Photography Concentrate

Howdy! Thanks so much for visiting Photography Concentrate! If you’ve been here before, just scroll on past this post for all the fun new stuff.

If you’re a first timer, allow us to tell you what this is all about!

Photography Concentrate is a place for high-quality, free / affordable, and cutting-edge photography education. Wow! Yeah, that’s intense. Luckily we also believe in keeping things fun, light, and entertaining. So if you’ve come for boring and bland, this ain’t the place :)

And us? We’re Rob & Lauren, two photographers who also happen to be incredibly passionate about education. We believe that knowledge is the foundation of any great photographer (or businessperson!) and we love to learn, and share!

Right now on Photography Concentrate you’ll find information a video tutorial on RAW Processing! Click on the photo below to check it out. We also post regularly with all sorts of fun photography information, so come back often! We really hope you enjoy!

Ah life, so many lessons to learn. Today’s fun lesson was about Tweet retention. Or the lack thereof.

So we’ll get the bad news out of the way first. The Twitter contest didn’t work. We were sadly unaware that Twitter decided to only keep one day of Tweets in it’s search history. The tweets are still there, we just can’t seem to search them. A week is apparently too much action to contain! We tried to search Google history, spent an hour meticulously counting Google update ticks, writing out tweets into spreadsheets, and it still wouldn’t add up. I was a bit too intense with my searching and am now blocked from even using Google. Whoops. 

Mistake made. We’re so sorry guys, we can’t tell you how dumb we feel. Especially after all you wonderful Tweeters spread the word. We let you down, and we apologize big time.

So what now? Well, we’re doing it up this way, and we really hope it at least sort of makes up for this fail.

The comments have a winner for the Lensbaby.

We are giving the one Holga to a Facebook fan.

AND we’re going to get ANOTHER Holga and give that away to our Tweeters. How?

If you tweeted to participate during the contest please leave your Twitter username in the comments on THIS post and we’ll go through and find the winner that way!

(If we’re able to get the search to work we’ll do it up the proper way and go through all the Tweets)

Ok, so, the good news. We have two lucky winners!!!!

The Winners

First up, for the super fun Lensbaby Composer, the winner is……*drumroll*….

Casey Mayne!!!!! YES!! That lens is going all the way to Australia!

And, the Facebook Fan who wins the Holga and two rolls of film is…..*faster drumroll*…..

Amit Mehta!!!! WOOHOO!! Washington D.C. will have a new Holga shooter in it’s streets!!!

How cool is it that our fun little Photography Concentrate community is going global? Congrats you guys, make sure to send us over a shot from your sweet new prizes!

So, again, major apologies my friends. Trust us, we won’t make that mistake again! So, if you tweeted to enter during the contest, remember to put your Twitter username below and we’ll draw for another Holga!

Hugs to you all! We’re off on a two week roadtrip to Prince Edward Island and couldn’t be more pumped! We’ll try to post a couple times from the road, so stay tuned!

Lauren :)

Yes! It’s Friday! Right now that doesn’t mean all that much for us, since it’s crunch time to get everything perfect before our workshop next week, but I hope it means an awesome weekend ahead for you!

So today’s Inspiration Friday hopefully will take us a bit outside the realm of strict photography.

You see, we’re huge advocates of finding inspiration everywhere. Looking for inspiration in great photography is, of course, very important. However, if you start looking for ideas in other visual mediums, like graphic design, illustration, movies, architecture, etc., you will begin to really hit another level with your photography. Your unique combination of influences will also help to differentiate your work! If all you ever look at are photography blogs, you are really limiting yourself in terms of what’s possible with visual art!

Today’s site of inspiration is quite the powerhouse. It’s called Fubiz and is a French site. Don’t freak out though, there’s is a button on the top right of the page (labelled En) that will translate it into English. 

Truthfully, I don’t really read much on this site. :) I just look. And drool. The categories themselves are enough to get you super excited: Advertising, Design, Graphic, Inspiration, Motion, Music, Photography, Technology, Unexpected. Right on!!!

