3 Simpel Steps For Marketing a Photography Business

There are virtually no barriers to entry to starting such a business. Many photographers enjoy their work so much they would do it for free if they did not need to make a living. These factors means large numbers of people have started photography businesses, making the industry ultra-competitive. To survive and indeed thrive, a photographer must market his product effectively. This article addresses ways a photographer can improve his marketing.

Market to past clients. Past clients are people who have seen and purchased your products and services. They are people who value exactly what you do to the point that they are willing to pay for those services. Don't waste this valuable resource by neglecting these people.

Stay in touch with these clients through an email newsletter. Keep a database of critical information and have it remind you of special occasions. If you photographed a couple's wedding, you know exact date of their anniversary. If you shot newborn pictures for a family you know the exact date of a baby's first birthday. Send out congratulatory emails to these families at these times.

Use a variety of methods to bring in new clients. The following are some methods that have proven effective:

1. Setup a dynamic webpage and perform the SEO work to have the number one photography related search term in your industry.
2. Market on facebook. Tag your current clients with pictures that contain your website. This works especially well for photographers who are seeking to shoot high school seniors (because of the amount of time these kids spend on facebook).
3. Setup displays at local businesses. Typically, a person must have multiple exposures to their business before they seek you out to take their pictures. A photographer can increase his exposure by setting up displays at local businesses. This is a win-win proposition. The business gets free fine art to display on its walls. The photographer gets his name out into the community (there should be some displays near the pictures or some contact information on the picture itself). Restaurants, children clothing stores, and hair salons are ideal places to get exposure for your work.

Running a photography business can be a personally rewarding experience in many ways. The above suggestions will help make it a financially rewarding experience as well.

Simple Tips for Taking Better Photos

Take better photos and add exciting artistic effects to your photos using HP digital cameras. These can be edited using in-camera design gallery features.

1) Using the sun to light your photos

Natural sunlight provides some of the best lighting for great shots with more detail and vivid colors. Be careful:

• Really bright sunlight casts harsh shadows
• Overhead sunlight can wash out detail in faces

Tip: For best results, avoid taking photos when the sun is directly overhead. This can cause harsh shadows. Also, try to shoot with the sun behind you. This prevents loss of detail caused by bright light.

2) Get creative on gray days

Less-than-ideal weather conditions won't keep you from getting that perfect shot. Cloudy skies produce unique photos:

• Get interesting highlights with enhanced mood
• Make colors pop in contrast to the gray sky

Tip: Shooting in the rain can be fun, but be careful not to damage your camera. You can waterproof your camera by wrapping it in a plastic bag and cutting a hole for the lens to poke through.

3) Capture breathtaking evening photos

The key to great night photos is turning off your flash. Just follow these guidelines:

• Set shutter speed slower to let in enough light
• Stay steady, slow shutter speeds blur photos
• Use a tripod or place camera on stationary surface

Tip: Place your camera on a tripod and set its shot timer so there's no risk of your camera moving when you press the trigger.

4) Golden Hour - A great time for some photo magic

Sunrise and sunset are what photographers call the "golden hour" or "magic hour." Photos taken at these times are rich and dramatic:

• Get "golden" light instead of blinding midday sun
• Your photos will have warm and inviting colors

Tip: Using the golden hour is especially good for people shots so you avoid harsh shadows on faces caused by midday sun. Experiment with angles and zoom to find the perfect balance of light.

5) Get more effective flash photos

The flash is a great tool if you know how to get the most of it. The key is keeping your distance:

• Your camera's flash has a range of about 10 feet
• Too far? Your photo will be too dark
• Too close? Bright light blows out detail

Tip: The best way to avoid overexposed flash photos is to step back and zoom in to your subject. This way, the flash is a good distance from your subject, but you still get your close-up.

6) Keep annoying "red-eye" out of your photos

The flash reflecting off the retina of your subject's eyes is what causes the common problem of red-eye. Reduce red-eye by following these guidelines:

• Move outdoors or into brighter light
• Have your subject avoid looking directly into the lens

Tip: Many HP cameras offer in camera automatic red-eye removal.

