Fake Pro Photographer

Can you turn an amateur into a pro photographer in just 1 week? Here Kai and the Digital Rev team try to do just that putting the fake it till you make it addage to the test.

While it was ultimately unsuccessful in this case there are ways that such an outcome could be achieved. Chief among these would be prior knowledge of the final challenges. If you know exactly waht you are going to be required to produce you could work on that outcome with your mentors.

Critically while the above solution would only fulfil the brief in that limited scope that is actually all that would be required. Here they are trying to FAKE a pro photographer, not create one.

D800 vs D4

The release of the D800 and D4 may, for the lucky few with plenty of cash in the bank, produce a bit of a dilemma. Which one should they buy and why? In the past the D700 D3 choice was simple - 90% of the time you should have chosen the D700. It was cheaper, lighter, had a built in flash for triggering Nikon's CLS (creative lighting system), and had the same sensor.

This time around Nikon have clearly differentiated the two models. The D4 is more robust than the D800, has a higher framerate, and has some very cool wireless tricks. The D800 has plenty of pixel power and a built in flash.

Below Matt from Art of the image gives his take.

Personally, if you're choosing between these two beasts I would recommend the D800 unless you will find the size of the RAW files unwieldy or you need high frame rates and/or wireless trickery.

Peter Hurley - Art of the Headshot - Sample

I'm looking at purchasing Peter Hurley's Art Behind the headshot. It's a 4 hour course allegedly demonstrating everything that Peter Hurley has learnt over the past 8 years. If so it should be well worth the money. The above video is a sample from the 'DVD' (it's actually a download). What do you think? Worth spending a little bit to learn a lot or doesn't this look that useful?

My verdict on the Peter Hurley Art of the Headshot DVD can be found here

D800 Technical Guide

The basic manual for the Nikon D800 and D800E is now freely available for download from Nikon USA.
The manual includes the usual basic samples and basic shooting suggestions for things such as portraits and static subjects. Interestingly it also includes advice such as don't stop the aperture down too far. While this piece of advice is accurate (as small apertures can lead to issues through diffraction) I haven't seen it included in manuals before (although the manuals I have read before are for lower level Nikon Cameras).

You can have a read of the manual by clicking here.

Taking better portraits - Defining the jawline

It's all about the Jaw from Peter Hurley on Vimeo.

In the above video Peter Hurley demonstrates the importance of, and techniques for, defining the jawline in photography. These techniques predominantly allow you to eliminate the appearance of double chins by preventing the key factors that cause them to appear in photographs.

Call with Steph and Jeff - Book More Brides

This is a summary of a conference call covering the Wedding Business Blueprint Package from Book More Brides.

The full conversation can be downloaded by following this link.

Who are these people?
http://www.thedjsolution.com/
http://www.bookmmorebrides.com


Question:
How is the wedding business Blueprint different?
- Maximising lead generation
- Partnering
- Developing your niche
- Chossing a profitable market
- Designing your price and packages
- Marketting
- Money Back Guarantee

Story about a NZ photographer Raefa/Rayfa
-School Portraits
Added scarcity by adding a limited offer, a timeframe where something ends. This appeals to loss aversion.
Tried a couple of variations
- 7 day limit with a free gift
- Archival fees (don't buy in this time and you will have to pay an archival fee)
7 day limit with free gift was most effective
From this Steph and Jeff Recommend a 3 day booking incentive

How can I start creating more VALUE in my business?
- Whatever the Bride and Groom find valuable
- What can't they find elsewhere? Ask around
- Can you become a resource that goes beyond your traditional role? Can you help them plan other elements of their wedding?


Use your web presence to make a personal connection with your clients
- Blogging
- E-mail
- Skype
- Aided by proper targetting of your niche
- Targets the correct leads
- They are setup to want to book you

Cheap and Free ways to generate interest/leads

DJ Story Raul
- Helped him target his market by using a message that makes him stand out from the competition
- Not about explaining why you cost what you do
- Self definition moves from Wedding DJ -> Latin Wedding DJ -> Latin-but-bot-too-Latin Wedding DJ (where clients want all the guests to dance, not just Latin guests)
- Ask why your clients booked you, they will help to find your uniqueness

Postcards
- Send out thank you postcards to clients and other wedding vendors

SEO Myths, Misinformation, and Changed Information

Common SEO misinformation:
- Doing negative things to your customers is a great way to get backlinks
Review sites often have nofollow links which means that the negative reviews provide negative information about your service and don't give you any link juice.

- Google slacks off from time to time
Google move their manpower around the most effective/mportant areas at any one time

- It's only about links
Many people only focus on building incoming links. Remember that on page SEO is also very important, especially the generation of unique, quality content.

- The Keywords Meta Tag is useful for Google
It isn't used at all

- The Webspam team is all person based OR all algorithmic
It is both.

Changed Information
- Social Media can effect rankings
In some cases it seems that google does take a person or organisations reputation into account when creating their google rankings.

- Safe Search Changes
In the past if google couldn't crawl something directly they wouldn't return the result in safe search. Since then safe search has improved as has the amount of information that can be used to guess what a page contains. Now sites that google cannot crawl directly may be returned in a safe search if there are enough external signals to suggest that it should be trustworthy.