A few things to look for to inspire your photography:

• Message: All visual art is, on some level, about communicating a message. Try to determine what message all of these pieces are trying to tell you, and think about what they do to achieve that goal. How can you bring that technique into your work?
• Contrast: Graphic design and photography rely heavily on contrast to make an appealing piece of work. And by contrast I don’t mean the slider in Lightroom. I mean using size, colour, direction, expected/unexpected elements and format to create contrast. So look to see what the artist has done to draw you in and get you to look twice at their work. Often it will have something to do with bold contrast in some manner.
• Lines: We’re huge fans of lines. That sounds silly, but once you get “line addiction” it’s something that never goes away. Lines create movement, symmetry, frames, and interest in an image. They do the same in other forms of art, so look at how these artists use lines in their work. Of course, this is especially true in architecture.
• Composition: This exists in all forms of art, not only photography. Pay attention to how these artists compose their work. Is it balanced? Off balance? Does the composition draw you in? Why? Does it create movement? How does it add to their message?

Those are just a few guiding quesitons to help you draw inspiration from these varied art source. I’m positive that the more you study these other art forms, the more you’ll find it can heavily influence and inspire your photography!

One last thought: Inspiration is only useful if you go out and shoot. Simple. So if you spend some time today checking over this site, spend some time tomorrow shooting. It doesn’t need to be fancy, just go for a quick walk around your neighbourhood (bonus points if it’s at Golden Hour). Look for contrast, lines, a message, whatever. Be thoughtful about what you shoot, and set yourself some challenges to try based on the inspiration you’ve gained, and I suspect you will be quite excited about what you produce!

Yeah, you heard right. This is a double giveaway. Let’s go.

First up, major thanks to Lensbaby. We asked them for a lens to test for you guys, and they very generously gave us a cool one, and let us give it away! That’s very awesome of them. 

We also really wanted to give you guys a couple extra chances to win something cool. We really appreciate you checking out the blog, leaving comments, and just generally being amazing. So we’re going to throw in a prize of our own. One of our absolute favourite fun cameras. A Holga! That’s right. One lens and one camera. NEAT!

Ok, details.

Contest #1:

The big kahuna, the very lens we reviewed yesterday, the Lensbaby Composer. (Canon mount, sorry Nikon friends!)

TO ENTER

So for this awesome give away what you need to do is leave a comment below answering the following question:

WHY are you a photographer?

Give it a second to think about. We really want to hear from you! Make sure to leave your e-mail address in the comments so that we’ll be able to contact you if you’re our big winner.

THE RULES

One entry per person, please.

One comment will be chosen at random. We’ll leave the contest open until Thursday, August 19 at midnight, so spread the word! We’ll announce the winner Friday morning!

Contest #2:

And that’s not all. We’re also giving away a Holga 120N!

(Note: The camera pictured above has a flash, which the Giveaway camera doesn’t. We never use our flash, so we figured we’d keep it simple. The Giveaway camera also has a hotshoe mount so you can use your own flash, which is pretty darn snazzy!)

This is a camera we’re very big fans of, and use quite frequently in our travel photography. And since it’s a film camera, and we know many of you don’t own that stuff, we’ll throw in a roll of our favourite type of black and white and colour.

TO ENTER

This contest is going to go down a bit differently. We want you to help us spread the word. So you can do one of two things to enter (and if you do both you’ll get two entries. Bonus round!)

Either:

1. Tweet the following: “Double Giveaway at Photography Concentrate! Lensbaby + Holga! Go here to enter: http://bit.ly/aCgmht ”

and/or

2. “Like” our Facebook Page here: http://www.facebook.com/#!/photographyconcentrate

THE RULES

One entry per person, please.

One tweet or Facebook liker will be chosen at random. If you are already a Facebook liker you’re automatically entered. Thanks for liking us! We’ll leave the contest open until Thursday, August 19 at midnight, so spread the word! We’ll announce the winner Friday morning!

So, if you’ve been taking notes and crunching the numbers, you’ll have noticed that you can amass three chances to win! And if you are all stocked up on karma, and have the powers of the universe on your side, you might be able to cheat the odds and win TWICE. Wouldn’t that be the best day of your life??

Thanks for stopping by, best of luck to you my friend!