7) Move your subject for more compelling photos

You don't have to center your subject in every photo you shoot. Create more visual interest by using the Rule of Thirds:

• Divide your photo into a tic-tac-toe grid
• Place the main "interest" at grid intersections
• Use photo software to crop later if necessary

Tip: You don't always get the perfect shot to begin with, so keeping the Rule of Thirds in mind, try cropping your photo after you've shot it using HP Photosmart Essential software for the same effect.

8) Change the angle and create more impact

The difference between a good photo and a great photo is sometimes just a matter of how you approach it.

• Change the camera angle for creative shots
• Move your camera in relation to the subject
• Zoom in or out to change the composition

Tip:Try these ideas to get a different perspective when you take a photo:

• Hold your camera at arm's length above your head
• Lie on the ground
• Get very close to your subject

9) Add more visual appeal to your shots

Sometimes the best way to draw attention to your center of interest is to create a frame around it.

• A "frame" helps the subject stand out
• Add drama, depth and interest
• Use scenic elements like trees or other objects

Tip: Once you've situated your subject in the area where you want to shoot, always view your subject from several different angles to locate objects you can use to frame your photo. Use scenic elements like trees or other objects

10) Add depth and create interest with lines

Create interesting perspective and enhance ordinary shots by using straight or curved lines within the frame.

• Lines lead the eye to the center of interest
• Look for brick walls, sidewalks, fences, and edges
• Shoot lines at an angle for unique shots

Tip: Get creative with lines in your photo. Position your subject at a corner where a fence intersects, or use a long sidewalk to "point" to your subject.

11) The right background makes a better photo

Backgrounds can play a huge role in how interesting your photo is. Consider these points when choosing a background:

• Watch for clutter and other distracting elements
• Don't use a busy or competing background
• Remove objects that connect to the subject

Tip: Watch out for items in the background that might look odd when photographed, like a lamp post sticking out behind someone's head.

Tips For Taking Great Photos For Photo Gifts

Once you decide to get a custom photo gift you will need to get the photos for the gift. That is why we have created this quick help guide full of tips for taking the perfect photo for your photo gift. These tips will help you get the best picture for your present. There are a couple things that you will need to keep in mind. There are likely several different questions that you may have on how to make the perfect gift even better. From color coordination to image selection and themes, you will want to make sure that you are getting the best image for the gift that you choose to give. This can be even more important than picking the right gift. There are several different aspects to keep in mind. This guide will help to aid you in your photo selection. It may also help you to get the images for the gift if you do not already have them. If you still need help, feel free to contact us for even more tips and tricks to getting the perfect photo.

Image selection:

This may be the most important step in the process of your personalized photo gift. Once you have decided on the gift that you are getting for someone, you will need to choose the photo to put on it. Many times, a theme is the best route to go. If it is a Father's day present, you will want to put a picture of the children or family on the gift, a romantic present will need a nice picture of the family or the significant other on it. There are many different options for this step. Only you will know what is best. A fun loving gift will call for a more "whacky" or candid image, while more serious gifts or puzzles may call for a memorable landscape or professional looking photo. You will want to look at the concept of the gift and decide on whether a current photo or new image is needed.

Color:

Color is a very important thing when taking pictures. If the colors are too bright or loud they may take from the image, while if they are too dull or lifeless, they will not be as appealing. Color balance is our next tip for your photo gift. One thing that you will want to keep in mind is the color coordination to use. Many personalized photo gifts will need to be in bright and vibrant colors. Many photo gifts are used to be bright and cheery with the intent of making someone's day brighter and happier. This means that you should use bright and colorful images for many of the personalized photo gifts. A nice bright colorful picture suits many of these photo gifts. If you are taking the photo for the gift instead of a current image that you may have, you will want to look at the background and clothing that is going to be in the photo. Dark backgrounds trend to brighten the image but can often clash with the gift that you are putting the image on. Brighter settings may also take away from the people in the image and dull the colors in the picture. A nice balance of colors and background brightness is the best route to take.You will want to keep the photo gift in mind as well. IF the image is being transferred to a darker wood style present, you may want a slightly darker background while the brighter, white cups and steins will require a lighter background color. If you are using a darker background, brighter colors should be worn as well. This will really help the focus of the photo stand out against the background. Lighter backgrounds should contain darker and color rich clothing on the people in the picture. Bold colors tend to be more noticeable on a lighter background. One other factor should be considered when you think of color.

