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4.11.13

Wedding Dress Hangers Make for Better Dress Photos

Ever gone to a wedding and hung up the wedding dress and took a step back to admire the view only to see the beautiful plastic hanger from the store standing in front of you?

For years I kept seeing these gorgeous dresses, hanging them up in beautiful locations to show them off only to pull up the photo later and wish I’d had a gorgeous hanger to go with that dress! Sometimes brides bring cute hangers for everyone and all the bridesmaids dresses too, but sometimes you get what you get (and you don’t throw a fit).

So I wanted to give you guys a quick solution. Not only can this fix up that one wedding shot we all like to get, but it also helps you look like the awesomesauce wedding professional you are. It’s a small investment, but you can buy your own set of wedding hangers and either give them to each bride or have them to bring to weddings.

Sometimes if I give these hangers to the bride I find they wished they had one that said something else so I like to just have a set to use in case they don’t have their own. Let’s face it, not all brides are as detail oriented as I am!

These are a quick thing to buy and are cool and handmade! You can find them >here< from all kinds of different Etsy vendors. They’re all pretty awesome and cheap, especially if you just buy a set and use them at every wedding. The set I have says, “bride,” “bridesmaid,” and “groom.” I have the groom one just in case the bride sees the one I use on her dress and asks if I have one for the groom too.

Anyway, this is a quick tip for all you wedding photographers on a little piece you can add to your wedding kit. I promise your brides will appreciate you for it!

Awesomesauce Store – Become a Member – Carrie Swails Photography

Filed in:Photography Tips
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April 11, 2013 - 12:59 pm

Kim - That is a GREAT idea…so simple but in the end will make such a difference. Thanks for sharing!

April 11, 2013 - 3:35 pm

Clarissa - Brilliant! Would you mind telling us what is in your personal wedding kit??

April 11, 2013 - 7:59 pm

Carrie - Absolutely Clarissa! I’ll make a big blog post out of it next week!

April 12, 2013 - 9:17 pm

Lauren Carnes - Absolutely agree with this! I actually make these hangers and have seen such a huge difference in the photos from wedding days of brides who choose to display their “once in a lifetime” dress on a gorgeous hanger instead of the plastic one! Thanks for sharing!

4.10.13

How to Restore a Memory Card

Lots of things can cause a memory card to fail and fixing one is no fun at all. As long as you’re taking good care of your memory card and doing what you can to prevent a corrupt card you’ll find it’s easier for you to fix and less likely you’ll even have to.

This is a quick little article I’m putting together. The information is pretty basic, but I get a lot of questions on this topic so I figured this would help to have stored on the back burner.

Some Things Memory Cards Don’t Like…

1. Being shoved into memory card readers. Bent card reader pins can ruin your card. Be gentle!

2. Deleting images one by one on the card can cause read errors.

3. Deleting images in your import program can cause errors on the card, only delete images by formatting.

4. Being a cheap memory card is no fun. Investing in a great memory card that is high quality is very important.

How to Fix Your Memory Card

1. Go to www.cardrecovery.com and download their software – easy peasy!

2. If using recovery software does not work, look up and contact the company who made the card to get their recommendations.

Awesomesauce Store - Become a Member – Carrie Swails Photography

Filed in:Photography Tips
4.9.13

This Week at Photography Awesomesauce

Hi everyone!

A few things are going on over here, but I have to say I’m happy things won’t be as busy the next couple weeks. Wedding season is about to hit full-gear for me and with a bat-(insert expletive)-crazy foot injury that’s got me laid up on the couch with my foot up for the next 7 weeks I’ll be glad for the calm!

Next week I’m doing my very first styled wedding shoot and working with an awesome wedding planner. I’m super excited and will have a blog post about photographing details as well as a video of the shoot available in our new members area!

If you haven’t had an opportunity to check out our membership area please do! There are free 7 day trials and if it’s not for you, you can just cancel. I’m just starting out this new venture with a chat room, forum, online tutorials and videos so I’ll be adding to the content and tutorials for you guys as much as possible. If you have ideas of tutorials you would like to see there – please let me know!

As I said, the members area is very new (it opened on our 1 year anniversary last week), so if there are any glitches please email me and let me know. As a one-woman show it can be difficult to test everything from your perspective and I want to make it as perfect as possible!

>Members Area<

As for events this week…

1. Wednesday night we have a live online Posing Class! If this is an area you need help with we’re going to be talking about posing couples, portraits, head shots, weddings, and families. >Posing Class<

2. This is our third week of the 6 Week Online Wedding Photography workshop and it’s going AWESOME! I’m having such a great time with the ladies who are attending and already getting requests to do another one. I added a summer wedding workshop to our list!
>Check it out<

3. After chatting with one of the fans in our Facebook Group about what it takes to eventually be taking better photos (cause lets face it, we’ve all been there when we were learning) I’ve added on a 4 Week workshop about Taking Better Photos and learning how to see. >Check it out<

4. I want to know what kinds of online classes or workshops you would like to see. I’ve had lots of requests for an online newborn workshop and I’m working on that, but I want to pair with someone who is way better at posing newborns than I am so you guys can learn awesome things. If you have ideas for a workshop or an online $15 one-time class I’d love to hear them. I want to know what you want to learn.