P.S. If you want to learn more about the Lensbaby you can check out our review, and their website.

Note: We aren’t affiliated with Lensbaby or Holga.

Double Note: In order to keep things fair, comments that don’t answer the question “WHY are you a photographer?” will be removed. We’re not being mean, just keeping things honest! :)

THE CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED!! THANKS FOR PLAYING AWESOME PEOPLE!!

Today we’re going to take a peek at a Lensbaby Composer! On our Tilt/Shift post Nikki left a comment asking what we thought of the Composer. Since we hadn’t tried one yet we thought we would get ahold of one and see what it was all about! 

A Lensbaby is a specialty lens similar to a tilt/shift lens in that you’re able to manipulate the plane of focus. Check out the photos below to see what I mean! 

Notice how the effect is similar to a tilt/shit lens in that you’re able to more precisely control the plane of focus by tilting the lens. The difference (as you can see in above photos) is that with the Lensbaby it’s not so much a plane of focus, but more a point or circle of focus. As you can imagine the creative and experimental possibilites of such a lens are vast!

Instead of trying to describe how this lens works in words, and probably just confusing everyone, I recorded a video. I find actually seeing how a lens like this moves can help better understand the effect it creates.

So as I mentioned in the video, Lensbaby makes a few different types of lenses and the one shown (and used to create the photos in this post) is the Composer. They make both Canon and Nikon mounts (and their website actually mentions compatibility with certain Sony, Pentax and Olympus cameras!).

Time for more photos! 

 I shot most of my test photos with the f/8 aperture ring. I found f/8 to be a pretty good walk around aperture in terms of sharpness. The above photo gives you an idea of what I meant by point or circle of focus and how it can create dreamy, out-of -focus areas around the edges. In the photo below I tilted the lens at the most extreme angle. Notice how, compared to the photo above, the out of focus area is even more blurred and almost looks like motion blur. Those are some fast daisies! 

Tip: When composing your image with the Lensbaby, point the lens in the direction you want in focus. That may sound obvious but it’s a bit counterintuitive when you’re dealing with lenses that can tilt! Normally we point our camera at what we want in focus, not bend our lens. 

The cool thing about Lensbabies and tilt/shifts is their ability manipulate planes of focus. (e.g. The sign is in relatively sharp focus and the wooden poles far behind it are in relatively sharp focus). So much creative possibility!

Our Thoughts

As you can tell from this review we’ve compared the Lensbaby to a tilt/shift lens quite a bit. Their effect is similar, but not the same, so they can’t be considered equivalents. One of the things that I really dig about the Lensbaby is it’s ease of use. That makes it fun to throw on the front of your camera, and thus more likely that you’ll use it! Obviously it takes some practice but figuring out how to use it is pretty straight forward (compared with the numerous dials on the tilt/shift).

The other thing that I like about the Lensbaby is it’s lo-fi aesthetic. Sometimes I felt that the edges were a bit too blurred, or that the circle of focus wasn’t sharp enough. These are qualities that you might at first consider flaws (as I did) but upon review of the images I’m sure you’ll be pleased with the unique and interesting results. I believe that like Holgas or camera phones it’s the unique and sometimes unpredictable results that make this lens so fun to work with.

If you’re considering using this for professional portraiture I would recommend slipping in a smaller aperture disk (f/8 or higher) in order to ensure you have some reasonably sharp photos - then again maybe you dig the softer dreamier photos! I would likely continue to work with a tilt/shift for portraiture (quick aperture changing) and instead reserve for the Lensbaby for personal or fine art work. It would be nice to have the luxury to choose between the two at a moments notice, unfortunately we’re not all made of money! That’s where the Lensbaby’s strongest feature is thrown into light: it’s price. The Lensbaby is about $1000 cheaper than most tilt/shifts! That makes the cost of experimenting with a cool lens much more down to earth!

