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.

Last weekend, we had an beyond amazing experience capturing Veronica & Bryan’s Wedding. They have been two of my best friends for the past few years and I can’t wait to share more from their exceptional wedding! Here is just a teaser for now!

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.

One thing I love about Taylor & Scott is their lovin’ life attitude. They laugh at everything and their is never a dull moment in their lives. Because of who they are at heart, I love being around these two. I remember when we shot their engagement session and captured the stunning image of them standing up in the Crystal Beach Pier, right above where the waves were crashing. That was one of my favorite engagement sessions ever. Since then, time has flown by and it is time for their wedding at the famous Hotel Del Coronado! Taylor & Scott’s wedding was a dream beach wedding. For their ceremony they were surrounded by their closest family & friends with the Pacific Ocean and Hotel Del Coronado as their backdrop. Right before the ceremony we had an hour of time to take full advantage of the landscapes in Coroando for some amazing portraits right after their first meet in the Hotel Del courtyard. It was an unforgettable time capturing the love between Taylor & Scott and we couldn’t be more excited for them!

The Vendors

Venue: Hotel Del Coronado

Coordinator: Creative Affairs by Amanda

Cinematographers: Weddings by FortyOneTwenty

Make Up Artist: Make up by Hawiza

Hair: Gorgeous Wedding Hair

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!!

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.

Last weekend, I had a great time shooting Taylor & Scott‘s wedding at the Hotel Del Coronado! Here is just a teaser from their amazing wedding!