One thing Ive learned is how powerful an image can become when you shoot from a different direction. Here are two photos to show you the extreme difference in what I am talking about. These images are from a recent “light & workflow workshop” that myself & Dan Fields put together. We had a few photographers and for 2 days taught the attendees the power of using off camera lighting and how to build a strong workflow! We’re hosting the next workshop on September 18th. For more information, click here.

While we were shooting, we had a 1 light AlienBee 800 setup with a softbox. The attendees kept shooting from one direction with the light to their right. Just for fun, I captured the same shot. The light was simple & beautiful and captured the essence of the incredible bride.

Some of us shoot from straight on. It looks fine but I believe it could look way cooler and way dramatic from another angle. See the image below.

Now we have the same time of day, light power, and straight from camera image. It looks way more dynamic and I would much more prefer this image over the first one.

One technique I try to use while shooting is before I shoot a frame, look at the scene from another angle. (Pre-visualize) & walk around your subject and see how many different shooting options you have in front of you. I do this now because before I used this technique, I had images that looked okay but I would kick myself for not taking advantage of the other shooting opportunities I had. It’s not up to the lighting or the model to make this look different. It’s up to YOU! Evaluate your surroundings and think “what could I do differently here?”. Once you start asking that question while you shoot, you will walk away with better images. At least that is in my opinion

This week’s AAW is being posted on a Thursday and not a Wednesday. Just pretend its Wednesday. This week a question came in from a blog reader where she asked about posing ideas & getting clients to relax. I had a lot of fun making this video and I hope that you can learn something great from it!

Also, as mentioned in the video regarding Zach & Jody’s Workshops. Click Here for more info!

Ask away Wednesday :: Posing ideas? from stephen knuth on Vimeo.

This week on Ask away Wednesday is a question that I asked a lot when I was first starting out and it is still asked to this day from photographers.

Great question Pat! Thank You for opening up this question to Ask away Wednesday.

Here is a video with my thoughts!

PS- I know that the sound lags.. so what. Japanese game shows are cool.

Ask away Wednesday :: First meeting with Clients from stephen knuth on Vimeo.

I love Thirst Relief. I love what they stand for and how they change lives. I love what $5 from my own pocket does for their organization. I also love photography. I think we all know that. I also love helping people and helping them understand how they can improve in areas of their business.

Each year at WPPI, many wonderful photographers participate in a mentor auction where photographers bid on an hour long session with the mentor of their choice. They are doing it again, this time its special. Thirst Relief has invited 5 of the SHOWIT Freedom Tour speakers to participate in a special edition auction.

The auction starts tonight at 8pm and runs until Sunday night at 8pm. The auction has an amazing list of mentors including Bob & Dawn Davis, Gabriel Ryan, Promise Tangeman, Zach & Jody Gray and myself. I’m so humbled to be listed with these photographers.

We’re all offering 90 minute sessions with the highest bidders. All the proceeds go to Thirst Relief International to help bring water to countries in need. They help save children! The topic that the highest bidder gets to talk with me about is social media in your business and also how to improve your workflow. If the highest bidder is in San Diego or Orange County, we will meet up in person. If they are outside of my area then we can do a skype chat!

CLICK HERE TO START BIDDING

P.S.- Please help spread the word by sending this link to others!

Any photographer will ask another photographer, “How do I market myself?” “How do I get more bookings?” or “How to make a good impression on clients?”. There are plenty of great answers to these questions and this week you will not find all the answers to these questions BUT this week you will learn about a free tool that can make you look awesome at weddings and become an extremely successful marketing tool to generate leads for your business.

Reception Slideshows

During my two presentations on the 2010 SHOWIT Freedom Tour, I asked the question: “How many of you currently do reception slideshows?”. It was less than 10% in San Fran & OC. I felt a strong vibe from photographers that they believe it would take way too long to create or that it wouldn’t look good. This week I want to debunk those feelings you may have and show you how quick & easy it is to create a successful reception slideshow using Bridge & Actionrunner. Once you create a slideshow at a reception, you’ll love it so much that you will do it at all your weddings this season!! Check out the video below!

Ask away Wednesday :: Wedding reception slideshows from stephen knuth on Vimeo.

Your friend has it. I have it. Half a billion people have it too. Facebook.

I’ll be honest, I’m not surprised by so many people that I meet who are hesitant to get into facebook. They don’t want their lives so public or they don’t want to get a whole new crazy internet thing” going. Whatever the reason, eventually most people will sign up. Just an opinion but I believe that being on facebook and using facebook are two different worlds. Some just want facebook to chat with others and upload photos. Others want to use it as the most powerful viral marketing tool in their business. When starting a photography business, or any business really… it may be outrages to pay for tons of print advertising which may not turn around any work for you. Facebook is free and it can be used to become an extremely powerful way to boost your business. It’s a craft that must be molded to what you want to get from it. It won’t just happen overnight.

Please take away one thing that I did not cover in this video. It’s easy to have a facebook page, post images and click the like button but the true power of facebook is in the conversations. Once others start to conversate among your content, communicate back. Conversations are the most powerful tool in the web today. Once others talk about you, you have an instant marketing team. Just my thought.

So in todays video… I have put together a presentation for you that will highlight what you can be doing with facebook for your business.

