Supply List

• Heated Blanket
• Space Heater
• Newborn Poser
• Posing Pillows
• Backdrop Stand
• Backdrops
• Towels
• Washcloths
• Hamper
• Spare diapers, wipes, formula, bottles, etc for emergencies!

For those of you just starting out with newborns I wanted to talk a little bit about the newborn poser. Sure, you can use a plain old beanbag for newborns if you want, but I have found that working with a Pose Me Baby poser (and her posing pillows) is a huge plus. They’re almost like large flat round ottomans, and therefore the baby doesn’t sink into it easily. The baby sits light and safe on top. Newborn posers are custom-made and the fabric is easy to wipe and sanitize in case of accidents. The posing pillows I use to prop newborns up into different positions – they’re awesome. In fact, I loved my first set so much that I ordered a second. You can find the Pose Me Baby shop >here< Pose Me Baby also sells a square poser, which I think everyone should consider getting. Backdrops sit nicer on the square drop and there are less wrinkles to smooth out.

I use the heating supplies to keep the room nice and hot. The towels and washcloths are perfect for cleaning up messes. The washcloths can also be great to roll up and help prop the baby too. When I’m done with a specific backdrop or beanbag drop I always toss it in the hamper to wash later, even if there wasn’t a mess. Better to have safety first for the newborn!

Set-up

My goal when setting up my newborn studio is to make the transition from one backdrop or pose to the next very easy. I want things to be safe, warm and comfortable for the baby too. So here’s my set-up list!

1. Put up my backdrop stand and set my poser in front of it.
2. Load the backdrops on top of each other in the order I’m going to use them onto my backdrop stand. That way I can just remove one drop and the next one is ready to go with a little bit of straightening and sorting.
3. I always put the heated blanket under the drop I’m using and a towel over the heated blanket for any accidents.
4. I have the space heater set up and ready to go. When the family arrives at the studio things are already warm and comfy.

Tips & Tricks

• The best lens I’ve ever used for newborns was a 35mm. The little extra wide view (compared to a 50mm) allows you to get up close to the newborn. I find it’s much easier to work with in the studio than a 50mm. 
• A macro lens (Canon’s 100mm 2.8 or Nikon’s 105mm 2.8) are both great for getting up close on the tootsies, ears, noses, and sweet little lips.
• Natural light has always been easiest for me in my studio space, but I do have a couple of studio lights on hand for those overcast days.

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We will be adding a once-per-week feature to the blog. Each week we’ll feature a portrait session or wedding here by other photographers. I want this to be less about the photographer and more about the work itself so I set this up to be similar to submitting to a wedding publisher – now you can be published here and have some of your favorite sessions featured!

Read more about it >here< I’d love to start getting your submissions! One of the best features about being published is that your website will be linked to and therefore being published can really help your SEO (search engine optimization) for your website. With a community as tight-knit as ours I want to be able to help you guys out by giving you the opportunity to get published!

1. Start with Your Gear

The quality and type of your camera gear can greatly affect the sharpness of your images. I find this very true when it comes to lenses in particular. Lenses are a true camera gear investment, they will outlast your camera body for a long time. That means investing in amazing lenses is worthwhile and a great lens can help your photos be sharper, where a low quality lens can do the opposite.

Primes, or fixed focal length lenses are often sharper overall when compared to a zoom lens. Some primes also are sharper than others. For example, the images by my 35mm f1.4L are insanely sharp compared to my 50mm 1.2L. There’s always a noticeable difference when editing photos. Don’t be afraid to save up for that awesome lens because it will help make your photos more sharp. If you’re struggling a lot with sharpness and you’re still working with your zoom lenses that came in your camera kit, consider purchasing a prime lens. Those zoom lenses that come in camera kits are not always the best quality lenses and images produced from them are often not the tack sharp images that portrait photographers are wanting to see. Starting with the “nifty fifty,” a 50mm lens, will help your photos a ton!