Pros

• Extremely affordable
• Easy to use
• Build quality (for the price!)
• Unique effect

Cons

• A bit more unpredictable than a tilt/shift
• Need to manually change aperture disks

Visit Lensbaby.com or Lensbaby.ca to learn more about Lensbaby. Check out their other two lenses The Control Freak and The Muse. You can also view the variety of cool accessories they offer like wide angle and macro adapters, creative aperture disks (creates different shaped bokeh/out-of-focus areas), and a variety of different lens options to create different looks (softer, plastic lens, pinhole, even fisheye!). You can also use their website to find a camera store that sells Lensbabies in your area.

If you visit our blog often, you might know what’s coming up tomorrow. Make sure to check back! :)

One new feature that was introduced with the final release of Lightroom 3 is the Lens Corrections panel in the Develop module. Using the Lens Corrections panel you’re now able to correct distortion as well as correct vertical convergence (among other things).

First take a look at the before image below. The most noticeable problem is the vertical converging lines (closer together at the top than the bottom). Also take a close look at those tan colored bands, notice how from top to bottom they kind of curve out a little bit, almost like an extremely subtle fisheye effect. Thats distortion created by the lens. You can use the Lens Corrections panel to correct both problems!

Before

After

The nice thing about the Lens Corrections panel in Lightroom 3 is that Adobe has profiled a variety of common/popular lenses in order to provide automatic lens correction. Just check off that “Enable Profile Corrections” box. This will solve the distortion problem, but you’ll have to manually take care of the vertical converging lines. Spend some time manipulating the sliders and I’m sure you’ll quickly discover what effect they have on the image. 

Tip: Make sure “Constrain Crop” is checked so that any adjustments you make automatically crop in on the photo so that you don’t have edges showing.

This being a new feature we haven’t fully incorporated it into our workflow. For one not all vertical and horizontal lines need correction. Second, the profile correction seems almost too good to be true!

Every photo that I’ve applied the profile correction to has looked much better than without it. I think it’s especially useful for portrait photography where removing any sort of distortion provides a more realistic perspective of a person. Not only that but since most of our portrait photography is shot at wider apertures the automatic removal of vignette is really great. 

So definitely check out the new Lens Corrections panel in the Develop module. It’s an exciting new feature in Lightroom 3 that could definitely help your images.

Looking for more Lightroom tips? Check out our previous before/after posts, or our RAW processing tutorial!

In a recent Inspiration Friday we featured the Guardian Eyewitness. In keeping with our exploration of high quality photojournalism we turn today to the New York Times Photography, Video, and Visual Journalism blog: LENS.

Earlier this week I read an article by former Magnum editor Neil Burgess about how photojournalism is dead. It’s saddening to see mass media’s general lack of interest in high quality photojournalism. At the same time I don’t believe it’s photojournalism that’s dead, but rather mass media. It’s now up to photographers to adapt; the alternative channels are there.

In any case, every photographer still needs to develop a strong skill set in photojournalism. I don’t think I’m out of line in assuming that it’s the goal of every photographer to tell a story or communicate a message. Regardless of if you’re shooting weddings and portraits, sports, or commercial and fashion, studying photojournalism will only make you a stronger photographer.

With that said, definitely visit the New York Times blog, LENS. You’ll be inspired :)

I’m a big believer in personalizing business. We live in a world filled with faceless mammoth corporations that you really can’t compete with on price. What’s a small business owner to do?? Well, we need to focus on our strengths. And our strength is ourselves. 

So along those lines, I am going to strongly encourage you to make sure you have a photo of yourself on your website. Not a photo that you’ve taken, but a photo of yourself. Let your clients see the person they will be dealing with!

This is our most often used profile photo. I love it because we’re both really smiling, and we’re interacting with each other, which I think shows what we’re really like together in person.  

Taken by our wonderful friend, James Day

Here are some things to keep in mind when choosing your photo:

1. Show your face: Yeah, that sounds a bit obvious, but I’ve seen many photos where it’s actually difficult to make out the face of the photographer in question. Human beings automatically respond to a human face in a photo, and they’ll connect with it. They won’t connect quite so much with the back of your head, as much as you might love that dramatic “walking into the sunset” shot of yourself.
2. Smile: Along the same lines, people respond the images of smiling faces on a subconscious level. They are more likely to elicit a positive attitude towards the person in question, the company in question, and are more likely to intend to patronize and recommend the company. (Source)
3. Be yourself: A nice, solid portrait is always great, but if you have the chance, think of ways to infuse the image with your personality. Like I said, our strength is ourselves, and the more ways you can show what makes you unique, the more chance you have to stand out in a very saturated market.
4. Make sure it’s pro: The difference between a professional photo and a point-and-shoot image of you at your cousin’s lake is huge. If you have a business then take it seriously, and make sure that photo of yourself is top notch quality. Take it yourself with a tripod and a remote, get a photographer friend to take one for you, or hire another photographer. Whatever you do, make sure it’s a great image of yourself. It is, in the end, your first impression on a potential client.

