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

I knew from the moment I arrived at Chelsey & Josh’s Wedding and saw all the a-mazing details that Chelsey had hand made that it was blog & print worthy. With so many options for publication, it’s tough to decide where it should go. I’ll be honest and say that I did submit their wedding to some of the “bigger” publications and they denied it. I let go of submitting it for a while until I found the right “home” for this wedding. Last evening, I found Two Bright Lights. I uploaded their wedding and went through their process of submitting. I loved this because I could upload to one place and submit to 20 blogs all at once!

I woke up this morning and approached my desk to find that their wedding had already been featured on a wedding inspiration blog! How exciting & super quick too!

If you are a photographer hoping to submit your wedding, two huge things I learned are that you need to make sure you capture tons of details on the wedding day. Chelsey made that easy for me with her incredible style choices!! Also, get a long written description from the bride. The blog I am featured on today mentioned to me that with 100 submissions she got this week, she chose mine because I had a long written story from the bride and assembled the detail shots in a creative way.

Today, Chelsey & Josh’s wedding was featured on Project Bride

Check out the video below for an annoucement about an amazing event for business owners!! It will be an amazing event. I hope to see you there!

Click here to register for the event!

Identity Conference 2010 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.

Earlier this week you saw the blog post from Taylor & Scott’s amazing beach front Hotel Del Coronado wedding. During their wedding, we had the absolute pleasure of working with the phenomenal cinematography team known as FortyOneTwenty. These guys are the best videographers that we have ever worked, period! (No we aren’t being bias because we also selected them as our own wedding videographers.) They are THAT good.

To see what I’m talking about and how amazing their team is, check out the video below from Taylor & Scott’s Wedding!!

Scott & Taylor // Coronado, CA from FortyOneTwenty on Vimeo.

I’m hanging out in SLO town (short for San Luis Obisbo) hanging with our good friends The Larsons. Scarlett & I took a few days off to relax and we are having such a good time! The beaches, mountains and sunsets up here are breathtaking and words cannot express how great this place is. God sure knew what he was doing when he created SLO.

One main reason we are hanging out up here is that Mike Larson shot our engagement session yesterday among amazing textures, a world famous farmers market street fair and an unforgettable time in open golden fields with a 1973 Porsche! I really learned a lot going through this great experience to be in the clients position to really understand how my clients feel when I am the photographer.

I know I’m a little biased but I think that Scarlett looks uh-mazing!

If you want to see the teaser, I want you to visit Mikes blog and give him some blog love! Click here to go there

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.

This past April, Scarlett & I had the honor of capturing Tiffany & Charles’ amazing Wedding at the Cloister hotel & resort in Sea Island, Georgia. It was even more exciting this week to find out that the Atlanta Occasions Blog had published the wedding online! This is so exciting to not only see our work on their blog but it was exciting to relive their great wedding that we had so much fun with. Check it out!!