2. Shooting in RAW

Just for a brief overview – RAW is a format (like JPEG) you can have your camera shoot in. These are large files that store more information and are therefore easier to edit and recover later in case you underexposed or something along those lines. I shoot in RAW because they’re so much easier to edit and fix if needed. However, because RAW photos are full of information it means they don’t come out of your camera as a compressed file, like JPEGs do. When a file is compressed to a JPEG by your camera it will appear to be sharper, but it won’t be as easy to color correct or fix exposure. If you’re struggling with those tack sharp images and you shoot in RAW you can start making a quick sharpening part of your editing workflow to get those images back up to par.

3. Al Servo Mode

If you’re a portrait photographer working with toddlers, and fast kiddos, learning to use Al Servo as a focusing method on your camera will help your camera track moving subjects and keep them tack sharp as they’re running by during that family photo session. >Here< is an awesome article by the Digital Photography School on what Al Servo is and how to use it.

4. Use Back Button Focus

Back button focus might not make your photos sharper simply by using it, it’s just that it’s easier to focus on your subject and be more exact and therefore your images will start appearing to be sharper. It helps you keep your focus spot-on. You can read about back button focus >here<.

5. Eyes

Always focus on the eyes of your subject in a photo. Eyes are one of the first parts of someone we interact with, so eyes will define your photo. Make sure that when you’re shooting up close (if you like to shoot wide open with a low aperture), that you’re always focusing on the eye closest to the camera. This looks much more natural than if the eye closest to you is out of focus and the one further away is in focus.

6. Save as a PNG for Social Media

A PNG file is one that isn’t compressed. Often times our JPEG files are re-compressed when uploaded onto a website, like Facebook. Keeping your files as a PNG will help them display better on Facebook or your blog and keep them from looking wonky when they’re compressed during upload.

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1. >Members Area<

• Sunday and Tuesday evening live chats online!
• If you have purchased a membership that includes mentoring – be sure to contact me to schedule your sessions!
• New Video and Forum Tutorials are released every Thursday!

2. Online Classes 

You can sign up for any of these classes >here<

• Being Organized Class - Last week we had this class all about getting organized behind the scenes. You can still register and watch the recording!
• Free Q&A Class – Yesterday we had our free Q&A session for the month of May!
• How to Start Your Business (Mini Get Legit Session) – The Get Legit workshops I was offering this past winter with all the information on how to become a legit business included individual research. This class is a smaller version and will discuss all the possible licenses and official mumbo jumbo you’ll need to be in business, but does not include individualized research! This class is tomorrow night!
• How to do a Consult with your Clients – Sometimes that first meeting with clients can be really tough. It’s hard to prepare and know exactly what to say and when to say it. In this online class I’ll walk you through setting up, what to talk about, and how to follow up with your clients to ensure they book.

3. Mentoring - I have one spot open for the end of May for a mentoring session! June is booking up quick so if you sign up soon be sure to email me and schedule your session! >Mentoring<

4. Online Workshops 

You can check them out >here<

• Online Wedding Photography Workshop – This is a 6 week online workshop with a small group of other wedding photographers. We talk about every aspect of weddings inside and out. Marketing, breaking down the wedding day, posing, organizing, being official, customer service…the list is long! The next workshop is this summer.
• Taking Better Photos Workshop – I had a couple of photographers ask questions about my before/after photos post I did awhile ago. We were talking about how to take those next steps to take better photos. This class goes beyond learning manual to talk a lot about composition and the artistry behind photographing. It’s a 4 week course beginning in June!

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What is the right image to convert?

Usually this comes down to artistic choice for many other photographers, as they’re going through and editing and deciding that something might look awesome in black and white or better in color. It truly is entirely up to you. Often times photographers that struggle with white balance also like to put wedding reception images in black and white because it can cover up your mistakes (just learn how to do white balance instead ) Many photographers prefer to decide for the clients when an image looks best in black and white, but there are lots of awesome options for converting your images to black and white.

I prefer to convert all my images that I give to clients in color into black and whites as well. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea and not every image looks good in color, just like not every image looks great in black and white. For me I’ve been able to figure out converting them fast in Lightroom so it doesn’t take much time away from my work. I feel like it’s that extra step in customer service to allow my clients to decide whether they like something better in color or black and white. One of the things I’ve learned after providing both to clients for so long is that often the ones that are my favorites in black and white are not my client’s favorites. Just like we as the photographer (artist) have the artistic choice to decide what looks best in what method with our art, clients also have artistic preferences and I enjoy this extra step so I can please them. It also stops a lot of the later emails and complaints about wanting one image converted back to color or something else converted into black and white.

