Did you start out shooting film or are you a digital kid? It was a different game back in the film days. Cameras went ‘clunk’ and you didn’t know what you had until the prints (or negs) had been developed.

I still shoot film on occasion for personal work but it’s all digital in the studio now. We were cleaning out some cabinets just the other day and reminiscing about the old equipment we found. It reminded me of some favorite things about shooting film…
1. Manual film advance - We have …

This is a guest post by Lee Torrens, author of Microstock Diaries and ProPhotoLife subscriber!
ProPhotoLife creator Jim Talkington has given me the opportunity to introduce you to microstock and highlight the opportunity it represents for pro and aspiring professional photographers.
First, I want to quickly tell you where microstock fits in the photography industry. You likely already know about ’stock photos’ - photos created and put into a database to be sold in the future. Most non-stock professional photographers do it the other way around and sell the photos first, …

In a portrait studio promotion, part 1, we learned how Daylight Photo Seniors, the senior portrait division of our commercial photo studio, came to be.
Having decided to jump into the senior photo business late in the season (in May 2007), we were already past the peak for bookings. We had to put the marketing machine into overdrive: test shoots with willing students, direct mail, positive word of mouth and viral videos on YouTube were created for linking from students’ social networking pages. The very best p.r. for the new portrait …

As a buffer against slow business periods our commercial photo studio has explored adding additional services over the last year. Taking a cue from new forms of media, we added basic video production in late 2006 (samples here). It’s worked out well and the service continues to grow as clients find interest in combining both stills and video for their campaigns. More on the addition of video services in future posts.
Shortly after that we began a consumer portrait division to further diversify our offerings. The idea was to try and …

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Our studio cabinet is stocked with mostly all Canon lenses…and one Tamron lens. Generally speaking, we usually opt for the manufacturer’s own lens. By sticking with Canon L lenses we find consistent color balance, sharpness and vignetting characteristics. But when it was time to buy a midrange zoom a few years ago there were a lot of positive comments about the Tamron 28-75 f2.8 (lens specs) floating around the internet. Get a really good sample, so the story went, and you would see amazing sharpness. Get a bad sample, though, …

To all the professional photographers too busy to shoot personal work, I hope you can find time in 2008. While there are sometimes hot and cold periods, I’m always shooting something.
I’ve found it important to surround myself with other creative people in order to make this happen. Every morning my business partner and I come into our studio with new ideas about improving our personal photography or our photo business. We continually create new challenges and try to grow as photographers and individuals, reminding each other that we truly love …

In part one of this series we talked about working quickly, in part two we looked at photographing desserts. In this final installment I’d like to show you the kit items we have on hand for food photography. This is what we keep in the studio or take with us on an editorial shoot. If a professional food stylist is involved they will bring their own, far more complete kit.
Many of these items are inexpensive ‘dollar store’ purchases. If we were shooting food every day we would invest in the …

A great way to start with food photography is by photographing desserts. They can be purchased fully prepared and hold up well on the set, unlike hot dishes that perish quickly. Obviously, ice cream is an exception to this rule.
Speaking of ice cream, people often ask about special food preparations made for photography. They are interested to find out that many of the delicious scoops of ice cream in photos are actually scoops of instant mashed potatoes dyed with food coloring. There are ‘truth in advertising’ laws, though, that regulate …