It’s time for another installment of “Ask away Wednesday”!! If your reading my Ask away Wednesdays for the first time, welcome! I’m glad you’re here!

Ask away Wednesday is my weekly blog post where I help other photographers reach to the next level. Occasionally, I’ll get questions from other photographers on my facebook page. Each wednesday I pick a question and answer it on my blog with the goal of helping the photographer who asked the question and hopefully others who read these posts!

If you have a question, please write it as a comment or ask me on my facebook page and I’ll be glad to answer it here in the future!

As I have noted before on my blog, I was a videographer first. When I first switched into photography I was shooting on  b&w film & I was a Starbucks barista. One of the other baristas told me she had been following my work and that she was really impressed. A few months later she approached me with the idea for me to shoot her wedding. Her wedding led to another referral which led to another referral.

Next, what worked well for me was making it apparent to people at my church, small group and my friends & family members that I was a photographer. I gave away shoots to close friends of mine and posted their images to facebook then tagged them in the pictures. All their friends could now see my work. That led to some phone calls from their friends who admired my work & wanted to hire me.

Those couple of referrals led to more work and eventually all that work became my future client base.

If you have a strong network for friends, you already have a client base. Focus on making those friends happy in general, offer them a photoshoot for their family or just their own couples session. Don’t do too much of that though… focus on maybe 2-3 free shoots that you can afford to give away. If you give them an experience you can get them to talk about then you should expect some referrals from those “clients”.

When those clients know a friend who is getting married your first “free” clients will give back to you by dropping your name for you. That’s what happend for me and it has worked great.

The next option is on the wedding day… WOW the bridal party and focus on treating them all really well. An experience they can remember is one that they too will want. I have a few bridesmaids from an upcoming July wedding who already want me to shoot their weddings and I haven’t even met them yet. What experience can you give your clients that stands out to all their engaged friends?

Hopefully this has all been something great for you to think about!

Last Friday I captured the moment between Andy & Courtney with their first moment of seeing each other in 8 months. It was a very emotional shoot & such an incredible Navy Homecoming. As they were packing Andy’s bags into their car I asked them if they have ever been given an engagement session before they were married? Their answer was “no” and this teaser is the result from our amazing portrait session that we had yesterday in La Jolla. It was an honor to treat them with this session.

I can’t wait to share the rest of their pictures later this week!!

I wanted to post this video on here to help photographers understand how I create folders within my image workflow. Hope this helps you grow in your photography!!

If you have any questions about anything in Photography, ask it here and I’ll answer back with a video to help you.

Enjoy!!

My Dad is a retired Captain in the Navy and though I was too young to remember his deployments back in the day, experiencing deployments & homecomings is something that is very close to my heart. The very town I live in, Coronado is a military driven city and I see a lot of local military each day. I love & respect all of them for everything they do to give us our freedom. Especially Andy.

Courtney contacted me a few months ago. She was a newlywed Navy wife & her amazing husband Andy was on deployment for 8 months. I give major kudos to Navy wives!! Courtney explained that she felt a close connection to my photography. It was Andy’s first deployment & she wanted the entire experience captured when he came home. I was so excited to capture this moment because that is what Photography is all about!! There are these type of special moments that mean so much to someone and its a huge honor for me to be chosen to capture them.

Courtney & I connected earlier in the year. She told me their love story and how she couldn’t wait till the moment when his ship pulled in. A few weeks ago we had this entire plan set up for when he was supposed to come home. The Navy pushed his arrival back 2 months then 2 more weeks then 1 more week. Finally the day arrived and I woke up feeling so awesome that I was about to capture a moment that was so special to Courtney & Andy.

We arrived to the 32nd street Naval Base. The moment was something so unique that cannot ever be replicated. Crying, cheers, music, American flags, and ANTICIPATION. The moment the ship started to pull in ignited a loud choir of screams mixed with the sounds of kids cheering, clapping and tons of noisemakers that were leftover from New Years eve.

I still have a love for B&W imagery. From the days that I shot film, B&W film – editorial imagery is something that represents life and reality. I love this image for that reason!

Scarlett told me a story of her friend, Connie. Connie had breast cancer, trusted the Lord to heal her and she prayed every day. God healed her of her cancer and she has been great ever since!!!! NOW, she has called her fellow brothers & sisters in Christ to pray for a friend of hers! This is the email she sent me today.

