2. Real Time Feedback – If you use a service like www.madmimi.com you can see who is clicking, where, and how many people are reading your emails. Mad Mimi has a free account. As long as you keep your subscribers to your email under 100 people you won’t have to pay. Seeing the feedback will help you target your emails better toward your audience.

3. More Frequent Communications – Because email marketing saves you time you’ll be able to send these emails more often. Once per month or quarterly are great timelines for a photography business.

4. Saving the planet by going paperless.

Check out www.madmimi.com and consider using email marketing as a way to keep in touch with your clients, even after their time with you is done. If you’re working in the portrait photography field it’s likely clients will come back again and again as they have new life changing events happening in their lives. You can remind them you are there and they’ve worked with you before so it would make sense to again. You can use email marketing to send out discounts on new sessions, sales on any prints in case they haven’t had a chance to order, or to announce mini sessions or events coming up in your company!

Carrie Swails Photography

Tonight is our Photographing in Manual Mode class. If you want to learn a bit more about manual come >register< to watch it live or watch the recording later.

All artists use tools and a camera is just a tool. When you’re a photographer it’s all about light, always, all the time, and above all else. That’s why you start hearing about things like photographing only during golden hour and natural light photography.

Here’s a few tips for those natural light photographers!

1. Shoot during golden hour. This is that last hour before sunset (or during) where the light is low in the sky, very golden, and as such creates less shadows and more even lighting across your subject. It’s also great for sun flares if that’s the kind of thing that floats your boat.

2. If you have to shoot during the mid-day sun use shade to your advantage. Shooting in open shade can help you create even light and even skin tones with no harsh shadows.

3. Watch for shadows on the face. Shadows under the eyes (raccoon eyes), under the nose or off to the side of the nose are not flattering in photographs. I use whatever tools I can to avoid these shadows in any photograph. If you’re a natural light photographer that probably means you don’t want to use fill flash to help with these shadows, but you can use a reflector or turn and move your client according to the available light to get the best shot.

4. Spend time observing light. Photography is all about capturing light and the best way to learn how to use natural light is learning to recognize it. Go out at different times of day and look at the light and the way it affects objects and people at those times. One of the best ways I would learn is watching films. If you watch a movie and you try to figure out where the light source is you’ll get better and better at guessing what type of light they are using and how they use it to light their subjects.

5. Get catchlights! Catchlights in your clients eyes can completely change a photo. Catchlights are those little flecks of light that are captured reflected in someone’s eye. When you have those lights in their eyes it just adds that extra oomph to a photo. Without good light in your subjects eyes you can get what I like to call ‘shark eyes’ where the entire eye looks black through the pupil and iris. If you can’t get great catchlights you at least want to ensure that the eye doesn’t look completely black.

6. Be flexible with your posing. Using natural light means that the perfect pose might not always be perfect due to the light and it means you’ll have to be flexible and prepared to move and change your clients according to the light.

7. Don’t reschedule on cloudy days. Clouds create natural diffused light and almost act as natural soft boxes so this can enable you to work easily without having to avoid certain situations.

8. Be aware of natural reflectors. A big white building in a photo can act as a reflector and will reflect white light onto its surroundings. This also means that other buildings and objects can act as reflectors and give you color casts in your photos. It’s good to be aware of these things so you don’t pull your photos up later in camera and find you have the best shot ever, but that red British phone booth you posed your couple next to gave them both red looking faces. Look for those color casts when you’re posing and setting up your photos so you can avoid them. Sometimes you can also use them to your benefit as well!

9. Focus on the face first and foremost. (I like the letter ‘f’). The first thing I check before pressing that shutter button is my subject’s face. You’ll be able to best gage the lighting situation from there. If you see harsh shadows, squinting, color cast or other oddities then you know you need to change something. I make it a habit to check the face and then work outward and see where there might be things I want to change or avoid.

10. There is no ‘correct’ exposure. Photography is about style. It’s okay to experiment with different exposures instead of trying to get that perfectly exposed one. Sometimes those really moody images can be the best if something is a bit under exposed and then changed into black and white you’ll get gorgeous highlights and a very emotional image.

If you are wanting to learn more about natural light and catchlights specifically sign up for the FREE class on catchlights later in July! I’m also hosting an online class about photographing in Manual Mode that will be a great opportunity to learn about natural light and your camera settings. All of the classes are $15 and you can even watch them later if you won’t be available for the live viewing. Register for Online Classes!

