I write a lot about photography marketing, ansd there is no better form of marketing than organic search engine results. You have a main phrase that you’re trying to rank for, the single most important one. I call that a whale phrase. It’s a top tier search phrase in your niche that has huge search volume and can drive considerable traffic to your site. Something like Anytown Wedding Photographer. The Google keyword tool in coordination with Majestic’s backlink checker is a great way to figure out your main phrase. Use the keyword tool to find phrase ideas by order of search popularity. Find out if you should optimize for city A, product B, or just to generate new ideas.

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I’m not a big user of Photoshop Actions or Lightroom Presets but every once in a while I get a wild hair and like to tone an image for creative effect in Lightroom.

Typically split toning is performed on Black and White images with the end result to give a slight color tint to the shadows and highlights. I often use this technique to warm up a black and white images with a slight coffee tone, however the same technique can be used with color images to create a special effect much like cross processing with film or using a gel on your lighting. This is what I’m going to perform after the jump.

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Let’s rewind to a little over a year ago. I had just purchased the follow up effort to the Olympus EP1, the EP2. I immediately fell in love with the small format, high quality images that this new breed of Micro 4/3rds camera were capable of producing. Personal interactions with Olympus through their social media outlets and a few pleasant support calls left me feeling like this was a company who really understood the future of photography, so much so I actually wrote a post here on PhotographersHandbook.com about how impressed I was with Olympus as a company.

Oh what a difference a year makes!

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As I promised last month in my article on ProPhotoResource.com I would share behind the scenes of our Maritime Fashion shoot. Well, here at long last is the link to the full ebook–free of charge! This was an exciting project and a lot of fun.

Free eBook and Videos after the Jump

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Quality of light issues are among the topics that we discuss in my Fashion Lighting Workshop. We are usually talking about the relative harshness or softness of the main light when discussing quality of light. A larger light source will yield a softer quality of light with a smoother transition from highlight to shadow. The distance from your light source also plays a factor in this equation: lights that are farther away create a harsher quality of light. It is critical to remember that these same laws pertain to ALL of the lights on your set and changing the quality of your accent lights can have a profound impact on your image.

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If you are among the new breed of iPad toting photographers these days, you’ve probably quickly realized that yes while you can add photos on your iPad, the standard Gallery software that comes pre-installed leaves little to be desired.

This is where Media Pad Pro by MediMobile comes to the rescue http://www.medlmobile.com/index.php?page=viewapp&appId=68

Media Pad Pro is a complete solution for creative types to organize and display galleries of Images, Videos, Music and Graphics, it’s the new world equivalent of carrying around one of those old giant portfolios.

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As a photographer and marketing coach for creative service professionals I’m always looking for new tools and strategies that can be used to help get the word out about their businesses.

In the age of Internet marketing and social media networking it’s critically important now more than ever for creative service professional to take advantage of every opportunity to get your work in front of and connect with our target audience.

With websites, blogs and social media tools like Facebook and Twitter just to name a few, they are more avenues than ever for pro- photographers to reach potential prospects. So the question becomes “if it’s easier to connect with our prospects online – how do I capture the leads I receive on my blog -or- website?”

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It’s inevitable, eventually there will come a day when you want to sell your beloved digital companion and the potential buyer is going to ask you something like, “What is the Actuation on Your Camera?” After some head scratching and Google searching you’ll finally decipher what they are really asking you is how many shutter clicks or pictures has your camera taken. Some camera’s make the process of finding this data easy, however most don’t. After the jump I’ll share a great little FREE software program to help you determine your camera’s actuation, shutter count or images taken… whatever you want to call it.

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Most of you who have followed the PhotographersHandbook in the past or have heard me speak online or elsewhere are painfully aware of my stance on All FLASH websites and since it’s been a while since I’ve gone on a tirade about the subject or even posted on the PhotographersHandbook.com for that matter, I felt like this was a good opportunity to do so.

Maybe, just maybe I can keep one photographer from making the dreaded mistake of developing an ALL FLASH website or change your thinking in regards to All Flash websites than I can sleep a little better tonight. Insert dramatic music here.

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