“We have friend that is believing God for healing of cancer. Her name is Maggie Walls. She is the daughter of a dear friend of mine who stood beside me when I was believing God for my healing.

Maggie’s church has a prayer pager ministry. After you pray for her then you call this number…it will beep on your end and it will beep on her end to let her know someone has just prayed for her.You wan’t talk to anybody, you will just hear beeps. It is really neat.

She is the mother of 4 little people. She has triplets that are 4 and another child that is 7 and a precious husband Jason. They are leaving in the morning to go to Little Rock AK for tests out at a cancer center there that specializes in the type of cancer that is trying to attack her body, but we know we aren’t moved by the report of man. We believe in the report of the Lord that says by the stripes of Jesus she is healed and whole.

So, if you feel led to pay for her and want her to know she has been prayed for I am going to give you her prayer pager number. 770-636-0653

In His Love, Connie

The joy of the Lord is your strength. Neh.8:10″

As friends, family & believers in Jesus. We need to stand together, pray for our sister in Christ and I ask you to repost this prayer, tweet this prayer and tell your church to Pray. We all endure tough things in life’s journey BUT the Holy Spirit can do incredible things!! Her family needs your help!!!

This is my perspective from the proposal… to read Scarlett’s perspective please click here

It started out as a regular Tuesday. I woke up and had my coffee while I ate cereal & drank my coffee. It was clear blue skies with a hint of 72 degree weather. There was a chance of rain but luckily it didn’t rain. I slowly walked up stairs to where Scarlett was sleeping (I gave her my bed while I took the couch while she is visiting). My hand was on the doorknob and I was opening the door.

Rewind to 3 years ago

I was just ending one of the worst relationships of my life. It  was so unevenly yoked, things were rough and we argued. That was the last relationship I ever had until now. I told myself then that I wouldn’t be in another relationship for a while. One morning in prayer, I told the Lord that I wanted him to direct my path to the ONE that he created for me. The ONE that he meant for me. The woman that is perfect for me to be with. I was a single man until last summer.

During WPPI 2009 I was invited to a private party hosted by Scarlett Lillian. She doesn’t remember meeting me but I remember meeting her. LOL.

Scarlett & I started talking by email. These emails became so long that we got tired of typing responses so we moved to video chatting. A couple of weeks after that we wanted to talk all the time so we started to text throughout the entire day. We never got tired of each other. Scarlett mentioned to me that she had an engagement session in San Diego in the fall so we planned to hangout for a couple of days. Those couple of days turned into over an entire week because I kept convincing her to change her flights on southwest day after day. I didn’t want her to leave!!! Things were just getting started.

Our relationship has been long distance and I was a little worried when we first began but through the power of the holy spirit, skype and our busy travels from coast 2 coast, we have made it work really nicely. Other than one time, we have pretty much been with each other almost every 2 weeks!!

As we started to travel more to see each other, I started to realize these feelings that I haven’t ever felt. We kept Jesus as #1 in our love, our values are the same, we live the same faith, our passion and life goals are very similar and okay… we are both photographers too. One evening when we were together in Jacksonville we started looking at rings and it just felt… right. It wasn’t awkward talking about engagements or proposals, it felt really nice and comfortable when we chatted about those things.

Fast forward back to Tuesday morning

I turned the doorknob open.. ran into the room and I screamed “GOOOOD MORNING!!!!!!”. Scarlett jumped and said “ughhhh whatttt….?” I looked her straight in the face and told her that today would be an amazing day. We then laid next to each other talking about random things and then she asked me “what should I wear today? I responded by telling her to dress up really nicely.

Now back up a few days… when I got the ring, yes she was there with me because I wanted to make sure it was the exact one she wanted. I am kinda bad at keeping secrets and I did certain things on Tuesday morning that related to rings such as humming “put a ring on it  by Beyonce” around the house and I would look at her finger and point out that it was empty. It got a good laugh… totally worth it!

On Saturday,  I told Scarlett that we would be going to the flower fields early next week. That same day I called up my good friend & awesome photographer Gavin Wade. I lined up he and his amazing wife to shoot the entire event. Our plan was flower fields at sunset. Later that day, Scarlett brought up something about the flower fields… darn!! I knew that she knew that I would propose to her that week IN the flower fields.