Ultimately it’s up to you to decide which ones you want to convert or not, it’s your artistic decision as a business owner and artist what you provide – there aren’t any right or wrong answers.

Classic Black and White Conversions

A lot of other questions I get about black and white images are how you can get them to just look normal and classic. There are so many Photoshop actions and Lightroom Presets these days that offer tinted versions of black and white images and although they may look awesome these go in and out of style. I prefer a very classic black and white so the image is timeless and won’t look old or out of style 20 years from now.

In this image you can see a sample of one that’s slightly tinted, a popular option for black and white conversions now. The way I like to get that classic black and white color is to start by de-saturating your image. The image on the right above is the color image simply de-saturated.

So this option shows the de-saturated image compared with my final option. I like a little contrast pop to my black and whites and sometimes that simple de-saturation can be sort of “gray” and doesn’t stand out the way I like. For me a simple de-saturate with a contrast boost is the way I like my black and white images. I don’t like to have any color tint to my black and whites (no sepia, etc.).

My suggestion for you guys is to play around with an image and make your own black and white actions or presets with a setting that you like best.

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So why do you want to keep that sensor squeaky clean? So you don’t get dust particles showing up in your photos and have to pay for camera sensor cleanings all the time.  If you get one little nasty dust particle hanging out on your sensor and it shows up in every single photo that’s a lot of editing…

Here’s a few tips that can help you avoid that!

1. Vacuum your camera bag regularly. You never know what kind of furballs (or dog hair in my case) collects up in there and can find its way into your camera!

2. Take care when changing lenses! Usually the most dust that will enter your camera does so when you’re doing lens changes. So make them quick and easy. Be careful of changing lenses in blowing/dusty environments.

3. Point your camera down when changing your lens. Make gravity your friend.

4. Use an air blower to blow the backs of your lenses clean before putting them onto your camera.

5. Don’t store your camera on its back (again make gravity your friend).

6. Keep your lenses clean! I clean mine before every session.

7. Use a bigger air blower! Like >this one< if it’s bigger you’ll have a better chance of removing dust particles from your gear.

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You see, I know all about branding, I understand its psychology and how it works – it’s just that at some point with business it got too expensive to implement and fell down at the bottom of my to-do list instead of at the top. I wanted to invest in good equipment, the best lenses, marketing, etc. and branding came last. I thought it was not as important as all of those other things I was investing in, but I was so wrong!

I believe branding has two distinct parts. One is an emotional connection that fans and customers develop with your business and the other part is the visual side. I think with branding we quickly assume that our logo, color scheme and other visual aspects of our web presence is what defines our branding. We think it’s simple and easy to be visually consistent, but it’s so much more than just a logo or a color scheme.

It is those things and those things are important, but the have to go beyond Facebook, our website, Twitter, and other social media. Those consistent visuals are something your clients should come in contact with every time they interact with you! Adding logos images, color schemes to your thank you cards, your business materials, your marketing materials and anything a client could possibly come across will develop a sense of consistency. Consistency helps customers feel they can trust a brand.

Also if you need some good fonts I always recommend myfonts.com

Another part of that visual side is starting to take photos of the types of clients and situations that you  most want to photograph. The whole notion of doing a ‘styled shoot’ seemed beyond me until recently. I just sat back and wondered why no clients were coming to me saying they wanted to be photographed in a vintage dress in a sunlit field with mason jars and lace everywhere. Hello? Clients don’t think like we do. I’ve been sitting around waiting for a client to come to me and say what they wanted, but I think an important part of branding is putting out there what you want to photograph. A styled shoot can be the absolute perfect opportunity. You may not be working for pay and you might have to purchase the props, gather models, and do more work than usual, but it’s all for a purpose – to take photographs that you want to take and put them out there for customers to see and think “hey I like that…” It will help you attract the types of customers you’ve always wanted to have.