Here are a few of the benefits I can think of for having a photo of yourself clearly accessible on your website. I suspect there are many more!

1. Recognition: When you meet a new client, or a colleague, and they recognize you as soon as they see you, that’s a win. There’s a sense of familiarity instantly, and you’ve already jumped one hurdle in getting them comfortable with you. Comfort and trust are huge when it comes to portrait photography (and many, many other businesses!), so it’s wise to find all the ways you can to build that before you even meet! If they aren’t even sure you’re the photographer because they’ve never seen your face, well, that’s not an ideal situation.
2. Familiarity: If you really try to put some of your personality into the image, they will get a sense that they “know” you. They don’t just know what you look like, but what you will be like in person. We get a lot emails from people who tell us that they believe our personalities will mesh with theirs, because they feel like they know a bit about who we are. We’ve never met these people, or talked with them, but they already like us. As a photographer that is immeasurably valuable. I want clients who I will connect with, because the experience and final product will be better. Simple. 
3. Decreased likelihood of anger: It’s far easier to get angry with a faceless entity than a human being. That’s one reason emails are very dangerous in dealing with emotional issues. But that’s a post for another day! If people know who you are, and what you look like, they’re far more likely to treat you like another human being with feelings than just a company. We all know companies don’t have feelings, but people do. So show them you are a person!

So, if you don’t have a photo of yourself on your website, go get one! And if you do have a photo of yourself, make sure to take a peek again, and reconsider what it might be saying to your clients. Make sure the message is what you want! 

I’m going to let you in on one of our biggest secrets. It’s a resource treasure trove that has helped shape our business and our art, and provides literally endless amounts of high quality inspiration. Have I piqued your interest?

We believe that the best $10 you can spend on your business is buying a library card.  

Why use the library?

There’s a quote I like from Good Will Hunting that I will summarize for you due to profanity. Will essentially states that a cocky Harvard student paid $150,000 for an education that he could have gotten for $1.50 in late charges at the public library. 

It’s a statement that puts in perspective the real cost of education. We live in a time where our access to information is unprecedented. We can learn (and master) nearly anything we like. The only thing you have to do is put the time into learning and practicing. 

Besides the library being an incredibly cheap information resource, it’s also the form the information is in that makes it exceptionally valuable. Books.

The problem with the internet is that you have to really search to find high quality information. Even when you find it, it isn’t always presented in a logical and meaningful way, and is often littered with advertising and misinformation. Not only that but it often comes in the form of small information nuggets, not the comprehensive weighty variety that has the ability to really transform the way you think and supply you with substantial ideas and inspiration. 

Warning! Small rant ahead! As an aside you may want to consider reducing your consumption of subscription based entertainment / education. When you think about it, the cycle of subscription exists to generate profit for the subscription producer (whether it be magazine media, television, or newspapers). They want new subscribers who pay more for their content. This is the reason we see increasing amounts of absurd newspaper head lines, a glut of profit driven reality television series, articles with very little valuable content and magazines with more advertising than specialized journalism. I spent a half hour reading magazines yesterday and didn’t learn a thing. Talk about a terrible investment of time! Consume the weighty information you can learn from books and you’ll never regret it. (Naturally we’re not saying that all subscription based education is bad, just that a large amount seem to exist more for profit than for learning). 

How to use the library

If you haven’t been to the library in a while now is the time to go check things out. I think you’ll find things have changed a little. Because libraries are different everywhere I can’t say things will work the same, but I’ll give you an example of how we use our library.