A few hours before we left, I emailed Gavin & Erin telling them to switch the location to Moonlight Beach in Encinitas, CA. They drove down from OC to set up their shooting locations before we arrived.

At 5pm Tuesday, Scarlett & I got in the car and headed north. I had the ring in the nice box in my right jacket pocket. I forcefully had my arm covering the pocket so that she couldn’t see that the ring was on me. She kept trying to hold my hand and I resisted which made her feel weird.

Scarlett turned to look at me and she said, “Um… this isn’t the flower fields”.

“Uhmm. I know that.”

“Are we making a pit stop”

“Well, we aren’t going to the flower fields…”

We get out of the car and walk down to the sand. It was kind of hard to walk on thick sand in my converse and he cowgirl boots but we managed.

As we’re walking down the beach I tried to peek around looking to spot Gavin & Erin. I found a spot that was directly between both of them which was on a tiny cliff above the sand.

We sit down and we just looked out to the ocean for a few minutes.

The beach has been such a special place in our relationship. I never was going to take her to the flower fields. It was a coverup the entire time. The beach was where we first worshipped together, shared times of quiet time & prayer and have walked a lot with our feet in the cool water.

I put my left hand into my pocket and grabbed some paper that I had printed some of our most memorable emails onto and I read them all aloud to her.

After that, I felt the spirit telling me to pray and so I did. We prayed for our relationship, thanking the spirit for always being with us and for Jesus doing so much good in our lives.

I reached my right hand into my pocket and I whispered to Scarlett saying, “Um, I have something to ask you…”

Okay… from the perspective of the guy, I was sweating bullets. I felt like time had stopped and everything in the world didn’t matter more than this moment between us

I pulled the ring out, got down to one knee

Okay….. here it comes!!!! Sweating bullets….

As I opened the ring box I asked her, “Miss Scarlett Lillian Williams… will you spend forever with me?”

She yelled “AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!”

She yelled “YES!!”

YES!!! SHE SAID YES!!!!!

I responded with “Really, you will?”

In excitement I jumped up and still had the ring in my hand. She told me to get back down on one knee and slide the ring on her finger.  WHOOPS!

She jumped up onto me and I asked her the “Guess What?” question which is a game we have…

“Guess what?”

“What?”

“We’re ENGAGED!!!!”

She screamed sooo loud!

I turned to my left and pointed out where Gavin & Erin were hiding and we all hugged each other in excitement.

We probably laughed and kept smiling at each other for like 30 minutes! We then took a stroll down the beach as Gavin & Erin took some pictures of us…

Wow… It was really fun writing that all out because that entire moment flew by so quickly and I’m SO glad we have good images of that entire afternoon because I totally felt like I was in the twilight zone and I don’t remember everything that happened. I guess I remember the moments before & after but not in between but it’s all starting to come back to me.

THANK YOU to everyone who has texted, emailed, facebooked, twittered us during this exciting time… God has truly blessed me with the most amazing woman that I could ever want. If you wait on the Lord and go by his timing, he will bless you with such incredible things that you couldn’t ever imagine. We appreciate your kindness, support & love during this time. Thank You for reading the story of one of the most amazing moments of our lives.

We don’t have a date picked out yet… We are really just enjoying this amazing moment in our lives and we’re relying on the Lord to tell us what to do next.

Here are some of our favorite pictures from the day that Gavin & Erin Wade photographed during the special moment

“Guess what?”… “What?” … “WE’RE ENGAGED!!!” … “AHHHHH!!!!”

How cool that someone that previously written in the wall “I <3 U”!!!?

This one is by far one of my favorite images…. It’s currently my desktop background!

It’s the second week in my latest weekly program, “Ask away Wednesday”. I am taking questions from photographers through my facebook business page (I don’t like the word “fan page”)  and I am now answering them on here, every wednesday!! Last week’s question was about giving images to clients. Click here to read it.

This week I am answering the second question which comes from Deb! I think her question is really great!