Now, onto that emotional side of branding. I believe a good brand is one that people are passionate about – either with love or hate. Hate can still be a passion if someone dislikes something enough. Think of places like Apple or Canon and Nikon. People either love or hate Apple. Rarely do you find a person who is wishy-washy in between about the company. That’s part of a good brand. Apple is attracting the types of clients who are passionate about them and even those that don’t like Apple are still talking about the company. A brand has to be more than a visual – it has to be something that a client can connect to on an emotional level – especially to photographers since we’re a huge part of documenting the memories of their most important events.

For me my dogs have become a large part of my branding. Posting photos of them on social media and telling the funny stories about them (like that one time Lily ate $200 and I made her throw it up and took the scraps to the bank to cash them in) is something that people can connect to. Simply sharing those things and my dogs have made me put it out there…I’m a dog person. What’s interesting is that most of my clients are too. And they’re not just dog people, they’re like me. They tend to have more than 1 dog, they consider the dog as part of the family – they think their dog is more than just a dog.

Humor has also been a great way for me to connect with my clients, being my usual funky self, talking about my oddities, and telling stories is what makes me unique and helps me stand out from others. Clients have used phrases like – ‘we feel like you’re a real person and not just a photographer’ and I am a real person. I want my clients to connect to me on a very real level and not feel as though they are just a paycheck in my eyes.

Finally, the Photography Awesomesauce members and I were having a conversation the other day about writing unique website bios. We were talking about how almost every photographer’s bio says stuff like ‘I got my first camera when I was 3 and I haven’t put it down since….etc’ Take the opportunity to look at your bio in a new light and find a way to make it stand out and connect with your clients! The first place I make an emotional connection from my brand to my clients is my bio. The funny, quirky, weird side of myself is out on display for all to see. And yes, I did have a camera at a young age and loved to take photos, but didn’t we all?

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1. >Members Area<

2. Online Classes 

You can sign up for any of these classes >here<

• Free Q&A Session –  Next Monday we’re having our monthly Q&A photography session live online for photographers. Just register and bring your questions to the session and I’ll do my best to answer them. Remember, you can register and watch the recording later, but in order for me to have questions to answer you need to be there live – otherwise there won’t be much for me to record.
• Being Organized Class – This class is going to help you learn tips and tricks to become organized behind the scenes with your business! Spots are somewhat limited so make sure you have your spot soon, even if you can’t attend live you’ll be able to watch the recording later!
• How to Start Your Business (Mini Get Legit Session) – The Get Legit workshops I was offering this past winter with all the information on how to become a legit business included individual research. This class is a smaller version and will discuss all the possible licenses and official mumbo jumbo you’ll need to be in business, but does not include individualized research!

3. Mentoring - I’m so excited, a few mentoring spots have already filled up for May, but I may have room for one or two more. If you’re interested in doing a mentoring session you can sign up right online. I’m booking sessions for June!>Mentoring<

4. Online Workshops 

You can check them out >here<

• Online Wedding Photography Workshop – This is a 6 week online workshop with a small group of other wedding photographers. We talk about every aspect of weddings inside and out. Marketing, breaking down the wedding day, posing, organizing, being official, customer service…the list is long! The next workshop is this summer.
• Taking Better Photos Workshop – I had a couple of photographers ask questions about my before/after photos post I did awhile ago. We were talking about how to take those next steps to take better photos. This class goes beyond learning manual to talk a lot about composition and the artistry behind photographing. It’s a 4 week course beginning in June!

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So, what is exceeding expectations all about when it comes down to business? I think exceeding my client’s expectations all comes down to building word of mouth referrals. One of the things I hear most in the photography industry is photographers saying that word of mouth referrals are a huge part of their business. At the same time I hear other photographers saying they don’t get any word of mouth. Word of mouth referrals aren’t as simple as setting up a referral program for your clients and hoping that certain incentives of free prints, discounts and more will urge them to refer your work to their friends and family. If you think about it the companies and services that you love and talk about the most are the ones who went above and beyond on customer service. Rarely are they ones with a rewards system for referring them. I think we, as business owners, need to create businesses that are so full of amazing customer service and products that people will want to talk about us – whether we give them incentive to or not. The more effort we put into going above and beyond with our clients the more they will want to talk about our businesses and I think that’s the bottom line when it comes to building word of mouth referrals. Give your clients something to talk about, something that excites them…something they didn’t even expect!