Ask away Wednesday is back. It never went anywhere. I was really sick with a bad cold and then a month of busy weddings hit and I haven’t had an available moment to sit down and think about this. I now have a moment and a question from Deb Peluso came in at the perfect time when I was wanting to blog AAW again. Awesome how stuff works out perfectly sometimes. So, expect Ask away Wednesday to return weekly starting up again. And I know its 1:05am on Thursday the 15th but I was traveling north all day and I still consider it Wednesday and you should too. Woohoo.

What lens do I use the most? Well, in my shootsac that goes on every shoot with me, I carry my sigma lenses which are 50 1.4, 15-30 3.5 and 70-200 2.5. It’s hard for me to decide what my “favorite” lens is. I love all my lenses and I feel that in the current situation that I enter, whatever lens would bring out the best image becomes my favorite lens. I will admit though, when Scarlett & I shoot together (which is almost all the time now) she is usually shooting tighter with her 50 1.2 or 70-200 and I am favoring my 15-30 3.5 which is very similar to the Canon 17-40 or 16-35 and I love using that lens in an area that has a lot of texture, colors or even when it tells a deeper story inside of the image.

50 1.4 is my favorite portrait lens and is mostly used on an engagement session (most of the time). Great lens when shooting reception details.

15-30 3.5 is used a lot. I favor this lens most of the time. I love wide images. I only use this lens when I know it will look great in the end. I try to pre-visualize the shot before I take it. I examine the location, inspect the light and what direction I want to shoot and if I know it would be a better dramatic shot then this lens comes out. I also use this lens during the wedding when the bride & dad are walking down the isle and when they are exiting after the first kiss. It really shows more of the moment than a tighter shot but if I use that lens in that moment then I know my other shooter has a tighter shot.

70-200 2.5 When I’m shooting a bride & groom or engagement session, I love giving the couple some alone time where they can talk about anything and relax and I can capture their true emotions from far away.

Fisheye If you want awesome reception images during the dancing. Get a fisheye and shoot manual flash 1/4 power with the light 4 clicks above where direct flash would be. Really fun.

50 2.5 Macro Great for ring shots & smaller details.

So, at least for me… my choice of what lens I love most really depends on what I’m doing at that moment. When I first started out I used my 35 1.4 almost way too much and it worked great but I wanted to experiment with more lenses and I had to force myself to focus on my other lenses. It’s easy to “favor” a lens but allow your mind to run free and know what lens is good at what time and you’ll capture more of a variety of images that will work well for you and your clients.

Just my thoughts. Hope this helps.

I started this week on a plane. A plane from San Diego to San Francisco which led to an automobile. That automobile led to another automobile and that trip led me to a few other cars, trucks… lots of driving. Follow me here, I know its hard figure this all out but it will make sense. I promise! So all those ways of transportation put me on a bus for a few days and now I am going home on a train from Los Angeles to San Diego.

The first leg of the 2010 SHOWIT Freedom Tour has been completed which went from San Francisco to Orange County and as I write this, they are on their way to Arizona! If you want more information on the tour, click here.

I was on the west coast part of the tour promoting a fast workflow solution for applying actions to your images called “Action Runner”. San Francisco was an awesome trip and just yesterday I was in Orange County sharing with an inspiring group of photographers who were hungry to learn information from Gabriel Ryan, Rudy Arpia, Jessica Claire & myself. Other than wonderful lessons given from our team, the night included some great “SHOWIT Live” 1-on-1 workshops on how the attendees can optimize their websites.

It was such a wonderful time being a part of the showit tour and I truly enjoyed every moment of it! Thank You, SHOWIT! I love you guys and I already miss everyone!

Special Thanks to Rudy Arpia for snapping these great images from the event!

Today, I’m leaving for a road trip with SHOWIT and a few other great photographers for the first leg of the 2010 Freedom Tour! I’m SO excited!! Later today I will be speaking in San Francisco and on Thursday, Orange County!

The last time I was in San Francisco was when I was a child so I don’t remember that well. I will not have any time to explore the city, but regardless, I know it will be an incredible experience!! A few tickets are still available to pick yours here!

I’ll return home on Friday

Yesterday, a couple of San Diego Photographers and myself got together for a shoot. We met at an industrial park area for an hour of shooting followed by dinner at Soupplantation! I love the community we all have as photographers. So, during the shoot we had a 1 light setup with an Alienbee Ringflash and I was demonstrating to our group how you don’t only need a studio light for indoor studio shooting. Whenever you get the chance, bring a studio light to a shoot outdoors and make some awesome images come together!

One thing I learned from my good friend Zach Gray about outdoor shooting is that if you bring along 1 studio light to your outdoor shoot and expose correctly, you will have consistent lighting so when you enter your workflow, the editing will extremely quick and you could practically pull these images from camera directly and they would look great.

Here is the before (without the light). Natural light shot. See how it looks flat, only one source of light on the image.

1/320 f/3.5 ISO 100

Then I added a light to this same location. Now see the difference with what 1 single light will do to your location. It looks completely different and a WAY cooler shot!! NO photoshop was added to this image. I opened ACR and did a few tweaks to the image to give it the look it has but everything was done in camera with 1 ringflash. See how defined this looks?

1/200 f/14 ISO 100