Theme:

If this gift will be used for a holiday, you may want to consider that many holidays have a color theme. One tip to making a great gift is to keep a theme. Saint Patrick's Day has green while Christmas has a red and green theme and Halloween is more orange and brown. If you are making a holiday themed gift, you may want to keep with the color scheme of the holiday. A Valentine's Day keepsake box may require a more red color scheme to the photo, while an "over the hill" birthday theme may be better suited to a black and white layout. The theme is also important when you are using several photos for your photo gift.If you are giving a gift that has multiple photos, you may want to keep to a common idea in the photos. If you are giving a photo box with four different pictures for a Mother's day present, you would want to have all four pictures of the family or children. A picture of each child separately and one together may be a great idea for this present. You will want to keep in mind the idea behind the gift when selecting the image.

Tips For Taking Great Engagement Photos

Just when you thought that getting the proposal out of the way was the hardest part of the long rode to getting married, you suddenly realize that there are a few other details that need to be taken care of before you walk down the aisle. One of these things has become very important to most couples especially now that we live in the digital age of sharing everything and that one thing is getting great engagement photos taken so that you can tell everyone that you're engaged to get married in the coolest possible way.

Your engagement photos are something that you'll have forever and they're the first thing that really lets the world know that you're engaged and that you're madly in love with the person you're going to marry. So, as you can see (and as you probably already know), these are very important photos, which means that you want to make them as great as you possibly can. To make sure that you don't end up with some lame engagement shots I've put together some tips, thoughts and ideas that will help you get the end result of awesomeness that you're shooting for.

Obviously one of the first things that you need to find is a great photographer that you feel comfortable with. You want to make sure that whomever you end up choosing has a personality that aligns with yours and that your ideas will be incorporated into the photo shoot as well. A great place to find a photographer is within your group of friends that are already married (if you have them). If not, nearly every photographer has some type of website portfolio so that you can get a great feel for their style and ability. Also, once you find a photographer that you think could be a potential fit, be sure to meet with him or her over coffee or something so that you can discuss pricing, ideas and expectations. Getting a photographer that has their own agenda will make for a very, very long day of shooting and your photos will reflect that.

Once you find your photographer and you set a date for your shoot, the next thing is to find various locations where you would like to be photographed. Great places to have in mind are spots that have some type of emotional meaning to you or somewhere that reflects your personality so that it will show through clearly in your photos. This is a great topic to discuss with your photographer and if they have shot other engagement photos around where you live they might have some great suggestions for you as well. Try to be as open-minded as possible and remember that you're paying some good money for these photos; so be sure to get all of the shots that you want. Your photographer will be more than willing to shoot tons of shots, but first you will need to step up and ask.

One of the last things that you should think about after selecting your locations is what clothes you're going to bring along on the shoot. If you're doing a multiple-hour shoot there's no reason why you should only bring one set of clothes. You should match your choice of clothes with your choice of locations and they should also math your personalities. I would suggest bringing as much stuff with you as possible because as you're running around shooting you never know what fun, new place you're going to find. Of course, that's all part of the fun.

So there you go, I've hopefully helped you prepare yourself for your upcoming photo shoot. Congratulations on your engagement and be sure to have fun - hopefully you'll only be doing this once!

Photography Basics - Portrait Photography Tips

People are easily the number one subject for photographs. From party snaps, to photos of children and travel shots of family members in front of famous monuments, millions upon millions of people photographs are taken every single say of the year.

Portrait photography is a little different to general people photography. The intent of portrait photography is capture and display something of the 'essence' of a person; to say something about their character, personality, or life.

The three most important things to get right in portrait photography are camera settings, lighting, and your relationship with your model.

Camera settings for portrait photography

Because taking portrait photographs is all about a person's face (or if it's a wider shot, their head-and-shoulders), classic portrait photography settings seek to remove anything distracting from the background of the shot. This mimics the effect of looking at someone's face from very close up, and makes the subject 'pop' (this is photographer-speak for 'stand out and capture attention').

The way to achieve a distraction-free portrait photo is to use a wide aperture, often as wide as possible (f/2.8 or f/4 are popular choices). Wide apertures produce a shallow depth-of-field, which renders anything far from the plane of best focus - i.e. the background - as a soft blur.

Aside from a wide aperture, the only other important setting is ISO. This should be as low a number as possible (e.g. ISO 100), as higher ISOs will lead to digital noise, which is particularly ugly in a portrait.