What can we do to exceed our client’s expectations then? Well, that doesn’t mean we need to give them low expectations. I give them high expectations and do what I can to “over-deliver.” These can be really simple things. Telling a client their photos will take 2 weeks to be finished and delivering them in 24 to 48 hours – imagine the excitement and surprise! I also build in client gifts into my pricing so I can plan on surprising clients here and there with a gift. These gifts can be a 16×20 canvas (they cost about $27 from cgproprints.com), and anything else you’d like. I’m working on incorporating a glamour photo session for each of my wedding clients too. These are things I don’t tell my clients, but instead surprise them with. A 16×20 canvas of their favorite photo shipped right to their door? That would be awesome! I think these small things let clients know that you care about them beyond a paycheck, it builds a relationship, trust, and allows you to exceed their expectations. Nothing will get clients talking more than the photographer who surprised them with a free canvas, a date night before their wedding, a hand written thank you card…

If you can find ways to exceed your client’s expectations in your business you’ll be on the right track to building more word of mouth referrals and getting your clients to talk about you. Once you give them something amazing to talk about you’ll be well on your way to building more clients!

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1. Use a Hood – The hood is something we don’t tend to use often, but its main purpose is to keep light out of the lens. When you’re shooting with sun flare the light is direct and coming into your lens and you’ll notice all those little specs and sparkles it creates. I love me a little sun flare, but I always hate it when one of those little specs of light ends up in a weird spot and thus makes the photo look a bit odd. Using the hood will allow you to get sun flare, but without all those little hexagonal shapes of light.

2. Be Aware of Where the Sun Flare is Located – Don’t point your camera directly into the sun. Always try to keep the sun behind a tree, building or another object. This will help offset the flare and get even exposure on your clients’ skin. One of the things I try not to do is have the sun flare directly behind my clients’ heads. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, but it can look a little odd if the sun flare is really blown out and takes away from the emotion and meaning of the clients in the photo.

3. Fake Sun Flare in Post Processing – I think this is a no-no. It can look really great and realistic, if it’s done well, but often times sun flare actions create a sun flare that doesn’t fit with the natural light in the photo. If you want to use sun flare in post processing to add a little ‘oomph’ to a photo ensure that you first identify where the light source is in the photo and fit your fake sun flare with it.

4. Shoot During Golden Hour – That’s right! This is the best time of day for getting perfect sun flare since the sun will be low in the sky.

5. Shoot in Manual Mode – manual mode will help you shoot and be able to adjust every part of the image to get the best sun flare. When you’re shooting in auto and trying to capture sun flare you are letting the camera make the decisions for you and may not be able to get the exact look that you want.

6. Sun Flare Shapes – The little circles of light that appear in your photos when you are shooting with sun flare take the shape of your aperture blades in your camera. The better your quality of lens, the more smooth  those ‘hexagonal’ shapes will be.

7. Focus with Sun Flare is Hard – When you’re shooting with sun flare right into the sun it can be very difficult to focus. If you’re having difficulty focusing use manual focus. You can also block the sun for a moment with one hand and focus the camera before taking the photo.

8. Expose for your Subject – If you’re a portrait photographer the subject of your photo is the most important object. I always expose for my clients’ skin. Sometimes this may blow out the background slightly when you’re photographing with sun flare. Although, sun flare always creates very bright areas in your image.

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1. What is SEO?

SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization” and is basically a way for you to format your website and marketing to help boost your rank in search results. The idea is that when someone searches for a photographer in your area and types in “Atlanta Newborn Photographer” you want to show up right there on page 1 and not page 100. The higher you are in the search results the more likely it is that you’ll be found. It can greatly increase your inquiries into your business and from there it increases your business overall.