The first time I second shot with another photographer was right after I attended my first PUG meeting in San Diego. I express the value of community all the time and for a good reason. PUGs, SMUGs, PhotogShootouts, national community conferences such as PartnerCon, WPPI, Imaging USA & all the other events. These groups will surround you with compassion and support from Day 1 as a photographer to throughout your career!

The qualities that I look for in a second shooter or assistant are the exact same ones that my mentors have looked for in their assistants. These are the qualities that I felt needed to be represented when I was looking for more work. I know that these qualities may not be perfect & they may not be the same as what another photographer would say. These are the qualities that I put out into my local community and they are what worked for me.

Be Persistent

Be involved with your local community groups. If there is a guest speaker, ask questions. Be the one taking notes. Let people know that you are there and you’re proud of your camera! Introduce yourself to a lot of other photographers and collect their cards and send them a Thank You email for taking the time to chat with you. When one of those photographers writes you back, ask them to lunch. The very first Photographer I took to lunch was my good friend Jeff Youngren. I didn’t end up shooting with Jeff BUT he did give me a few phone numbers of photographers who would need the help.

Passion

Show them your passion. Get your friends & family together  each week and take pictures of them. Practice your craft & master your camera. The next step with this is you should be posting these images to facebook after each shoot. Show the photographers you want to work with that you really want to shoot. Personally, I only take an assistant or 2nd shooter with me who I know is posting work weekly. I want to know that they understand their camera well and they want to book more jobs.

“I’ll 3rd shoot & carry bags for you”

What I experienced with becoming a second shooter was carrying bags & 3rd shooting. If you are persistent & show passion to the photographers that you want to work with that you are willing to do whatever it takes then tell that you are. But only if you really are ready to. I carried the bags of a few different photographers for a while before I was invited to bring my camera along. Once I got to know a few photographers around San Diego. I would tell them every time that I saw them, “I want to work. Plain & Simple”. Let me tell you that some photographers bags aren’t small. They do have 50 pound bags with one shoulder strap. Some photographers are willing to allow you to tag along and basically watch everything from the sidelines and get them anything that they would need during the day. Playing these roles will work out in the end for you, if you stick to it.

Ask Questions

The end goal for any assistants/2nd shooters that they ask questions and they they want to learn everything. I love answering their questions and giving them answers that will end up helping them 10x more in the end.

Don’t put that camera down

Don’t assume that the lead shooter nailed the shot. We all get blurry images & shots we don’t like from time to time. Keep your eyes on the lead shooter as your main priority. Your second set of eyes should stay looking around for PJ moments. The awesome thing about second shooting is that your not the lead! The benefit of this is that you can shoot editorial style/Photojournalistic images that will fill out the album really nice. When the lead shooters camera is down, your camera MUST be up shooting. Even if there isn’t a moment to capture when their camera is down make sure your ready for anything to happen at a moments notice. You need to be on your toes looking for stuff to grab that the lead shooter cant.

Focus

During one of my 2nd shooting adventures with a well known wedding photographer, he told me on the drive home that he could tell my focus was in the game instead of not being there at all. He mentioned that I wasn’t texting during the day, chewing gum, talking to bridesmaids, etc. Keep your focus on at all times. You can even pretend that your the lead shooter just so that your focus never wears down. Do what the lead shooter says and always pay attention, they have you to rely on and you need to also rely on them! The lead shooter will usually be too busy to tell you what to shoot so just shoot as you would if you were the lead. Oh yeah… don’t stand in the backgrounds of the leads shots!

Hope this all helps you Deb!! I can’t wait to hear about your adventures as a second shooter!!

During WPPI a few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of hosting a shooting workshop on the Las Vegas strip. There was 22 amazing photographers who joined me during an engagement session style shoot. It was really fun seeing the photographers making new friendships and growing more into their own shooting styles!! After the shooting workshop, the photographers had one main mission this past week… to get as many votes as possible through their social media networks.

It has been 1 week since the contest opened and the contest is now over. It was so exciting to watch the polls from behind the scenes and see how creative the photographers could get to attract votes for their images!

SHOWIT was the main sponsor for the shooting workshop and the photographer with the most votes was presented with a 2 year pro account!

Without any hesitation, here are the winning images!!