Our library (in Edmonton, Canada) has a website (http://www.epl.ca). Whenever we think of a topic we’d like to learn more about we visit their website and do a search. Their website has the ability to track all the library books in circulation in Edmonton at all their branches. We find the books we want and reserve them online, the books are shipped from whatever branch they are at and we can pick them up at our local branch. Everything is automated. As soon as books come in we’re sent an e-mail letting us know they’re waiting to be picked up. If the book isn’t available we’ll be put on the waiting list, and e-mailed when it’s available. Their system also e-mails us a day before books are due so that we remember to return or renew them (which can be done online). We’re also able to borrow ebooks online (though we can’t get them onto our iPads yet ☹ )

If you’re not sure what you want to read but have a general topic in mind then head over to Amazon and peruse their best sellers list, then check to see if your library has the book - they often will. And if they don’t you can often request that they purchase a copy and you be put on a waiting list for when it comes in! 

It’s also a great idea to just go for a walk through the library to get started. There are so many books that you wouldn’t even think to search that just pop out when you’re walking aisle to aisle. Pick up anything that catches your eye, grab a seat, and flip through it. It may or may not be interesting to you, the key is to just browse without limitations. You might find an artist or way of thinking that completely changes your perspective, or at the very least challenges it.

Finally, if you find a book that you keep taking out, or renewing, it might be worth buying. But be careful. When you think about it, books spend most of their time just sitting on shelves! There’s no point in buying books that you don’t absolutely love.

This weekend if you’re feeling like you could use a healthy dose of inspiration, go and stroll around your local library. It’s pretty much guaranteed to get your mind working and the creative juices flowing!

P.S. Also keep your eyes out for music, movies, and documentaries at your library; all amazing sources of inspiration as well!

Hope you all had a wonderful week! Can’t believe it’s Friday already and this awesome contest has come to a close! 

Before we announce the winner we want to sincerely thank you all for participating. We were truly blown away by the openness and honesty you shared with us in your comments. Know that we read every single comment, and are going to be working to do what we can to help you all with the challenges you’re facing, or have faced. More than anything, I think it’s so incredible to see that so many of us face the same hurdles, and it’s reassuring to know we’re not alone!

Ok, enough mushy stuff. Let’s get right down to it. Using random.org I chose a number, and the corresponding comment, and our resulting winner of PhotoMechanic is….

Devon Durocher!!!

Congrats Devon, I hope you enjoy this super awesome program!

Now, I know a lot of you are bummed out, and honestly if I could give all of you a free copy I would. But I can’t. 

What I can do is tell you that PhotoMechanic is an essential program for us, and could really help anyone who is sorting through a lot of photos! You can check out our review here if it’s a program that piques your interest, and get more details off the Camera Bits website.

There is no reason not to give this program a try since they have a 20 day free trial! We really think it could help speed up your workflow, so give it a spin, you’ve got nothing to lose! :)

And because those fine folks at Camera Bits are so nice, they’ve offered all our readers a $10 discount off the program! Just email them at sales@camerabits.com with the code PC082210 to receive the discount. It’s valid until August 22nd, 2010, so you have time to give it a try and then take advantage of a sweet deal!

Have a great weekend everyone! Inspiration Friday coming up right away here :)

*Note: We aren’t affiliated with PhotoMechanic, just happy users :)

One of the best things we’ve learned this year is how to say no! It sounds simple enough, but based on some of the feedback we’ve received on this blog so far I think it might be a problem that a lot of photographers are facing. I thought sharing some of our own experiences saying no might help other photographers in similar situations.

The Big No

Lauren and I made the decision at the beginning of this year to move away from wedding photography and in 2011 we’ll no longer be photographing weddings. From the start of our careers weddings have been our focus, so this was certainly a big deal. However the reasoning was simple enough: we were tired of shooting them. That might sound blasphemous at first, after all we’re wedding photographers! The thing is that if you don’t love what you’re doing, then what is the point? Without that fire and passion driving you, you won’t ever be able to really reach your full potential. We’re thrilled with the weddings we get to shoot this year; after that we’ll move on.