2. How to Build SEO

SEO is a world filled with terms like ‘keywords’ and ‘algorithms.’ Basically all over the internet there are little automated bots from search engines trolling and reading content on websites and noting if the content is relevant to popular searches done. This means that the content on your website is being combed over and indexed with search engines. The idea is to make that content as relevant as possible to various search engines. There are lots of ways to do this and we’re going to go over a few in this blog post. I also have an SEO Guide, which can help you go through 8 basic steps to boost your SEO. >SEO Guide<

3. How SEO Has Changed

In the old days of search engines a big part of how high you ranked was how many other websites were linking back to your website. The more people linked to you the higher you would be in search results. Now, a few of these types of links which we call, ‘backlinks,’ can help, but only if they are truly relevant to what work you do in business. Creating listings with websites like Google Maps, the Yellow Pages and more can help, but you can’t go overboard. Too many backlinks from websites that aren’t similar or on the same topic as yours can actually drop your ranking. Google has recently re-worked their algorithm for calculating how a website is ranked. What Google wants to see is incredibly relevant things linking back to your website, not just any old backlink. Commenting on other blogs, although a tiny bit helpful, has not actually proven as a great way to boost your rank.

4. A Few Places You Can Start Building SEO

• Google Plus – get a listing! Even if you don’t want to use it as a social media outlet, just existing and listing your business, website, etc. can essentially prove to Google that you exist and you’re a real person. 
• Guest Blog – Instead of spending time commenting on other blogger’s posts to build SEO, find blogs that you like and are related to photography and see if they ever feature guest writers. If you’re posting on a website that’s related to photography and leaving your link to your photography website a search engine likes that type of backlink because it’s relevant to your website.
• Build a Favorite Vendors Page on Your Website – This is a stepping stone type of tip. If you have a section on your website where you’ve listed links to a few of your favorite wedding, family or newborn vendors you can send that link to those vendors and say ‘hey I listed you on my website as one of my favorite vendors since I’ve enjoyed working with you and building a referral network in the past. I would love it if you would list me on your website too!’ For a wedding photographer this can be great.Having other wedding vendors talk about your wedding photography and link back to you is one of those good types of backlinks that Google likes to see.
• Get Your Photography Published – It’s scary, I know. I’ve been refused my fair share of times (and still get refused), but for every time your work is accepted and shown on another blog that’s a relevant link back to you. I use >Two Bright Lights< to submit my work to be published to wedding blogs, but it’s also a great place for newborn, family, and senior photographers to submit work as well! You can read a guest post on this blog by Emma Smith about how to use Two Bright Lights for submissions >here<
• Use Your Own Blog – As I said above, those little search engine bots are going over your website and reading the material on it. A static website is one that is not a blog (i.e. the content doesn’t update). So once it’s been read and indexed by a search engine there’s nothing new to add. A blog is a great tool for always having new content for a search engine to index and read. Using more of those local terms (ex. Atlanta Newborn Photographer) in your blog that people will be searching can help you a lot too!

Awesomesauce Store – Become a Member

1. >Members Area< We have a few awesome different membership levels for our online learning area. $10 a month! But you can try it out with a free 7 day trial. We do live online chats every Saturday and Tuesday night and these are super popular. I’ve been having a great time hanging out with some of our members on these nights and sharing about photography, talking about our lives and just having a great community to be with. We’re having a live chat tonight so you can grab that free trial and drop by!

2. Online Classes 

You can sign up for any of these classes >here<

• Free PASS Class –  Yesterday evening I did a free Q&A session all about >PASS< with a demo and how it works. If you missed it you can still register and watch the recording!
• Styled Shoot Class – Ever since I did my styled wedding shoot (view the photos >here<) you guys have been asking me questions on how this type of shoot works, how to set up a styled shoot, what are the benefits, etc. This class is all about that. The best thing about learning to do styled shoots is that you’ll feel (for the first time) that you’re shooting exactly the type of photography and clients that you really want to photograph.
• Free Pixifi Class – So if you don’t know what Pixifi is you can check it out >here< This is the software I use for studio management, accounting, signing contracts digitally online and accepting online payments. They have a great free 30 day trial you can test out. Sometimes you guys ask me questions about  how Pixifi works so this free session is all about answering your questions and showing you all the great things you can do with Pixifi.
• Being Organized Class – Next week’s live online class is all about being organized (my specialty). It’s filling up very fast and I have limited space.

