce well lit images.

In this series of articles we’ll be delving into identifying what your light sources are and how to use them effectively. Natural light has been around from the beginning of time and will always be an available free resource as long as it exists. Here are some basics on natural light that you might want to consider.

Using Free Light

Many people start out by using what available light there is and one absolutely free source of great lighting in nature is the sun. Even on a rainy or cloudy day, this light is wonderful to shoot with because the clouds become a great diffuser creating more even lighting with less shadows.

Avoid Direct Sun

At times the bright sun can become your enemy and produce harsh shadows, squinted eyes and blown out details. I suggest you find yourself a shady spot and use the more diffused light from the shade to light your subject more evenly. Shooting at the right time of the day, the golden hours (either one hour after sunrise or one hour before sunset), produces incredibly stunning images.

Using Window Light

Window light is another great source to take advantage of. As long as the bright sun is not coming through the window, you have another diffused lighting situation. Using window light can produce some amazingly powerful effects that will make you stand out from the crowd.

Create A Softer Light

You can also add a white  light weight sheet over the window to create a large soft light. This works just like a studio “soft box” that most studios own and use on a daily basis. We will talk more about them in a future post.

We will check out what readily available artificial light sources you have on hand that you can use to take your photography business up a notch. It can help you decide where you need to invest your hard earned dollars. For now you can use these techniques above and  receive great results that look  professional.

Until next time, happy shooting!

Tips #1 Learning The Location

If this is a location shoot, you will probably want to visit the home first, so you can check out the windows and be sure that you will have adequate light.  If this is not possible,  ask the parents what the lighting is like for the particular  time of day that your sitting is scheduled.

Tips #2 Discuss The Wardrobe

Discuss with the parents prior to the sitting how they feel about the baby’s  wardrobe. You should consider photographing their wrinkly, soft-skinned bodies, so try to encourage the parents to forego  the clothing.

They  are only an infant  for  such  a short period of time and we want to capture every little part of them!  Make sure to  remind parents to remove clothes or anything that may leave marks on the baby’s delicate skin approximately 1 hour prior to the sitting.  This really helps in post-editing so you won’t be spending all of your time getting rid of sock marks,  etc.

Tips #3 Room Temperature

Before the sitting, make sure that the room or location is very warm.  Newborns can be very uncooperative when they are cold. I  sometimes use a heating pad underneath the backdrop or material that the baby is laying on for extra warmth.

Tips #4  Be Prepared

Be sure to have any props, baby posers, backdrops, etc. ready prior to the  sitting.  Keep hand sanitizer, clean blankets, paper towels, disinfectant cleaner, baby wipes and tissues handy.  Trust me, you will need these things!

Tips #5 Natural Posing

Pose infants in their natural position.  It looks awkward and unnatural to see  them sitting upright .  A beanbag poser is an easy way to pose a baby because it naturally molds around the baby’s body.  Not to mention that it is  very safe and  comfortable  for the infant.

Tips #6 Choose The Right Height  And Angles

Get down to their level.  When you shoot down low at the baby’s level, you are bringing the viewer into the baby’s world vs. standing over the baby and looking  down on it.  Very often, I lay on the floor on my stomach for some great captures.

Although, most of my time is spent at the baby’s level, it is a good idea to consider other angles.  You can also try shooting from a bird’s eye view or from down below the baby’s level to show other interesting perspectives.

Photographing newborns and infants requires a lot of patience.  I always allow extra time for these sessions because they can be so unpredictable.  Follow these tips and you will be on your way to nailing your next newborn session.

Happy Shooting!