There's one offshoot of portrait photography where the recommended settings are different, and that's environmental portrait photography. Environmental portrait photography seeks to show a person in their 'natural habitat', which is often their workplace. Here you want to show the background, so a smaller aperture is appropriate.

Lighting for portrait photography

Lighting in portrait photography can be as complicated as you like. Professional portrait photography is almost always done in a studio, where the lighting can be 100% controlled. If you're reading this, chances are you don't have your own photography studio, so let's discuss a simple lighting scheme you can set up at home.

First, position your model at a window. The light coming from the window should be bright, but not direct (i.e. not coming directly from the sun). You model should be facing you, side on to the window. Light from the window light will obviously light up the side of their face that is closest to it. Then, position something on the other side of your model that will bounce reflected light from the window onto the other side of their face. Anything white or reflective will do, for example a piece of white cardboard or a sheet of aluminum.

Now you have a basic, flattering light scheme, with the main light source on one side of your model's face, and 'fill' light from the reflector on the other. Don't forget that you should frame the shot close enough that the reflector is not in the shot.

Interacting with your subject

Portrait photography inevitably says something about the relationship between photographer and subject. Unless you're shooting professional models, the hardest thing about taking portrait photos is not in fact camera settings or lighting, but ensuring that your model is comfortable and relaxed enough to give you good results. A model who feels awkward, uncomfortable or self-conscious will not photograph well.

Often the best strategy to relax your model is simply to engage them in conversation, as this will take their mind off the camera. They'll probably get more comfortable with the process after you've rattled off a few shots, so schedule a decent amount of time and plan on taking your best shots towards the end of the session.

Sell My Photos Online - Where and How to Do It

Literally thousands of people per day are wondering how to sell my photos online and this is one of the problems. There is an absolute mountain of competition with a lot of people in the same niche attempting to do the same thing.

Those that are succeeding are not willing to open up their personal methods to success. Why should they? They have more than likely worked very hard to build up an online presence and effective marketing methods.

The typical ways that people look to sell their work are often lucrative but can be time consuming and often quite difficult. These could be:

1. eBay.
2. Personal website.
3. Blogs.
4. Selling directly to companies online. However:

For a lot of people the benefits and profit that they see from these methods are too little compared to the amount of work they out in to achieve sales.

So what are the effective methods to selling your photographs? Where and how do you do it?

The internet and all that comes with it is growing at an exponential rate and more rapidly than ever before. If you look deep enough there are endless amounts of ways to make money online and some cutting edge methods to sell your work.

Take a moment to think about the amount of websites and blogs that are being created everyday. Its simply staggering!

The webmasters creating these sites need images, logos and graphics and they all have to be available legally to use. You simply cannot copy and paste a picture from another website. So there's a starving market right?

Well several websites are springing up that are feeding this market and positioning you right in front of it. These websites act like an agent.

• They allow you to upload your photographs onto their site.
• They then market these pictures to hungry webmasters.
• Webmasters purchase the picture as a download for say $1. You get $0.50.

But here is what I love. You do not lose your copyrights. So the picture remains on the website and more people can download the same image time and time again.

• The more pictures that you upload to these type of sites, the more sales and profit you will make.

If you are thinking how can I sell my photos online then start to think about using the latest trends, markets and needs of the internet and its users. The possibilities are endless if you do the right research and find the best sites that offer these types of services and opportunities.

Heres my top tip. Its unique. Listen up, I only want to show this to people that want to really sell photos online. If you're not going to persist and think forward, do not visit this site. I am deadly serious. I would rather pass this info on to someone that was going to do something with it.

Sell My Photos Online

Learn how to have your photo downloaded several times a day and get paid every time, on autopilot.

Malioboro, The Street of Musicians in Yogyakarta

Malioboro, The Street of Musicians



Mr. Landung Simatupang, still reading a Poem







In the area of Malioboro Yogyakarta, often held a street art, start acting from the singer street, reading poem, drama etc.

Many Great musicians birth from this region. Like Ebiet G. Ade, a successful singer and balad musician in Indonesia.

Much famous musicians who initiated his career from Malioboro.

Until now, Malioboro still active as place to create of art. Malioboro makes no death for the art of it.

Mr. Sujud Gendang, a monolog drama with play tambourine