1st Place

Tim King

www.timkingphoto.com

2nd Place

Bunn Salarazon

www.bsalarzon.com

Bunn was presented with a 1 year Lite Membership from one of my big supporters, Pictage

3rd Place

Katrina Wheeler

www.katrinawheeler.com

Katrina was presented with a 1-on-1 skype consultation with me to discuss her workflow & marketing

Congratulations to all the winners! It was an amazing workshop and all the photographers did an amazing job! I can’t wait to do it all again next year!!

Change is awesome. Change is good. Change can be fun but it can also be scary?

I’ve wanted a custom blog design over the past few months because I guess I sort of outgrew my old design. I started to notice that a lot of people are using template blog designs and I kept contemplating what I would do for the next design of my own blog. When I think of blogs, I don’t think of really awesome designs but instead, what is inside of that blog? Is it rich content that tells stories with a unique layout or just an empty screen with a really cool design that everyone else has?

Which will you choose?

So as this idea was running through my head of what I will do from here with my blog… It was actually in conversation at WPPI with a web programmer + photographer by the name of Nick Haskins of Spilled Milk Designs. Nick is an awesome photographer who is also super smart with web design and using SHOWIT to its full potential. Nick has been working on a secret project that is now available for YOU!

Lets face it, as photographers we can look at a handful of blogs and so many of them will have these template style. The goal we should always have is to stand out & be different. What Nick has created is a special new wordpress theme called “Amelia” that integrates showit into a blog!!!!! I use showit for my website and with how easy it already is to create a website, you can now create a blog that is completely custom with how YOU want it to be. Now your blog can be totally different than everyone else’s. The template for the header is completely custom and super simple to use. It can integrate any design, videos, galleries into the header… the possibilities are now endless.

Parts of this new blog that Spilled Milk Designs helped me design look very similar to the old blog. The newer parts of this blog is the header and how the comments now work within the blog. It’s super cool and totally ME!

I need to thank Nick Haskins & his amazing team at Spilled Milk Designs for creating such an awesome product. I also want to thank SHOWIT for building such amazing software that can now work with incredible projects like this one!

For more information on how YOU can create a custom showit blog with Amelia, Click Here

If you end up purchasing Amelia, use the coupon code: sknuth to save 20% off the regular price!

Two years ago, I attended David Jay‘s “Free to Succeed” workshop in San Diego. I’ve told the story before of how I ended sitting next to Sara France and ended up working for her. I have never shared how sitting next to Sara was a guy with one name.

[b]ecker

That night I had a quick conversation with [b] about how important a blog is to a business and why I should start a facebook account, etc. Near the end of our conversation he mentioned that I should join his new network for Photographers called “The [b] School“. Since that night, the b school has turned into the #1 online network for photographers and it offers huge opportunities for those who are involved in the group. It’s been really cool watching the network grow so quickly!

In the past year, a new addition to The [b] School has been their new weekly live show “Study Hall”. Becker invites a guest or two into his studio for a little Q&A and interaction with the viewers and they answer the felt need questions of those who are looking to grow in their business.

Last week I got an email from [b]ecker asking my amazing girlfriend Scarlett Lillian & I to be his guests on this weeks show! We were both SO honored because we have actually been following the show for the past few months and I’ve even learned some great stuff from it!!

Yesterday we drove up to Orange County to meet for lunch with Becker & Jessica Claire at a great restaurant to chat a little about WPPI, Photography, life and plans for the future. After our lunch we headed over to the studio for the live program of Study Hall! It was such a fun experience that I will remember forever. Becker was such a kind host throughout the entire day and he led a phenomenal chat with us about Blogging & Social Media, Pictage, Showit & other small tidbits.

If you were a viewer of the show I want to thank you for tuning in and hopefully you learned a few things during our program!!

If you missed the live broadcast, it will be available for On-Demand viewing inside of The [b] School “classroom” for B school members only. If your NOT currently a member of The [b] School, I encourage you to join. It’s only $10/month and that small investment that costs less than a week of starbucks lattes will go further for you in your business than the yummy-ness of the lattes would. (I’m a coffee drinker so thats why I say that!)

Special Thanks to Jessica Claire for snapping a few “behind the scenes” photos during our time on study hall!

Jessica’s husband Jeff Norwood even jumped in for a cameo! (Becker looks really excited about that! lol)