5. Don’t forget to join our new Facebook Group! >here<

And last, but not least for any Colorado Fans…I’m hosting a workshop for the “Flashbusters” in June at my studio and would love to see some of you guys there. It’s an all day workshop about off camera flash. We’re going to have models and do shoots in mountain meadows and parking garages. It’s also an opportunity you don’t want to miss at $125 for the entire day.
>Flashbusters<

Awesomesauce Store - Become a Member - Carrie Swails Photography

Filed in:What's Happening This Week
4.8.13

How to Get Your Photography Published

Image from http://www.twobrightlights.com

Emma and Josh are photographers who get featured a lot on weddings blogs online. I don’t have a lot of experience in this area so I invited Emma to come and write a little bit about how it works for her. It can be a great marketing tool. If a wedding blog choses to feature your photos they will link back to your website, which can help your SEO!

There are a couple different ways to connect with blogs and submit your photography to be featured. One is the old-fashioned way – emailing them a link to a gallery or just emailing them photos. However, many blogs are now using an online service called Two Bright Lights to submit their photos and connect with blog owners. Emma has been featured many times by using their service so I’m super thankful she’s taking the time to tell us about it!!
By Emma Smith
>Facebook<
>Blog<
>Website<
Two Bright Lights is a website/service that helps you streamline your submission process to blogs, as well as gives you an option to share your photos directly with vendors. I personally only use it for submissions to blogs and share my photos with PASS for clients.The amazing thing about this system is everything you need to know is right online. They list ALL the blogs/Magazines and Editors ( that accept via Two Bright Lights, not every blog accepts submissions with this online service. ) They have information on who is accepting what. If you want to read more about each blog you can and Two Bright Lights gives you information as to the blogs’ publication schedule, how often they post, and how many images they post. It’s really great information.The submission process is very simple. After creating an account you can first upload photos into an album on the website. Then list all the vendors involved in a wedding or photo shoot so they are credited accordingly. A vendor you worked with might already be listed, so you can search the database to see if they are on there. If not, add them manually. Then you can move to the actual submission process.Two bright lights walks you through the submission process using various filters to narrow down who you can submit to. For example you’ll want to decide between exclusive and non-exclusive blogs. An exclusive blog will expect that you feature a certain wedding or shoot only with them and with no one else. There are categories to submit weddings/engagements/ parties/lifestyles/pets…you name it. There are also filters such as location, style, and budget. When you are finally done Two Bright Lights filters out so you get a list of blogs/magazines who are accepting those types of weddings and shoots. You can choose where you want to submit. Finally, you use the categories to break your event down with colors, cultures, themes and add in any additional information and ‘SUBMIT.’

Submissions might take as quick as 24 hours or up to 2 months. Each publication lists the time it might take, and you wait until you hear back. Two Bright Lights also shows you when your submission is under review and you will get an email if it’s accepted that includes a publication date. If you’re not accepted you may receive an email saying, “sorry not at this time.” Sometimes they list reasons and sometimes they don’t. You can then resubmit to another publication if you wish.

If you’re selected to be featured, when the publication date hits, you get an email saying your feature has been published and right from that email you can share directly to Facebook or tweet about it! THAT’S COOL!

A few tips to keep in mind…

1. Make sure you follow instructions. Most blogs want non-watermarked, single images and they request a certain amount of images. If a publication wants 100 images and you submit 40 odds are you won’t get accepted due to failure to follow instructions. So, always read up on who you are submitting to and know the rules.

2. Dont take it personally if you’re not accepted (which is hard – I speak from experience), but there are many blogs and sometimes they just have a different vision. Try, try again…

3. Being published doesn’t make you a rock star and it wont get you 10 bookings. However, it gives you exposure.

Some of my features for you to check out:

http://www.ceremonyblog.com/2013/02/20/real-wedding-katherine-sean/

http://theeverylastdetail.com/2013/03/18/modern-glamorous-pink-wedding/

http://www.societybride.com/2012/09/03/sunstone-winery-masquerade-styled-shoot-by-emma-jane-photography-edit/

Filed in:Business Tips | Marketing TIps
comment
April 15, 2013 - 7:29 am

Anfiska - Thanks! It is a great advice to use TWO BRIGHT LIGHTS. I agree that being published doesn’t make you a rock star, but is a great chancе to show your talent to the world:)

4.4.13

Our 1 Year Anniversary & Something New!

Thank you guys for allowing me to be here, write, and teach to you. I am so proud to say that a year ago today I bought this domain, set up a small store and it grew into a blog and it’s continuing to grow into an awesome community!

In celebration I’m excited to release to you today, a new section of our website for members only. This area is for learning about photography and business online even more. There will be video tutorials, written tutorials, photos, forums, live chats, online class discounts, and more!

Best of all you guys can all start out with a free trial. While we have small content to start, more and more will be added until it’s a large library of information!

>Become a Member<

Thanks again for making this website such a pleasure to be on. Here’s to another year!

Filed in:Reminders
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April 4, 2013 - 5:41 pm

snappystreet - Congratulations! I am loving your blog (a recent discovery) so thank you for letting us all come on this journey with you!

Like you, I’ve just celebrated a year of my blog too!

April 4, 2013 - 9:44 pm

Tiffany - Congrats!!! I love this site and all the useful information it has to offer!!!! Thank you for being here!!

Tiffany