Carrie Swails Photography

2. WB or White Balance is a setting used to ensure you have even white and grey tones in your photos. Different kind of lights can make the whites in a photo appear to have a color to them. Fluorescent lights can make white sheets appear bluish. Tungsten lights (like a lamp) can make things appear yellow. Cameras have many settings for White Balance, but learning to use custom white balance is a great tool. Check out my blog about white balance to learn more about how to use the custom setting.

3. Aperture controls how much light is allowed through your lens by setting the f-stop. A lower f-stop (like 1.4) will let in a lot of light and a higher f-stop (like 16) will let in less light.

4. Shutter speed controls how long the image sensor is exposed to light. A lower shutter speed will let in more light, but may give your subjects motion blur if they are moving in the photo.

5. You don’t need to use manual focus to photograph in manual mode. Manual mode means you’ll have more control over how your camera reads the light, but manual focus will entail a few extra seconds to use the focusing ring in order to capture a sharp image. Many photographers auto focus so they can photograph and capture moments quicker and ensure they are tack sharp.

6. A great camera does not make a great photographer, but a great photographer can make any camera (even that iPhone) great! By learning how to photograph in manual you can become an expert on what your camera is capable of.

7. Every camera has a ‘sweet spot.’ Even when you’re photographing in manual and you’re looking through the viewfinder and the line is right in the very center of your light meter it may still be too bright or too dark in your camera. My camera’s sweet spot is just one line over toward underexposed from that center spot on my light meter.

8. When photographing in manual there are no ‘go to’ settings for shutter speed, aperture, or anything else. You photograph and set your camera up for what’s best in that light or for whatever it is you want to achieve.

9. The higher your ISO is the more ‘noisy’ or grainy your photos will be. Know that there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s a style choice. I love grainy black and white images from wedding receptions, but it’s not everyone’s style. If you have to push your ISO up higher you’re not doing anything wrong.

10. Shooting in RAW mode instead of JPEG will help Manual photographers in case they get the exposure or white balance a bit off. A RAW photo holds all of your camera information in the file and can be easily fixed later in Photoshop without ruining the photo.

11. Practice! Photographing in manual is hard, but it will force you to learn your camera inside and out and you’ll be a better photographer for it. It takes practice so don’t expect everything to come naturally the first time out.

12. Don’t believe the myth that all professional photographers photograph in aperture priority or some other mode. Believing that is an excuse to not learn your camera’s capabilities. All pro photographers have a favorite mode they photograph in, but you can guarantee all of them also know how to photograph in manual and that learning experience helped them decide their choices later.

13. If you’re not getting tack sharp images it’s unlikely to be your camera’s fault (although it could be because your shutter speed is low). It’s most likely the lack of a sharp lens. Tomorrow I’ll be blogging a lens tutorial to discuss the differences between lenses and how they can affect your photos.

14. Many portrait and wedding photographers photograph with their aperture wide open, meaning on the lowest f-stop their lens will allow so they get portraits with background bokeh (blur) and sharp subjects in the foreground. To achieve that look try to keep your f-stop at 2.8 or lower.

15. Steps to setting up in manual: First set white balance, second set ISO, then set aperture, and finally your shutter speed.

16. Scott Kelby’s digital photography books are great for showing you photos and the settings recipe. His recipes may not be right for everyone’s styles, but I learned a lot by looking through his books and trying some of the shots for myself.

17.  It’s okay to ask for help. If you need help shooting manual start a thread in our free forum and our community would be glad to help you!

18. Do some test shots. Your camera records its settings in the image file so you don’t have to write them down separately. You can test your camera, test settings, and see the difference in how manual feels and looks by going back later and looking through your images and seeing what the settings are that helped you achieve a certain look.

19. You won’t get things right every shot. There will be lots of over exposed and underexposed shots when you photograph manual and you’re learning your settings.

20. Once you’ve mastered your manual settings in your DSLR camera, you can purchase an external flash and start learning about setting your flash manually to perfect your settings with that. Using a flash will affect how your settings look completely differently so if you’re into flash photography you’ll want to learn what settings mean with and without your flash.

These tips are not by any means rules to follow. These are tips that made learning photography easier for me, and there are more tips out there I’m sure. There is no wrong or right way to learn to photograph in manual mode and everyone has their own style and ways of doing things that work best for them. If you have a question, feel free to ask me a question or ask a question in our free forum. If you need further help with photography check out my posing guides in the shop.

Are you signed up for tonight’s live online class about wedding photography from 6pm-7pm Mountain Time? $15! >Sign up<

Carrie Swails Photography