You might think that saying no to interested wedding clients would be hard, and you would be right. But it’s less difficult than dealing with the knowledge that we would have to spend another whole year doing work that we don’t love. 

Here are some other places we’ve said no without regrets:

1. Miscellaneous work - If you’re just starting out, shooting a variety of work is essential. It helps get you experience in a variety of situations so you can determine strengths and weaknesses. However if you’re an experienced professional then there’s no need to try shooting every odd job that comes your way. Focus on a specific type of work: weddings, portraits, sports, commercial, landscape - don’t try to do them all! You’re going to develop the strongest skill set by staying focused. A healthy interest in all forms of photography is useful - but think about it more from a business perspective: concentrating your efforts will maximize your returns. I think boudoir photography and pet photography are great examples of niches that are exploding because people are focusing more directly on them, and are able to excel as a result.
2. Replying to e-mails - This goes back to our post on e-mail management. Some clients expect that you respond to e-mails and phone calls in an unreasonable amount of time, and it can cause a fair bit of guilt to know there are messages sitting unanswered. But it’s important to realize that you don’t need to reply to e-mails within the hour they are received! You have a photography business right? Establish business hours! We respond to emails every morning, and then get ourselves focused on other tasks. If you’re spending a lot of time responding right away to messages, you are really destroying your productivity by allowing constant interruptions. 
3. Setting boundaries - One of the toughest things about wedding photography is losing your weekends. It didn’t take me long to start valuing them!! More and more we’ve realized the importance of setting boundaries, and giving yourself personal time. Without it, you’re on the road to burn out. However, when you’re just getting started it can create serious anxiety to be NOT working, especially when you’re fighting to get your legs under you. And that makes it very very tough to say no to clients when their requests encroach on that personal time. One of the best things we did to guard our weekends is charge more for weekend photo sessions. People will magically find the time for a weekday session when it means they save money, and you can spend your Sunday hanging out with your loved ones, free from stress and work. It certainly makes Mondays much easier to handle!
4. Contracts - From time to time we get clients who request we make changes to our contracts. When we were starting out we felt it wasn’t a big deal, we were just happy to be getting business. Over time we’ve come to realize that the clients who request contract changes are some of the most difficult clients to work with - if they’re asking you to make changes to your contract what else are they going to ask you to go out of your way to do? Not only does it take you time to amend your contract, but if it’s something as big as a wedding then you’re locked into a contract that isn’t totally to your benefit for a very long time. We have never regretted saying no to contract changes. 
5. Client requests - This is another thing that’s hard to say no to when you’re first starting out. A client asks that you do something more than what was initially agreed upon. Our knee jerk reaction was always just do it, in fear that if we said no, or asked for payment, they would be upset. One of the hardest things for new photographers to do is really value their time and talent. You don’t necessarily have to say no here, but you should have a price that fairly takes into account the energy and time you’ll need to spend. 
6. Discounts - You many find that people you barely know (friends of friends of friends) start contacting you for photography, and they want a discount. When we were starting out this was a larger problem for us - mainly because we didn’t realize the value of our skills ourselves (like many photographers I’m sure). The fact is that the discount cycle can be a difficult one to break out of. It seems innocent enough at first; do a session for free or at a discounted rate to get experience, and the next thing you know their friends want the same deal, and eventually your free/discounted work outnumbers your paid work. We give our close friends (and I mean friends we’ve known for ten years or more) and immediate family discounts and draw the line there. 

How to Say No

1. Be Professional - Don’t give an explanation or apologize. That might seem counter intuitive at first, but when you explain your policies it opens the discussion to argument. Simply state that it is your business policy. If they are in strong enough disagreement with you you can refer them to another photographer - you won’t regret it!
2. Be Polite - You’re just saying no, you’re not throwing punches. I think you’ll find that people are generally pretty understanding if you simply state your polices, thank them for their time, and if necessary refer them to another photographer.  

Obviously the beauty of all this is that you’re free to make any exception that you like - just make sure it’s the exception and not the rule.

Hopefully the next time something drops into your inbox that doesn’t please you you’ll remember you always have the option of saying no. I suspect it might make for a happier and more stress-free business! 

Have you said no to anything lately that’s made you or your photography business stronger?