3. Mentoring - We have had a super awesome recent permanent change to our mentoring in both time and price. It’s pretty awesome! >Mentoring<

4. Online Workshops 

You can check them out >here<

• Online Wedding Photography Workshop – This is a 6 week online workshop with a small group of other wedding photographers. We talk about every aspect of weddings inside and out. Marketing, breaking down the wedding day, posing, organizing, being official, customer service…the list is long! The next workshop is this summer. 
• Taking Better Photos Workshop – I had a couple of photographers ask questions about my before/after photos post I did awhile ago. We were talking about how to take those next steps to take better photos. This class goes beyond learning manual to talk a lot about composition and the artistry behind photographing. It’s a 4 week course beginning in June!

Awesomesauce Store – Become a Member

Facebook Dimensions

- Timeline Cover: 851 x 315 pixels
- Profile Image: 180 x 180 pixels (note that Facebook shrinks these images down to 125 x125. Size to 180 in your image program and leave a little space around the edges for it to ‘shrink’ for the best look)
- Custom Tabs: 111 x 74 pixels

Wait…What’s a Custom Tab?

Well, I don’t have any because I haven’t found any uses thus far to go through the process to create them, but some people love being able to customize the look of their Facebook page with the tabs. The tabs show up at the top of your page underneath the bottom right side of your timeline cover. They’re the boxes that can link to your photos, websites, or other custom areas. Creating a custom tab can be a little bit of a process, but >here< is a link to one of the best tutorials I’ve found on how to do it.

How to Display Images on Facebook Better

So Facebook has this icky feature built-in that ruins some photos occasionally. When you upload an image to Facebook it automatically compresses the file which can cause some distortion, color changes, pixilation, and more problems. As photographers we want to be able to display our photos in the best way possible.

There are two different main ways that a file can end up being compressed. One is called lossy and the other, lossless. To make a long story short, lossy compression basically results in the loss of some data. Lossless compression types keep the data of the original file intact.

Saving images as a PNG file for the web can help keep your image compression intact when using them on Facebook. PNG is a larger image file so it will save more information and thus result in a better, higher quality image when displayed on Facebook. This is not to say that a PNG file is the best image format available, and it’s not ideal in all situations, but when it comes to Facebook keeping colors as close to the original file as possible is important and a PNG will help with that.

Another option to help with compression on blogs and social media is using software like Blogstomp, which optimizes image for the best viewing on social media. >Read about Blogstomp<

Cold Tips

1. Really cold weather zaps your battery power fast. If you’re used to using a battery pack, take it off your camera and use each battery one at a time. Keep your spare batteries in a pocket so they can stay warm and keep their power.

2. Getting your gear back to room temperature after you’ve been out in the cold can also be difficult. Taking your camera out in the cold and back into a warm room can cause moisture to build up inside (not fun!). I always put my camera somewhere that it can warm up slowly if I’ve been in extreme cold. One trick is to put a plastic bag around your camera after you’re done using it in cold weather. The plastic bag will collect the condensation that builds up when you come back into a warm room, instead of that building up in your camera. When I was in China in January and we went to the ice festival in Northern China I did lots of this for my camera and it worked perfectly!

Rain Tips

1. Stock up on those annoying little silica gel packets that come in various product packaging. These are great for absorbing moisture and you can toss them in your camera bag for a rainy day so if there is any excess moisture in your camera equipment, just having that next to your camera in your bag can make a difference.

2. Get a rain sleeve. You can definitely go out and buy rain sleeve like >these.< They’re great to have on hand and fit your camera better than a plastic bag. Although I’ve been known to go the plastic bag route on the rare occasion we have really wet snow or rain here in Colorado (really rare). A grocery bag and a rubber band can be perfect.

Wind Tips

1. Use a UV filter on your lens to protect from sand or other gunk blowing into your lens and causing scratches.

2. Find a safe place to do lens changes so you don’t get debris blowing into your camera or sensor when you’re swapping stuff out. Sometimes this means if I’m out at the beach I only plan to keep one lens on or I do lens changes in the car.

Heat Tips

1. This one is a bit of a no-brainer, but don’t leave your camera cooking out in the heat. If  you’re working in extreme hot conditions  you  may need to let your camera cool off slowly now and then so it doesn’t overheat.

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